Today, many of us will greet one another with "Happy Memorial Day!"
But I don't use such salutations on this day, because like most veterans, I know the reason for this holiday; it was never meant to be a celebration of summer's arrival or an excuse to travel for pleasure. Memorial Day is instead a time to remember and honor our service members who made the ultimate sacrifice.
On Memorial Day, it's important to remember we are honoring our fallen. For many, this day is not a happy occasion but a solemn one.
What can I say instead of “Happy Memorial Day?"
Rather than “Happy Memorial Day,” say something like “Have a meaningful Memorial Day.” It’s also not appropriate to thank a service member or veteran for their service on this day, as it is a day for remembering and honoring their fallen brothers and sisters; those who made the ultimate sacrifice. Instead, take a moment to recognize and remember. You can even say, “Today and always, I’m remembering those owed a debt we can never repay.”
For many of us from veteran families, this day is also a time to honor all of our loved ones no longer with us. This is a long tradition in our family, I'll be visiting the cemetery today to clean and maintain my parent's graves and headstones and for the first time, my brother's who passed away last year.
Yes, later this evening when husband and I return from the cemetery, we'll have a barbeque and I'll enjoy the rest of this day away from work while remembering the sacrifices of those who have made our lives possible; the fathers like mine who marched off to war and the mothers like mine who kept the home fires burning in their absence, and the gay men and women like me who also felt the call to duty and served in silence while never able to love openly.
When I saw this image it immediately reminded me of the hauntingly beautiful voice of the one and only Paul Robeson singing the most beautiful of the Scottish love ballads. If you've never heard the voice of this renaissance man of the last century, prepare to be moved to tears as the most powerful bass-baritone vocalist with the darkest timbre and most fluid legato ever recorded reaches into your soul from somewhere in time some 87 years ago to remind you of the power of love.
Paul Robeson
1898-1976
Scholar, Singer, Actor, Linguist, Social Activist, Athlete
In the photo above taken Sunday, December 7th, 1941, U.S. Navy destroyer USS Shaw explodes after being hit by bombs during the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. A few centenarian survivors of the attack on Pearl Harbor are expected to gather at the scene of the Japanese bombing today to remember the more than 2,400 who perished 82 years ago marking America's entrance into WWII..
USS Arizona Memorial
Pearl Harbor, Hawaii
The USS Arizona Memorial honors the 1,177 crewmen who died aboard the ship during the attack. The memorial rest on and above the hull of the sunken battleship which is submerged just below the water level and is the tomb for more than 900 sailors who remain within.
Jazz pianist Ramsey Lewis, whose acclaimed musical talent entertained fans over a more than 60-year career that began with the Ramsey Lewis Trio and made him one of the country’s most successful jazz musicians died earlier this week at age 87.
Over his long and illustrious career he was a noted jazz composer, pianist, and radio personality. Lewis recorded over 80 albums and received five gold records and three Grammy Awards in his career. His album The In Crowd earned Lewis critical praise and the 1965 Grammy Award for Best Jazz Performance.
I personally came to love his musical genius as a child. He was a favorite artist of my parents... on many occasions I can recall his albums being stacked on the spindle and played for hours on my parents Motorola Hi-Fi in our living room. As I grew older, I too recognized his incredible talent of being able to quite literally and figuratively make a piano sing. His interpretations are some of the most recognizable piano stylings in the world.
Here is one of his many noted recordings that I remember fondly from my childhood, 1966's "Wade In the Water," performed here in his signature jazz interpretation.
If you didn't know so, you'd never guess that "Wade In the Water" is actually an old "Negro Spiritual" with lyrics of encouragement and instruction to escaping slaves on the Underground Railroad.
Yes, I know Betty White passed away last week as well, and she's receiving the acclaim she deserved for a career of legendary accomplishments, but this man who was just as accomplished did as much to actually change my life, and the lives of men like my father, my uncles and my brothers as did Martin Luther King. He almost single-handedly destroyed entrenched racist stereotypes and with grace and aplomb he presented to the world a new understanding of what it meant to be a black man. And, he did so by rising to the very pinnacle of America's gift to the world, the cinema. His was a life well lived and deserving of such praise from around the world, now and for all the ages.
Thank you Mr. Portier!
