The Last Full Measure ..

Lincoln spoke in the Autumn of 1863 in Gettysburg these epic words:

 

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.  Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.  But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln
November 19, 1863

 

That great speech returned to my brain this morning and I have read it slowly and deeply three times to feel the essence of his words against the context of his time after that great, defining battle fought just four months earlier.   Yesterday, thus why this has come to me so strongly, was a day where not until about 5 pm did the TV give me any news of the day and the world for I was part of my grand daughter's world of Disney and Hub.  Yes, those are channels she, at four years old, love so Poppy and Grammy get to watch it with her. 

 

As this black African child flitted around our home in comfort, love, warmth and being the queen of the roost as she so richly deserves, I was taken and shaken back to the MLK television day that was jammed with speeches, movies, memorials, etc, etc.  One of the documentaries I watched and pierced my  heart was of black soldiers returning from WWII but not yet discharged. They were on a long train ride moving to the West Coast which required overnight.  The train had to stop for some mechanical reason in a small place in a Southern state, do not recall which one and it matters not to my point.  On that same train were German Prisoners of War.  The white soldiers and the Germans were granted food and housing for the overnight stay but not the blacks.  The blacks witnessed walking into a large room white soldiers that the blacks had fought next to in Europe, lounging around playing cards and drinking beer with the German POWs but they, the blacks, were not allowed in the building where this was taking place nor were they allowed to sleep on the premises nor to be fed. In a flash the poison of racial reality hit me like a brick all over again. 

 

Given that last paragraph as context, I come back to my Ethiopian grand daughter bestowing joy via her energy and cuddling to her Poppy yesterday as carefree and loved as could be; a blessing. Then out of the blue the Gettysburg Address  came to my mind this morning and our nation today verse the war footing and division of the Civil War. All those points on the compass pointed me to this writ.

 

If you really read what Lincoln said in the framework of what he wrote and said then, how different is our nation today, really?  From my porch view in NE Ohio of our nation, the divisions and divisiveness of racism is not too far from what I could imagine it was in the slavery South. "Racism" has become a mantra and a sword point thrown at anyone that dares to question a black leader such as POTUS but at any level of government as well.  I did not vote for Obama nor would I again but not because of his skin color or ethnicity but because I did not trust him in the Senate and I have seen nothing to build that bridge of trust with me since the occupation of the White House. Personally, I believe our nation has taken a giant leap backward under his leadership but this blog is not designed to be negative about my POTUS meaning ours. I still pray for him and his leadership as I am commanded to do by Scripture though I do not agree with his agenda, his tactics nor his questionable strategies.

 

My greater concern with this, our nation, at the strata of racial equality for which the Civil War was ultimately fought, voting rights became the challenge of the mid 1900s during the terrible decade of the 60s with killings, lynchings, marches, seen almost as frequently as body counts from Vietnam on the evening news.  As strange as it may seem having grown up in Alabama, not until the last year or so did I come to realize the core issue in play in the 1960s was about blacks not being able to vote.  I marvel, still, in working in jails and prisons for now over a decade in seeing week after week the population of inmates be it male or female, overwhelmingly African American. Whereas in that same decade of teaching at the university level on nine campuses and teaching a total of roughly 7,000 college students, had far less that a 100 in total African American students. Do you see the correlation of concern the numbers portray?

 

I, like many Americans, ask publicly or privately on the matter of racism, when will this stop, what will it take, where does it end, and the questions continue to go unanswered. I watch the cable experts (sarcasm intended) ignite and energize the divide night after night. I watch and listen to people so politically devoted to the POTUS and the Party that they can do nothing wrong and anything the others do is wrong and racist ... how assinine! 

 

We are a nation, in my opinion, as divided in 2014 at some points of the spectrum than the one Lincoln addressed a century and a half ago and I believe worsening instead of improving.  While I did not nor do I personally care for Obama, I did have hope that his ascendancy to the White House would bring a leveling of this matter of divisive racism. Six years later I cannot escape that crawling feeling that it has worsened and become more divisive.  There are certain folks now on TV I simply cannot watch with Charles Blow, a black writer for the NYT for the racist bombs he throws around on talk shows simply baffles and angers me for with each bomb, the division widens. He is but one with Roland Martin another and not to mention Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton all of whom I believe have hurt the achievement of racial equality.  And there are still others!

 

We should not be a nation of Party but a nation, as Lincoln postulated, not divided after so much blood and treasure and national esteem desecrated. But here we are 150 years later and I question if, in fact, progress is being actually made.  I realize as well that racism has always been in any and all cultures but one would think and hope in our era of wireless technology, we could actually find a way to scale that awful wall but I do not see it and I am looking.  My African grand daughter has shown me so much about me; a Southern man that remembers well the hell of the sixties and the burned crosses, the KKK, the colored and white everything, the Freedom Riders, Selma, Birmingham, Montgomery, Mississippi. I am embarrassed now each time Alabama or Mississippi is spoken of about the past for we are better than this I believe.  But I also realize that division creates cash flows to the coffers of those that gain from maintaining the divide. I find that abominable but I believe it true.

 

I will close by believing Mr. Lincoln would be quite disappointed in his America today that so much was invested to change and prevent. It just baffles me!