www.mcrm.mdah.ms.gov Archives - Jim Murty’s TravelTravelTravel

Rainy Days and Songdays – This little light of mine

15th June 202015th June 2020 funtime65

Take my little light round the world. I’m going to let it shine. Let it shine, let it shine, let it shine.

I was all for the tearing down of the Berlin Wall (doh!) but on the whole I’d prefer to see construction before destruction.

Which may be why I instinctively balk against the current spate of tearing down statues.

The other reason is that it has the whiff of McCarthyism about it.

I think we can say, and achieve, more through the civil disobedience mantra of Gandhi and King than the Malcolm X call to arms.

So if you want to see how best to deal with racism go to the Deep South and Jackson, Mississippi where civil disobedience still means something.

At the epicentre of the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum https://www.mdah.ms.gov/2MM/ is an interactive rotunda experience where This Little of Light of Mine plays out.

You’ll go though a history of oppression and resilience along the way and pass, of course, remnants of Ku Klux Klan and Jim Crow.

The 20s Gospel song which was taken up by the Civil Rights Movement is played on a loop.

It is a simple, defiant stance but it sums up what has gone before it, the Freedom Rides, the Diner sit-ins, the King speeches.

The America www.visitusa.ie most of know from the movies and take back from our visits is a New York or California dream.

As much as I love both it is the Deep South where we see the heart and soul of this great nation

And where I will return and return to as I continue my journey to Dr Martin Luther King’s Promised Land… https://www.deep-south-usa.com and The Promised Land.

You won’t blow my little light out… https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=cKkbIZtqhyQ.

America, Countries, Europe, Ireland, UK

Protesting – it’s all Greek to me

7th June 20207th June 2020 funtime65

We had to go the long round to get to the Acropolis…. the Greeks were protesting but then as my taxi driver mentioned there’s always a protest in Greece.

They’ve been at it too this week in protest against the death of George Floyd in Minnesota.

Which is inarguably a cause any right-thinking and progressive human being should be supporting.

But can we just hold our breath for a minute here as protesting in tens of thousands will merely spread Covid?

The Alpha and the Omega

The Greeks may have earned the right to do what Greeks do and smash plates and rail against authority.

There have only been 180 deaths in Hellas.

And there in a nutshell is another reason why we should resume travel to Athens and its islands https://athensattica.com and My Greek odyssey.

The pillars on which civilisation was built

And why quarantine is a bankrupt theory.

As an expert said on TV today (I think he must have read me) it’s safer to live in Europe than here in Britain with our 40,000 + deaths.

And rising, and more to come as people breathe all over each other in masses outside American Embassies or just the city square.

A lesson from Mississippi

It might be unrealistic to try to keep the lid on things in America but not impossible.

The grand opening of the two museums, the Museum of Mississippi History and the Mississippi Civil Rights Museum https://www.mdah.ms.gov/2MM/, The Promised Land in Jackson, Mississippi in 2018 was hijacked by Donald Trump.

Which brought a rash of boycotts to his visit.

An old-fashioned Irish tactic against Captain Boycott, this would be a responsible tactic to today’s events as would civil disobedience.

Now I love a good protest as much, if not more, than the next guy. Probably my Scottish and Irish blood.

But remember the Covid bug has no political conscience, so let’s all hold our fire and our breath.

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Swing low, sweet Harriet

22nd November 201922nd November 2019 funtime65

I doubt whether there will be too many England rugby supporters who will know the story behind their anthem.

But maybe they’ll get an idea after they watch the film I’ve been waiting all year for.

I refer, of course, to Harriet which tells the story of one of the greatest Americans, nay a woman for the ages, hits cinemas today.

Harriet Tubman is as large a figure in American history as her more lauded peers Abraham Lincoln or Frederick Douglass.

And yet the ‘great’ Americans of our day have in their wisdom decided to hold off from giving her a worthy place on a banknote.

An honour which had been reserved for American Presidents and a certain ‘bastard son of a whore and a Scotsman’.

I don’t know if the Scotsman bit was a bigger challenge and yet this son of the Caribbean rose to be George Washington’s trusty aide and moneyman.

And Broadway sensation. In fact if you look hard enough you can see Alexander Hamilton all over New York…

But much like the course of American history, the one I did, I’m off on a tangent.

So back to Harriet.

In the absence of her own bank note the best place to see Harriet is in the Deep South or on the big screen.

The backstory to ‘Swing Low’ was that Harriet was a slave who fled captivity.

The Underground Railroad

And yet was a key figure in the Underground Railroad to transport fellow slaves up north to Freedom.

At great personal cost and danger to herself with the equivalent of $1million bounty on her head.

The slaves kept their morale up by masking their trust in Harriet behind what their masters thought was a gospel spiritual.

You can learn more about Harriet and the history of slavery here on this site.

And meet another couple of iconic women, Rosa Parks, Fannie Lou Hamer and the actual Myrlie Evers.

I’ll point you in the right direction and the hottest Smithsonian ticket in Washington DC, the African-American Museum.

And much, much more… Easy DC.

My American Trilogy

And explore Tennessee and Mississippi in my American Trilogy series..

Which was part of the Martin Luther King 50th commemoration…

The Promised Land, The story of the Blues. And The King of Kings.

The story of slavery and the Road to Freedom is of course the whole of Ameria’s story.

Outside Ben’s Chili Bowl, central to the story, in DC

But here are some of the places and the websites I’ve been where you can feel truly part of it…

With special mention to the African-American Museum in DC, the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, Tennessee and the Museum of Mississippi.

http://www.washington.org, https://nmaahc.si.edu, http://www.civilrightsmuseum, http://www.mmh.mdah.ms.gov.

Swing by your local cinema and see this film… I will. And I might even start singing.