I can’t really imagine the way our nation would look like if June 17, 1968 never happened. Think about it can you?

It seems that there are people nowadays that allow themselves to feel really hopeful with regards to Obama but I can’t tell if it has anything to do with Obama or with the need of so many people in America to feel hope, optimism and some sort of innocent that Bush denied us all or maybe it were the events that Bush had the misfortune to cope with.

Anyway if you are old enough to remember that day forty years ago or if you just feel connected to the man and the period you might enjoy this post at for what it’s worth.

Don’t know about you but there are many people that really need to believe again not just in a person but in the world maybe 40 years is long enough for the wounds to heal.

Keith Lehman brought an interesting quote today:

Ryan Crocker, ambassador to Baghdad, Iraq should have a good knowledge of the relationship between Iraq and America. He has probably stated the best truth concerning the Iraq conflict than any pundit I have read lately - “In the end, how we leave and what we leave behind will be more important than how we came.”

I thought about it and realized that in the historical perspective this is usually true in regards to many historical events a mistake or not it was done and now we have to do the best we can to live Iraq in a better of condition than we found it.

.

If you were to New-England or are interested in the history of  the war of independence you must have heard the story of Rebecca and Abigail Bates.

The story goes that Simeon Bates was the keeper of the lighthouse at Scituate on the shores of Massachusetts Bay and lived there with his family during the War of 1812. He had a number of children, but the two principals in this tale are Rebecca, who based on her obituary would have been about 20 at the time this story takes place, and Abigail, who was about 13. Early in September, 1814, a British warship was sighted offshore and prepared to launch barges toward the lighthouse. Simeon Bates was away from the Lighthouse and only his wife and the two girls were on hand. The girls, knowing the militia would not get there in time, decided to hide from view and play a fife and drum to make the enemy think the soldiers were coming. They struck up Yankee Doodle, the British ceased to row, and the warship recalled them and left, much to the joy of the young saviors of Scituate, the Army of Two.

This beautiful story is probably a mixture of truth and imagination but it was found to be likely truth by the Scituate Historical Society. I was reminded of the story by reading Walking the Bershires’s post that doesn’t only tell the story but add more historical perspective to it.

I know it is just an example but it can really show you the power of governmental agencies in creating important social changes.

The release of Sophia Z. Lee “Hotspots in a Cold War: The NAACP’s Postwar Workplace Constitutionalism, 1948-1964″ can teach us a thing or two about the history of NAACP:

Throughout the Cold War 1950s, the NAACP sustained an ambitious campaign for African-American workers’ constitutional right to join unions and access decent jobs. Surprisingly, it did so not in the courts, but in executive branch agencies and committees. Blending law and politics, the NAACP worked closely with labor leaders, varying its campaign according to the racial practices of unions and employers. In 1964, in one of the era’s most expansive state-action rulings, the NAACP won its workplace constitutional claims-not in the Supreme Court, but in front of a classic New Deal agency: the National Labor Relations Board. Historians generally depict the NAACP as taking a conservative Cold War turn, forsaking challenges to workplace discrimination and to the state-action doctrine. The NAACP’s employment litigation is then described as being reborn in the 1960s amid the burgeoning of black protest politics.

Not the supreme court but rather the National Labor Relations Board was the key to the post cold war changes in the work place policies towards the African American community.

I found the abstract to this new book in the Feminist Law Professors blog and it sounds a a good read into the history of our nation and the NAACP’s history.

Salute all the soldiers that have given their lives to this country, take this day to celebrate their achievements and dedication and no matter what are your political opinions take this day to appreciate and connect.

Take part in the events and know that we all one country or as Chris says:

Raise your glasses and cheer, then bow your heads and pray; for today is memorial day.