Scenes from but one of many of my favorites by the late great thespian...
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Charley Pride wasn’t country music’s first Black artist, but he reached heights that had not been available to early Black singers and musicians in the genre. And he did it by winning over millions of country music fans.
While Pride’s career path was paved by artists like Opry pioneer DeFord Bailey, the Grammy-winner’s success put him on par with his white peers, including Willie Nelson, Glen Campbell and Merle Haggard, in a way that had never been afforded to Black artists before.
Pride, whose hits include “Kiss an Angel Good Morning” and “Is Anybody Goin’ to San Antone,” died Saturday in Dallas of complications from COVID-19, according to his publicist. He was 86.
The pride of Sledge, Mississippi, was the son of a sharecropper who initially turned to sports as a way to a better life.
He was a pitcher and outfielder in the Negro American League with the Memphis Red Sox and in the Pioneer League in Montana.
After playing minor league baseball, he ended up in Helena, Montana, where he worked in a zinc smelting plant by day and played country music in nightclubs at night.
Baseball was Pride’s first success, but it was the Grand Ole Opry that his father insisted everyone listen to on their home radio that would prove to be his lasting legacy.
“Everything we listened to was what he had tuned it to, so I got to listening to Grand Ole Opry and all when I was small and I got hooked on it and it just went from there,” Pride told The Associated Press at the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville in 2017. “I had no idea that I was preparing myself for this, but I’m glad, especially since I didn’t make it in baseball.”
After a tryout with the New York Mets, Pride visited Nashville and broke into country music when Chet Atkins, head of RCA Records, heard two of his demo tapes and signed him.
His first few singles were sent to radio stations without a publicity photo. After his race became known, a few country radio stations refused to play his music, and some promoters were hesitant to book him.
Until the early 1990s, when Cleve Francis came along, Pride was the only Black country singer signed to a major label. During his career, other Black country artists such as Linda Martell, O.B. McClinton and Stoney Edwards were also charting country songs, as well as Ray Charles and the Pointer Sisters. In 1993, he joined the Grand Ole Opry cast in Nashville.
“They used to ask me how it feels to be the ‘first colored country singer,‘ ” he told The Dallas Morning News in 1992. “Then it was ‘first Negro country singer;’ then ‘first Black country singer.’ Now I’m the `first African-American country singer.′ That’s about the only thing that’s changed. This country is so race-conscious, so ate-up with colors and pigments. I call it ‘skin hangups’ — it’s a disease.”
Still, he remains the only Black country artist to achieve many of those heights, a sign that country music still has a long way to go to breaking down the racial walls, even decades later.
Throughout his career, he sang positive songs instead of sad ones often associated with country music.
“Music is a beautiful way of expressing oneself, and I truly believe music should not be taken as a protest,” he told The Associated Press in 1985. “You can go too far in anything — singing, acting, whatever — and become politicized to the point you cease to be an entertainer.”
He was the first Black artist to win the genre’s highest prize, CMA Award entertainer of the year in 1971, over nominees Haggard, Loretta Lynn, Jerry Reed and Conway Twitty. He was the first Black co-host of the CMA Awards in 1975 with Campbell and earned a lifetime achievement award at the CMA Awards this year. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Recording Academy in 2017.
Pride released dozens of albums and sold more than 25 million records during a career that began in the mid-1960s. Hits besides “Kiss an Angel Good Morning” in 1971 included “Is Anybody Goin’ to San Antone,” “Burgers and Fries,” “Mountain of Love,” and “Someone Loves You Honey.”
As a trailblazer, he inspired countless other Black country artists, including Darius Rucker, who moved from rock to country.
“My heart is so heavy,” Rucker wrote on Twitter. “He destroyed barriers and did things that no one had ever done. But today I'm thinking of my friend. Heaven just got one of the finest people I know. I miss and love u CP!”
Pride joined up with country singer Jimmie Allen to perform “Kiss an Angel Good Morning” at the CMA Awards in November, his last performance.
“Thank you for unapologetically you and being the manifestation of our dreams. Our potential. The realization that WE can be anything we want to be. Even a country singer,” said country singer Rissi Palmer on Twitter. “I’m so angry about this death. This was preventable.”
