Welcome, I’m Mary Louisa Locke, the author of the USA Today best-selling Victorian San Francisco Mystery series and the Caelestis Science Fiction series. In this daily newsletter, I reflect on my life as an indie author trying to age gracefully, including my struggles to maintain a balanced life, what I listen to, read, and watch for entertainment, and occasional bits of information I’ve gleaned from doing the research for my novels.
Daily Diary, Day 1231:
After a quiet Sunday, today is already sunny, and I’ve already cleaned and walked. The streets were quiet because it is a national holiday, when we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, the great civil rights leader. My dearest wish is that this year this celebration will welcome in a new year of commitment to peace, kindness to all, and a greater willingness to put the needs of the many above the desires of the individual.
I wrote a post last year about my own experience with King (I got to hear him in person) and I have decided to simply repeat that post here in celebration of his life and ideals.
When I was in my teens in Pittsburgh PA, my church's minister was actively involved in the Civil Rights movement, marching in various demonstrations. He often preached on social justice issues, and involved our congregation in an exchange with inner-city Black churches. As a result, my family spent a year attending one of those churches. The family who attended our congregation in exchange, eventually, with the help of members of the congregation, moved to our suburb, starting the slow process of desegregation.
I later would chose to go to Oberlin College, the first college in the nation to open its doors to women and African-Americans. And in the summer of 1969 I took summer school classes at Howard University, one of the premier, historically Black colleges.
Later my choice to specialize in what was called "social history" as my major focus in my history doctorate, which included both the history of women, immigrants, and African-Americans in the United States, continued to demonstrate my interest in examining the history of nativism and racism in our country, particularly as it affected women.
In addition, those of you who have read either my Victorian San Francisco mystery series or my science fiction series, will know that I try whenever possible to weave into my stories the effects of prejudice against minorities as a theme. This has included looking at the discrimination against the Chinese and African-Americans living in San Francisco in the 19th century, as well as the treatment of the people called Ddaerans who were native to New Eden, the planet in the Andromeda Galaxy colonized by the people escaping from a dying Earth.
However, on this particular day, I like to remember that I once had the privilege to hear Dr. King speak in person. It was in November of 1966, my senior year, and he was speaking at the University of Pittsburgh. When my friends and I heard about this, we went to our high school principal and asked to be excused from classes for the day so we could attend. He said we couldn't. He also said that if we didn't come to school that day, it would go on our record and it could damage our chances at getting into college!!!
With the support of our parents, a couple of us did go, and while we were in an overflow room, we did get to hear and see Dr. King. Needless to say the principal didn't carry out his threat, but thinking back it continues to remind me of how much has changed...and sadly how much hasn't.
Anyway, a good day to remember the courage of those who came before.
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I'm so impressed that you saw Dr Martin Luther King Jr. I have one of the great man's quotes pinned to my X account (formerly known as Twitter), where politics is discussed: "The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bend towards justice."
I was in elementary school during the Civil rights movement. We weren't very diverse, but we did have several black families in town of various economic levels. I never thought of them as being different. It wasn't until we started talking about civil rights in class that race became an issue. All of a sudden, some of the black kids I'd grown up with didn't want to play anymore. They developed an edge and became hypersensitive to any perceived wrong. I didn't understand it at the time and it made me very sad. At the same time, the Black Panthers were becoming active in Oakland near where my aunt lived and all I heard were stories of fear of what they would do. Because I grew up in a small town on the west coast where I did not know prejudice until it was aimed at me, I have a very odd perspective of the civil rights movement. It was absolutely necessary and still is, but for a long time it was confusing. Especially since my mom was a supporter of Cesar Chavez. I grew up believing in equality and justice and couldn't fathom a world with separate drinking fountains.