A TRIP DOWN MEMORY LANE



Today at work I was inundated by fliers posted outside of elevators announcing an anti klan rally to coincide with our visit from the hooded ones this Saturday. There were vehicles driving around campus with people calling out through megaphones to join together in solidarity against hate and meet the klan at city hall and let them know they aren't welcome here. Yesterday, on the west mall, a group of Indian students were putting on a demonstration celebrating the culture of India and diversity. Today a group of Mexican-american students were doing the same in the same spot...on the day of the dead, which was an added bonus for us, since we both like the props of the day of the dead...decorative skulls in particular. But it was the clothing and the food and the music that filled the west mall with the essence of these cultures that struck me.
I wasn't too keen on the Indian hip hop, but that's a taste thing.
These young people were recognizing and celebrating their diversity, and sharing it with the droves of all manner of color, creed and station that happened by. It was a cool thing to watch and, peripherally, be a part of.
Seeing all of this reminded me of when I was a young person, full of life and full of myself, and my friends and I were active in political causes. Dedicated enough to spend a week enlarging the above image plus another one that I coudn't find on google to 18x36 signs to carry in this one particular march that was sponsered by the John Brown Anti klan commitee...John Brown was a white man who was executed in 1850 for supporting an end to slavery, but it grew into a multi group extravaganza...the bread not bombs people were there...the no nukes people were there, bikes not bombs, a smattering of all groups supporting peace and tolerance. From the rally point at the gazebo on auditorium shores it was diverse people as far as the eye could see down the hike and bike trail joined together to tell the klan to give it up already and to get the fuck out of our town. And they did. Out numbered and overwhelmed, they jumped onto their buses and hightailed it out of Austin. It was a great victory, and beyond the pelting of the buses with hiking trail gravel, there was no violence, nobody got hurt, and as far as I know, there were no arrests, the police behaved themselves. It was all good.
And,as far as I know, they haven't reprised that visit in any meaningful way, until now.
I busted out the shirt I bought at that march...blue, with a death head shroud pulling his hood back to display the nuke symbol with boney fingers, proclaiming "No Nukes"...it was paper thin...you could see through it. And beyond my surprise that it still fit me, what struck me most was how transparent it was. Like it was diluted with time.
And then I remembered the students I've seen over the last few days, and it's colors were vibrant again.
And suddenly I have that giddy feeling I had back then, and the chance to be a part of something so long in the making, again.