“I’d like to be remembered as a good person who tried to be a good entertainer and made people happy, was a good American who paid his taxes and made a good living,” Pride told The AP in 1985. “I tried to do my best and contribute my part.”
He is survived by his wife, Rozene, whom he married in 1956; three children, Kraig, Dion and Angela; and several grandchildren.
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Congratulation Mr. Pride on a life well-lived...
I have many fond memories to be thankful for because of you.
Here is my all-time favorite performance by Charley Pride. This song by Pride was the title theme to the film, "Sometimes a Great Notion" (also known as Never Give an Inch), a 1971 American drama film directed by Paul Newman and starring Newman, Henry Fonda, Michael Sarrazin, and Lee Remick.
"All His Children"
Performed by Charley Pride
When you're standing alone
With the mountains and the sea
Where the arms of the world open wide
Where the truth is as plain as the falling rain
And as sure as the time and the tide
You know we're all His children
His next of kin, that's the way it began
No matter where you're going or where you've been
You're part of the family of man
.
When you walk down the road
And the sun is on your side
With the sweet river breeze for your face
Where you don't hear a sound as you look around
Everything sort of falls into place
.
You know we're all His children
His next of kin, that's the way it began
No matter where you're going or where you've been
You're part of the family of man
.
When you walk down the road
And the sun is on your side
With the sweet river breeze for your face
Where you don't hear a sound as you look around
Everything sort of falls into place
Songwriters: Alan Bergman / Henry Nicola Mancini / Marilyn Bergman
State troopers break up a civil rights voting march in Selma, Alabama, 1965.
John Lewis is in the foreground. Photograph: AP
Civil Rights Activist and Politician John Lewis A life in pictures from The Guardian
The civil rights leader John Lewis, known at the ‘conscience of America’, has died. Born the son of sharecroppers in Alabama on 21 February 1940, he attended segregated public schools and, inspired by the words of Martin Luther King Jr, became active in the civil rights movement. From university onwards he organised sit-ins at segregated lunch counters, took part in the Freedom Rides, was chair of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee and was a key speaker at the historic March on Washington in 1963. He led one of the pivotal moments in the civil rights movement, a march over the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama that was brutally attacked by state troopers.
An arrest photo from 1961, when Lewis served 37 days in Parchman Penitentiary in Mississippi for ‘disorderly conduct’ - using a restroom labelled white.
Photograph: @repjohnlewis/twitter
Young Freedom Riders Lewis and James Zwerg stand together after being attacked and beaten by pro-segregationists in Montgomery, Alabama on 20 May 1961.
Photograph: Bettman/Corbis
Lewis being arrested in Jackson, Mississippi on 24 May 1961.
He and 26 other Freedom Riders were arrested that day.
Photograph: Bettmann/Corbis
A portrait of Lewis taken in Clarksdale, Mississippi in 1963.
Photograph: Steve Schapiro/Corbis
Lewis as Chair of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee, addressing marchers at the Lincoln Memorial in the March on Washington in August 1963.
This was where Martin Luther King delivered his “I have a dream” speech.
Photograph: Bettman/Corbis
Hosea Williams and Lewis in the lead, marchers move through Selma in a civil rights march to Montgomery, Alabama before reaching the Edmund Pettus Bridge and a bloody clash with state troops on 7 March 1965.
Photograph: Charles Moore/Black Star / Eyevine
Martin Luther King led a march later that same month from Selma to Montgomery in Alabama. Beside King is Lewis, Reverend Jesse Douglas, James Forman and Ralph Abernathy.
Photograph: Steve Schapiro/Corbis
Lewis is arrested in April 2009, during a protest against the humanitarian crisis in Darfur outside the Sudanese Embassy in Washington.
Photograph: Bill Clark/ Getty Images
Lewis is awarded the Medal of Freedom by Barack Obama in February 2011.
Photograph: Brooks Kraft/Corbis
Lewis is again arrested, in 2013 at an immigration reform rally and march in Washington.
Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/epa/Corbis
In 2016, Lewis takes part in a sit-in on the floor of the House of Representatives, demanding that the Republican-led body vote on gun-control legislation in the wake of a shooting in Orlando.
