Welcome to Sojourn to the Past

Have you ever been involved in a conversation with a group – perhaps old friends, or maybe new colleagues or neighbors – and the talk turns to a familiar question: “Do you remember where you were when…?”  Sometimes it’s a recent pop-culture event: “Do you remember where you were when you found out Michael Jackson died?”  Sometimes it’s a life event that changes the country: “Do you remember where you were when the Twin Towers were hit, or when they crumbled to the streets of New York City?”  It may be a sporting event, great-grandfathers recall where they were when ‘The Babe’ called his shot; it might be political – women in their 60s right now vividly remember where they were when President JFK was shot and assassinated.  It’s a big question, with bigger answers, and the biggest implications.

Sadly, as generations age, there are always fewer and fewer people who can give first-hand accounts of these huge, and worldly events.  The final survivors of the Holocaust, people who were passengers who survived the sinking of the Titanic… are saying their last good-byes, and unless their stories are begged of, told, and documented, those memories can be lost forever.

For precisely this reason, a recent compilation by The New York Times, honoring heroes of the Civil Rights-era, holds within it more value than anyone can put a price on.  It’s a multi-media experience than students, hard-working family members, and retirees can enjoy together.  That close friends – perhaps with grandparents on opposite sides of the theoretical divide – can share, learn from, and allow to spark meaningful and teaching dialogue toward further understanding.

Within it are contemporary pictures of past milestones and famous and moving faces, historical photographs, interviews, audio clips, and more.

This Valentine’s Day and Presidents’ Day weekend, which always fall during Black History Month, take a moment to explore this moving collage of unforgettable moments in this essential era in American history – the Civil Rights era – when the convictions of many brave people manifested into a fight for equality for all.

The hard copy of The New Yorker periodical should be on newsstands today, Friday, February 12, 2010.

Tags: civil rights era, civil rights movement, sojourn, sojourn to the past, the new yorker

This entry was posted on Friday, February 12th, 2010 at 4:16 pm and is filed under Current Events, Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.