Comments on: What’s in a name – an MLK Day Reflection

By: Hamilton Smith

Hamilton Smith — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:41:47 +0000

Jordan, very nicely done and a message I have shared with my family and friends. Thank you for this important reflection.

By: Anne

Anne — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 04:47:02 +0000

Great story – and what a great family memory and tradition to carry on!! Thanks for sharing and all you do for the Wallingford blog!

By: Dorothy

Dorothy — Mon, 16 Jan 2012 16:51:45 +0000

Jordan, What a beautiful and touching story. It must be wonderful to have such deep ties to history. Your neighbor in the gray and white house up the street. Dorothy

By: Amani

Amani — Wed, 20 Jan 2010 20:26:56 +0000

Thank you for this story, and for consciously parenting, from the naming on up.
Lovely.

By: Yani

Yani — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 18:20:09 +0000

That is so awesome! Thank you.

By: Ron

Ron — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 04:40:59 +0000

Thanks for sharing this Jordan. At this time in our nations history when some would have us believe that the our countries best times are behind us and that the days of their youth were what we should aspire to again, it is important to remind ourselves of just what the realities of those days were for entire segements of the population. While I prefer to concentrate on the positive achievements that have come since the days of my youth (late 60′s- 70′s), we must never forget the courage and struggle that afforded those achievements. I hope young Zevin will follow your footsteps and carry his name well.

By: Jenny

Jenny — Tue, 19 Jan 2010 04:36:31 +0000

Wow. Thank you for that great story. Zev will be proud to live up to his name one day, just as you are!

Jenny

By: Chris W.

Chris W. — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:48:42 +0000

Beautiful story, Jordan. Thank you for posting it here. And what powerful legacies in your family!

You might enjoy a story by one of my favorite Southern Writers, Eudora Welty. One night on the radio she heard civil rights activist Medgar Evars had been gunned down in the dark of night. And she thought, “I know who did this.” Not the person’s name, but the thoughts behind the actions. So overnight she wrote a short story, “Where Is This Voice Coming From?” for publication in the New Yorker. It was so accurate that police feared it might impede a fair ury trial & she was aksed to put off publishing it or change the details.

The story is available online here,thanks to MIT: http://web.mit.edu/norvin/www/somethingelse/welty.html

I think the depiction of the gunman’s wife is as telling as anything in the story.

Art imitates life, and we hope, changes it…

chris

By: julie

julie — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 19:47:07 +0000

Jordan, as a South African living in the US, I couldn’t help but smile at the thought of “Zevin Rolihlahla Schwartz” and the stories he will have to tell when he grows up! You will definitely have to take him on a visit to South Africa when he’s old enough.

If you’re interested, I’m driving the 46664 Bangle project http://www.theBangle.com here in the US and would appreciate any help in spreading the social responsibility message of this initiative. It’s through the manufacturing of the official 46664 Bangle bracelet that we’re able to create jobs, build skills, and make a difference. 46664 was Nelson Mandela’s prisoner number and is now an international symbol of his greater humanitarian causes.

Please feel free to email me with any questions you may have, and please publish any of these details as appropriate on your blog.

Thanks for reading,
Julie

By: iyqtoo

iyqtoo — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 18:28:12 +0000

I experienced the racial riots in my hometown of Baltimore following Dr. King’s assasination, but racial prejudice didn’t become real to me until I lived for two years in Charlotte, NC as a young adult in the mid-’70s. The (white) realtor began my indoctrination to the meaning of ‘southern hospitality’. Not to worry, Blacks wouldn’t be crossing the almost-visible border that ran diagonally through the city except to work and I was to shop only on this side of the divide. It wasn’t a safety issue, that’s just the way it was. The single most important criteria for choosing the house we were about to buy, our first, was to choose one where children weren’t bused to the ‘black’ schools.

To a young mom who’d grown up in the suburbs with virtually no exposure to racial or religious prejudice, this was pretty hard to believe. Not only did I have childhood friends who were Blacks, Asians or Jews, some of them were Catholics! But shocked and offended as I was by that Southern realtor’s take on things, the worst part came later when I discovered the way local Blacks accepted their ‘place’ in that society. Subservient, humble & unempowered with no apparent expectation for change. Black children walked with their heads down around whites in a way that was at least as offensive as the angry defiance we’d seen in the Black rioter back in Baltimore. I could not believe that slavery was still alive in the attitudes of those southern Americans in 1976!

That kind of inequality might always be part of other cultures and it’ll continue to squander their human resources and limit their potential as long as it goes on, the same as it was doing here. Dr. King deserves our respect and thanks for his role in bringing it to an end in the US. I’m sure he accomplished even more than he ever dreamed.

By: Janey

Janey — Mon, 18 Jan 2010 02:50:49 +0000

Thanks so much for sharing. It’s a great contribution to the reflection I try to do every year over this weekend.

By: KaraScene

KaraScene — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 23:56:57 +0000

What a great story. I’m sure your parents are very proud of you.

By: Nancy M

Nancy M — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:57:56 +0000

A very moving tale, Jordan Luther King Schwartz. Adds nice perspective to this holiday. 1968 was a bad year, RFK was next, leaving the hopeful summer of love of the year prior in the dust.

Nice parents, yours. Thanks.

By: DOUG.

DOUG. — Sun, 17 Jan 2010 22:56:47 +0000

This is a great story, Jordan, and really well told. Thanks for sharing it.