By Michael Woyton
How’s everyone doing?
It seems like the last week has been a helluva year.
We took some time off Thursday. As we did after Hillary lost in 2016, we took a trip up to the Franklin Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum in Hyde Park.
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The grounds — especially the gravesite of FDR and Eleanor — are perfect for contemplating whatever may be troubling you.
You know that both Franklin and Eleanor would have a lot to say about the recent election, and I doubt that any of it would be good.
Through Feb. 28, the museum is having a special exhibition on “Black Americans, civil rights and the Roosevelts.”
The exhibit looks at the evolution of both FDR and Eleanor regarding racial justice.
FDR was tightlipped early in his administration about the rights of Black Americans and was concentrating on getting the country back on its feet after the depression.
It also documents the amazing story of Black leaders who organized networks and worked with political allies to foster social justice and fight Jim Crow segregation and racism in the United States.
One photograph stood out as being also a comment on what is happening in our country today in light of convicted felon and adjudicated rapist Donald Trump’s victory Tuesday.
During the March on Washington in 1941, the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters union demanded an end to segregation in the defense industries. At the time, millions of jobs were being created as the U.S. ramped up preparations for World War II.
Black Americans were shut out of working in the defense industries and were often met with violence and discrimination.
The threat of thousands or more Black women and men marching to the White House in protest was enough for FDR to issue Executive Order 8802 on June 25, 1941.
The EO declared, “There shall be no discrimination in the employment of workers in defense industries and in Government, because of race, creed, color, or national origin.”
It was the first presidential directive on race since Reconstruction.
Because of the executive order the march was called off.
The photograph that caught my attention was of a group of mostly Black women and men protesting for jobs in the war effort.
One young man was holding a sign that read “Race Discrimination Breeds Fascism.”
Following the results of Tuesday’s election, explicitly racist text messages were sent to students around New York state and other parts of the country.
The messages were received in the Hudson Valley by Nyack Middle and High School students.
The texts, which are being investigated by the Rockland County Sheriff’s Office and the FBI, said the students were “selected to pick cotton,” according to reporting by Mid Hudson News.
Other messages told the recipients that they were “chosen to be a slave.”
New York Attorney General Letitia James called the texts “disgusting and unacceptable.”
“I unequivocally condemn any attempt to intimidate or threaten New Yorkers and their families,” James said in a news release. “I encourage anyone in New York who has received an anonymous, threatening text message to report it to my office.”
This cannot be a coincidence, coming just hours after Trump declared victory.
His campaign preyed on the insecurity of people who believe that their superiority on this planet is being threatened by those with different color skin.
Trump emboldened these small-minded people to think that hatred against others is now normal.
It is not normal. And it is not American.
We were coming out of the FDR library after experiencing the special exhibition and ran into a woman just making her way up the flagstone sidewalk in front of the library.
She nodded hello and then nodded toward FDR’s museum, saying, “We need him more than ever now.”
Agreed.
Lead art: Michael Woyton
On Second Thought 