Spring Break
Taking time to remember what MLK Day is all about
Life's Tidbits
Larry Burge
Issue date: 1/18/08 Section: Opinion
Someone said the kids got out of their cars down by the Butler Creek bridge at the west end of Main Street, huddled around a leader, and were about to march up Main Street in Noel holding signs in protest of segregation, when the Noel marshal and his friends met them with unfriendly motives. I've often wondered since where those kids came from, and I like to think they were from the UA.
As was the custom in small towns in the South, the protesters met with anticipated resistance, but the town marshal and his men clutched guns in their hands when the two groups met. Rumor was the shell clips were full, with one shell shoved in the breach, loaded, in ready position for the men to pull the hammer back and to fire at will. To my knowledge, the marshal and his men acted on their own with little backing from the town's folks.
Around the dance floor that day, my school friends who said they witnessed the incident told the story about how the vigilante group of men escorted the protesters to their cars and used the business end of a gun to persuade the kids to get out of town fast and not to come back.
I also remember that the protesters talked back to the marshal and his men. They tried to educate the men, whose stern warning told much more about the men's prejudicial natures than the whole of the community's thoughts and beliefs. The protesters had simply tried to explain to the marshal that Missouri was part of America, and the U.S Constitution gave them the right to march in protest along any public street, including the one in Noel. That argument did not settle with the men at all.
When the protesters tried to exercise their rights and refused to leave, the men agreed that if they weren't out of town by the time the quickly setting sun went down behind the hill, their bodies might never be found. The kids left town because they knew the threats were real and likely to be carried out as the men's warning had implied.
I for one, am glad those men have passed away. And if they ever reincarnate, I wish them to return with a much-improved attitude about what it means to be a part of the human race. Whether we like it, scientists have proven that we all came from the same source, and our bodies were built with the same strands of DNA. That makes us all brothers and sisters, which I believe we surely are.
As was the custom in small towns in the South, the protesters met with anticipated resistance, but the town marshal and his men clutched guns in their hands when the two groups met. Rumor was the shell clips were full, with one shell shoved in the breach, loaded, in ready position for the men to pull the hammer back and to fire at will. To my knowledge, the marshal and his men acted on their own with little backing from the town's folks.
Around the dance floor that day, my school friends who said they witnessed the incident told the story about how the vigilante group of men escorted the protesters to their cars and used the business end of a gun to persuade the kids to get out of town fast and not to come back.
I also remember that the protesters talked back to the marshal and his men. They tried to educate the men, whose stern warning told much more about the men's prejudicial natures than the whole of the community's thoughts and beliefs. The protesters had simply tried to explain to the marshal that Missouri was part of America, and the U.S Constitution gave them the right to march in protest along any public street, including the one in Noel. That argument did not settle with the men at all.
When the protesters tried to exercise their rights and refused to leave, the men agreed that if they weren't out of town by the time the quickly setting sun went down behind the hill, their bodies might never be found. The kids left town because they knew the threats were real and likely to be carried out as the men's warning had implied.
I for one, am glad those men have passed away. And if they ever reincarnate, I wish them to return with a much-improved attitude about what it means to be a part of the human race. Whether we like it, scientists have proven that we all came from the same source, and our bodies were built with the same strands of DNA. That makes us all brothers and sisters, which I believe we surely are.
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