And when my mom was born ...

1919

My mom, whose 98th birthday was last month, was born in 1919. And I've been thinking the past few days about all the social progress that has occurred since then--and what the cost has been to those who worked to achieve it.

Just think ... when my mom was born ...

• Women could not vote--not until 1920.
• Schools throughout the South were legally segregated by race (among them--the schools she attended in Virginia and Oklahoma; they were still segregated in Enid, Okla., when I was in elementary school).
• African Americans found it horribly difficult to vote in the South--poll taxes, harassment, etc.
• Throughout the South communities were segregated by race. (In Enid, those egregious signs of segregation--separate water fountains, ride-in-the-back-of-the-bus rules, separation in movie theaters and other public spaces and on and on and on--were still prominent throughout my boyhood, still enforced. In Enid, black citizens could not use the public library; instead, the library took books to a site in the black neighborhood. Black women in Enid gave birth in the basement of St. Mary's Hospital, where I was born upstairs in a room in 1944.)
• Women's salaries were horrendous--nowhere near those of men who were doing the same/comparable jobs.
• It was extraordinarily rare to see women in "men's jobs"--physicians, lawyers, architects, business executives, etc.
• Gay men and women (and people with other unconventional sexual identities) had to be in deep hiding--or risk great danger to themselves and their loved ones.
• There was no Social Security.
• There was no Medicare.
• There was no Medicaid.
• Many (most?) jobs offered no benefits--retirement, medical, etc. When I started teaching in the fall of 1966, our school system did not offer teachers medical insurance.

We could go on and on, couldn't we?

But I will add that none of these situations changed because Those in Power thought it would be a good idea to do so. People struggled for them; sacrificed their jobs, their bodies--their lives. Women who wanted to vote were beaten. Blacks who wanted equal rights were beaten, bloodied, murdered. Workers who wanted higher pay and benefits organized labor unions and suffered for the rest of us.

We could go on and on, couldn't we?

Yes, we've made progress since my mother was born in 1919. No, it has not been easy. Or bloodless. Or popular. (Protesters are always portrayed as lawless--and worse.)

And always, always, always, Those in Power have said to those working for change, "Be patient. Give it time. Perhaps now isn't the best time, you know?"

Yeah, I know. I recognize insincere, inauthentic temporizing when I hear it.