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FERN MCBRIDE (NYC)'s avatar

'And I thought to myself that maybe things weren’t as bad as I thought they were. Maybe there was hope. “Down there on the good Earth.”, (TC)

Thank you for sharing your openness to discovery and sense of union, TC, in 1968.

With appreciation and admiration for you and Jurate.

Fern

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Dean Robertson's avatar

Grand story, TC. And by virtue of the time and the tone that you capture, it slides right into the great tradition of American storytelling. And an irresistible opening into "Where were you in 1968" Well, in 1968 I was 22 years old and headed into some rocky years. At 17, at the end of my freshman year, my mother pulled me out of college because I had gotten involved in the Civil Rights Movement--Atlanta 1963-64. My solution to having to go home was to get married, bad mistake, nearly fatal, so I picked up a handsome Irishman in a bar. It was 1972 or '3. He needed a green card; fresh from a nervous breakdown, I just needed to get out of Dodge. I was an adult, not necessarily conscious, for all the events you mention. It was a time, the whole decade a Happening, and for so many of us it was life-changing. The taste of the Movement in Atlanta turned me around, and the day I walked into Berkeley sealed the deal. There was violence, there was fear and doubt, and there was, in the words of John Lewis, the heady experience of making good trouble. I think we made a difference. There was hope. Thank you for your story.

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