Great Strides, Great Sacrifices

"Every step towards the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering and struggle..." 

(Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Stride Toward Freedom:  The Montgomery Story)

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. knew that if he were to make strides in his cause of Civil Rights, he would have to sacrifice.  His followers knew they would have to sacrifice.  For every gain there is a loss.  When Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery bus in 1955, her stance sparked the Montgomery Bus Boycott.  Rosa paid a price:  she spent a night in jail; she received so much scorn that she and her husband moved to Detroit about a year later.  But the boycott worked and in 1956, the busses were desegregated. (http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2015/09/rosa-parks-writes-about-her-arrest.html)

David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil and Ezell Blair Jr. knew they would have to sacrifice when they took their seats at a Greensboro lunch counter.  What they ordered was a cup of coffee and a donut; what they received was a peppering of hate by the surrounding crowd.  Their dignity was stretched to the limit.  But the Greensboro Four sparked sit ins in 55 other cities in 13 states.  Because of their stance, lunch counters became integrated across the country. (http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2016/02/the-greensboro-four.html)

James Peck knew that he would have to sacrifice when he joined the Freedom Riders in 1961.  A radical journalist, Peck was one of the white protesters campaigning for equal rights for blacks.  If racist whites treated blacks poorly, they treated whites even worse since they were considered traitors to their race.  At the Birmingham Trailways Bus Station, Peck and his fellow Freedom Riders were surrounded by an angry mob.  A riot broke out, led by the Ku Klux Klan, and Peck was beaten to within an inch of his life, sustaining severed injuries to his head and face.  Peck waited for an hour for an ambulance willing to take him to the all-white Carraway Methodist Hospital where they refused to treat him.  His price for supporting the Civil Rights cause was 53 stitches which he received at Jefferson Hillman Hospital.  In November of 1961, the interstate bussing laws changed allowing blacks and whites to sit together. (http://alinefromlinda.blogspot.ca/2016/02/the-freedom-riders.html)

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. paid the price in many ways for his Civil Rights movement.  He spent many nights in jail for his protests.  He paid the ultimate price with his life, gunned down by an assassin in 1968.  "Every step towards the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering and struggle..."

http://www.scoopnest.com/user/JMitchellNews/548866173559775232

Sacrifice: Part of Success

"To forfeit something for something else considered to have greater value." 

(American Heritage Dictionary)

Society preaches that we can have our cake and eat it too.  We see headlines like "Get ripped without long workouts!" and "Get rich without having to work hard!" and "Loose 20 pounds and eat what you want!" and "Buy a house and pay nothing down!"  The message is that we can reach our goals without giving up anything else.  It comes as no surprise, then, that the United States has a credit card debt of $886 billion!

As Frederick Douglass once said:  "A man,at times, gets something for nothing, but it will, in his hands, amount to nothing."  If you don't work to earn your fortune, you don't appreciate it nearly as much.  With every goal comes sacrifice.  If you want to become a doctor, you must give up time with your family and friends to put in the necessary hours at medical school.  If you want to become a blockbuster actor, you must give up your anonymity for fame.  If you want to become a proficient writer, you must knuckle down and write daily, rather than watching television or shopping at the mall.

Take the story of Le Van Vu.  He belonged to a successful family in North Vietnam who, in the early 1960's, owned one third of the real estate.  His father was killed by the Communists, forcing he and his mother to flee to South Vietnam.  Le worked hard in school and became a lawyer.  Capitalizing on the increasing American presence in the South by the mid-1960's, Le became a successful builder. However, on a trip to the North, Le was captured and imprisoned.

After three years, Le made a daring escape and returned to the South and his family.  He started a fishing company, soon becoming the largest canner in South Vietnam.  However, with the Communists threatening to invade, Le made a decision:  he and his wife decided to leave Vietnam. 

In exchange for all of the gold he owned, Le sought passage to the Phillipines.  In only two years, he developped the fishing industry in his new country.  

However, the Van Vu's ultimate goal was to go to America.  On the trip across the Atlantic, Le became demoralized at the thought of starting over yet again.  He was about to jump overboard when his wife stopped him, promising to help him along the journey.  His wife's encouragement was all that he needed.  

They arrived in Houston, Texas with no money and no knowledge of English.  Le's cousin invited them to work at his bakery during the day and they took English courses at night.  The cousin offered to sell him the bakery once he came up with the $30,000 down payment.  Le knew that if he rented an apartment, it would take him forever to come up with the money.  So he and his wife lived in the back of the bakery for two years, surviving on a diet of baked goods and taking sponge baths in the mall's washroom.  

After two years, Le presented his cousin with a cheque for $30,000.  Now he owned the bakery.  But he wasn't ready to move into an apartment just yet.  He and his wife continued to live in the back of the bakery until they could come up with the $90,000 balance they owed Le's cousin.  Finally, after another year of sponge baths and baked goods, Le made good on his promise, presenting his cousin with a cheque for the remainder of the loan; he owned the bakery free and clear.

Twenty years later, at the publishing of his story in Chicken Soup for the Soul, Le Van Vu was a millionaire many times over.  For the entire story, read 2.  "Willing to Pay the Price", Chicken Soup for the Soul (1993) at http://www.chickensoup.com/book-story/36237/willing-to-pay-the-price. 

Source:  www.theartofmanliness.com

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A Fallen Soldier

My high school history teacher, Dr. Cooke, told us an interesting story one day.  His colleague, Mr. Blackborrow, was a veteran of World War II.  A few years before my class arrived at Westmount, they had held a Remembrance Day assembly.  Someone played the national anthem.  One student refused to stand up for O Canada.  Before the first line of the song was finished, Mr. Blackborrow hopped over several benches in the auditorium, grabbed the hoodlum by the scruff of the neck, and lifted him up to a standing position.

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Whatever happened to the respect we used to have for our soldiers?  How could someone attack an unarmed soldier guarding the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier?  I googled the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and discovered another disturbing fact.  The tomb, which was first established in 2000, did not get a guard until 2006.  The reason?  On Canada Day of that year, after Ottawa's giant fireworks display, someone caught three young men peeing on the tomb.  Will people stop at nothing to desecrate the memory of a fallen soldier?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canadian_Tomb_of_the_Unknown_Soldier

While on the one hand, I am disillusioned by the lack of respect some people show to our soldiers, I am heartened by the outpouring of support for Corporal Nathan Cirillo who died today.  What a heartwarming story to hear about the two women who stopped to administer CPR to the dying soldier; it would have been so much easier to run the other way.  I am heartened to hear about the grey haired Sergeant at Arms who stopped the terrorist on Parliament Hill.  His bold response likely saved dozens of lives.

http://ottawacitizen.com/news/local-news/ottawa-awakens-to-day-after-gunmans-rampage

I am heartened by the images of the days following the Ottawa attack:  the Sergeant at Arms, holding back tears, carrying the mace into Parliament to a standing ovation...the endless cars lining the route of the Highway of Heroes...the fire trucks, their ladders raised, their operators perched on top saluting our fallen soldier...civilians dotting the overpasses to pay tribute to our hero...the maple leaf blowing in the breeze at half mast...Corporal Cirillo's dogs poking their heads under the fence, a forlorn look in their eyes.

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Thank you, Corporal Cirillo, for your ultimate sacrifice!

May we stand on guard for our fallen soldier.