Photograph: Handout/AFP/Getty Images
Lewis poses under a quote of his displayed in the Civil Rights Room in the Nashville Public Library in 2016, where he was awarded the Nashville Public Library Literary Award.
Photograph: Mark Humphrey/AP
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In 2017, on CBS Good Morning, John Lewis told his own story in the segment 'Note to Self'
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John Robert Lewis
February 21, 1940 - July 17, 2020
"If not us, then who? If not now, then when?
Not many of us get to live to see our own legacy play out in such a meaningful, remarkable way. John Lewis did:https://t.co/KbVfYt5CeQ
First, COVID-19 claimed 43-year-old Crystal Barkley’s life in a Bronx hospital before her five children had the chance to say goodbye.
Then, it denied her family the chance to find closure at a funeral service.
“You don’t expect to lose a family member so suddenly, and then you can’t go the normal way of putting them to rest,” Crystal’s sister, Denise, tells reporter Anjali Tsui.
Nowhere is that more apparent than in the Bronx, New York City’s poorest borough, and the home of the most impoverished congressional district in the country. It’s been seeing the city’s highest rate of coronavirus deaths in what experts say is a reflection of entrenched racial and social disparities.
For weeks, Anjali has been following the story there of how COVID-19 is disproportionately impacting black and Hispanic people. She’s been recording inside a family-run funeral home that is trying to help families navigate their grief — while facing backlogs of both bodies and paperwork, and the threat of becoming infected themselves.
“Funeral directors are really like another kind of first responder,” Anjali tells me.
In today’s episode, you’ll hear from Sheila and Cheryl Newkirk, sisters who run the Herbert T. McCall Funeral Home in the Bronx. You’ll meet Erik Frampton, who worked as an art framer before the pandemic dried up his business; he then took a job helping to transfer the dead from a Bronx hospital onto freezer trucks that serve as temporary morgues. (“I’ve never touched a dead body before, but now I’ve handled at least 240 of them,” he tells Anjali.)
And you’ll hear about the chaos of death and grief in the Bronx in the time of COVID from bereaved family members — like Denise Barkley, and like Madelon Kendricks, whose godmother Alpha Crawford was a longtime community activist. Crawford died at age 97 in a Bronx nursing home with symptoms consistent with COVID-19. Madelon is still waiting to receive Alpha's ashes, her grief compounded by the fact that the large and lively church funeral she says her godmother would have wanted isn't possible right now.
“When people die, they need to be celebrated and there is no celebration of life right now,” Madelon says. “It’s like people are just disappearing.”
Famed recording artist and three-time Grammy Award winner who sang ‘Lean on Me’ and ‘Ain’t No Sunshine,’ died this week at age 81. - The New York Times
On many a day in my life, including the long and anxious days of the past few weeks, this song was what brought me through trial and tribulation reminding me that this is not only God's promise, but our promise to one another as we make our journey of life.
Although we celebrate the birthday of a great man today, more importantly, as we are seemingly reliving the times he lived and died fighting against, let us remember his greatest lessons for us all...
Below the great Nina Simone asks in song, Why...?
"Why"
(The King of Love Is Dead)
Nina Simone
Once upon this planet earth
Lived a man of humble birth
Preaching love and freedom for his fellow man
He was dreaming of a day
Peace would come to earth to stay
And he spread this message all across the land
Turn the other cheek he'd plead
Love thy neighbor was his creed
Pain humiliation death, he did not dread
With his Bible at his side
From his foes he did not hide
It's hard to think that this great man is dead (oh yes)
Will the murders never cease
Are thy men or are they beasts?
What do they ever hope, ever hope to gain?
Will my country fall, stand or fall?
Is it too late for us all?
And did Martin Luther King just die in vain?
Cos he'd seen the mountain top
And he knew he could not stop
Always living with the threat of death ahead
Folks you'd better stop and think
'Cause we're heading for the brink
What will happen now that he is dead?
He was for equality
For all people, you and me
Full of love and good will, hate was not his way
He was not a violent man
Tell me folks if you can
Just why, why was he shot down the other day?
Well see he'd seen the mountaintop
And he knew he could not stop
Always living with the threat of death ahead
Folks you'd better stop and think and feel again
For were headed for the brink
What's gonna happen now that the king of love is dead?
