#Weekendcoffeeshare Time Travel

March 9, 2015 — #Selma50, Civil Rights, racism, Selma

This weekend the transporter cloaks are outfitted with time travel capabilities. We are able to zoom through both space and time at will now. I figured once we had warmed up,why not go on an excellent adventure with these cloaks?  I spend a lot of time studying my family tree. It is a fascination of mine that teaches me history as well as how my own family members were acting at various times. I have started to think beyond what I know, beyond the facts that have been recorded, in each of the personal dramas of my ancestors.  I have been thinking about the role that Selma, Alabama played in my mother’s ancestry.  Her ancestors lived there and some fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War.  They were a religious group who founded a Baptist church in Texas after the war.  I keep contemplating how religious people could believe in slavery.  I can come up with no logic for that situation. If we were having coffee this weekend I am afraid we would have to take up some heavy subjects like racism and liberation.

I grew up in Pittsburgh and was living in Venezuela when the first march on Selma took place 50 years ago.  My own exposure to racism and class divisions was played out in the petroleum camp where I lived in South America.  I lived a privileged life of an imperialistic overlord, and was enthusiastically in favor of it because I was 13 years old.  I now believe that immature societies take advantage of weakness and corruption rather than building up the core strength of the population.  Dictators and now terrorists make it a goal to dominate, control, and torture others.  I am not sure if this is relatively new, or if people have always used power to harm others.

I invite you for coffee in 1865 in Selma, Alabama at Elizabeth Langley, my 3rd great-grandmother’s house.  Maybe she can answer some of the questions many of us must have about slavery and emancipation.  I hope she will help us make sense of the seeming contradiction between Christian faith and the Confederacy.  I want to ask her about the day 100 years before the 1965 march with Dr. Martin Luther King, when General James Wilson was followed by the liberated slaves on the exact same route followed in 1965.  I want her to tell us what it was like to hear about black men marching behind the army that freed them.  I am sure Elizabeth will whip up a mean batch of biscuits for all who are hungry.  Her southern hospitality will not fail to make us feel at home, I am sure.  There will be rocking chairs out on the porch for rest and conversation before we cloak back to this century.  I look forward to hearing about your week and your take on life in 1865.  Thanks, as always, for your company.

#Weekendcoffeeshare