Thoughts about growing up in the segregated American South

 I  have struggled intellectually with this subject for some years now. I have a clear memory of a black gentleman in a white shirt and tie coming to the door of Morton Avenue School in an automobile. There were two black boys with him. They stood there while a few of my classmates and I carried old textbooks from our classrooms out to the waiting arms of the black boys who loaded them into the trunk of the car under the supervision of the black man. He was, we were later to learn, the principal of a black school. They were getting our old worn out books while we were getting brand new ones. At the time it certainly did not seem unusual to me for them to be getting the hand me downs. It, in fact, seemed natural. I have as a result of my travels, education and life experiences come to realize the inhumanity of of the "separate but equal" practice of segregation that was practiced in our part of the world. It has taken time for changes to take place in our society - and prejudice still exists even now. 

In the Henderson Family Cemetery there still stands the remains of wooden markers that I looked on as a child and was told that those boards marked the graves of slaves that once were the property of one of my ancestors. Those markers are not more that ten feet from the grave of their once master. If I had to bet, I would say that somewhere in my family tree are distant cousins whose skin is a lot darker than my own. When I was at Georgia Tech, I took a required "soft" sociology course taught by a man who said he was the only registered Republican member on the Georgia Tech Faculty. He was a great influence on me. Atlanta at the time was starting to experience some of the early events associated with the civil rights movement such as lunch counter sit-ins. He made a statement then that has stayed with me ever since. He said, " This is the start of a great movement and I am afraid that racial peace will not ever be achieved in this country until we are all one color - that being sort of like creamed coffee. That was a great shock to some of the students - especially to those coming straight from deep south high schools. I had, of course, spent three years in the Army after high school and was less shocked. As you can tell, I have had a lot to think of for many years... but enough for now.

I know a lot of Muslims.  I have lived and worked among them.  Individually they seem to have the same hopes, dreams and aspirations as anyone else.  The problem that they have is that they don't want to stand up to to these fanatics among them and risk getting themselves killed while doing so. 

Qaddafi was a tyrant and I was glad to see him go.  But, I remember a story that one of my Libyan friends told me about how he handled the problem of religious fanaticism very early in his reign.  It was said that he rounded up all the professional Imams and loaded them onto transport aircraft.  When they were over the desert, the jump doors were opened and they were told that it was their time to enter Heaven. I don't know if this story is true, but I do believe that the man who told it to me believed it was true. 

Qaddafi left the Mosque doors open for prayers and any lay person could lead prayers but no one could be paid to preach.  I believe that this was part of his Green Book.

Perhaps the new Libyan government would last a bit longer if the new Imams would be offered another tour of the desert.