Voices

I remember rushing home on Friday nights to see “The Brady Bunch” and “The Partridge Family” on ABC TV, followed by The Odd Couple and “Love American Style”. This is the Black experience in America.

I remember having two portraits on the walls in my childhood home, one of Martin Luther King, Jr. and the other of JFK. This is the Black experience in America. MORE »

The beginnings of the Mother’s Day holiday are a matter of controversy. Was Mother’s Day originally an anti-war holiday founded by Julia Ward Howe? Was it founded by Anna Jarvis to commemorate the death of her mother, or did Hallmark dream it up in an attempt to get Americans to part with their money? MORE »

In early 1959, an active-duty African American U.S. Navy Commander, James Tillman, arrived in the Twin Cities for a one-year appointment to head up the new Interfaith Housing effort. According to articles then in the Minneapolis Tribune, the Minneapolis Journal, and the St. Paul Dispatch, Mr. Tillman was to create an operational structure for the Human Rights Department in St. Paul and its commission, and for the Civil Rights Department in Minneapolis and its commission. MORE »

When I was almost 15, in 1961, I took a 50 mile hike for JFK’s fitness promotion. It wasn’t the plan, but I ended up walking by myself. All my friends, who were also going to go “for the President, and for our country”, found some good reason at the last minute to drop out. I was a good athlete, and this was a challenge, so I went anyway. My dad helped plan the route for us, and I think I didn’t even tell my parents when I learned no one else was going. They might have tried to stop me. MORE »