Apprehension. That's the feeling in the morning when I first open my computer to look at the news. What happened while I was asleep? You do it too, don't you?
It's almost palpable, the feeling that something dreadful is going to happen and there is no way to stop it. It's like a hurricane, with pictures on the screen to track its advance. When will it hit and how bad will it be? That's what the news is like today.
And yet, it's not the first time the world has felt topsy-turvy. A half-century ago it felt much the same, for many of the same reasons. Power, greed, autocratic rule. As different as the world is today, those human traits persist and rise up every generation or so.
In 1968, when I graduated from high school, the US was in turmoil. Assassinations, riots, cities were burning, people marched in the streets. This was the America I returned to after living in Europe for 8 years.
Fifty years ago now, I was a recently married 19-year-old student at the University of Illinois. Tom and I met in Rota, Spain on the Navy base where I lived. He was a sailor, I was in high school. We had all of the aspirations and excitement of young lovers everywhere, despite the world around us.
Our campus, that spring semester of 1970, was alive with protest against the war, against atrocities foreign and domestic. The National Guard marched down the middle of the street in front of our shabby, store-front student apartment. They marched on the quad and in front of buildings, carrying guns, herding students willy-nilly, protesters or not. The men in uniform were no older than the students, but they had the firepower and it was during that semester, on the campuses of Kent State and Mississippi State that they used them. They killed college students, black and white, because the world was upside down.
We were sure The Revolution was upon us. How could it not be? They were shooting and bludgeoning citizens in the streets. The powers of government were arrayed with deadly force against the people. Our leaders were being killed. Cities burned. Nobody was listening, all was chaos.
Tom and I left for Canada. He had done his four years in the US Navy but this didn't feel like a country he would ever defend. We lived for three months in a tent, in basements of churches for refugees and were sometimes taken into the homes of lovely Canadian grandmas. We weren't the only ones who left. We were probably not the only ones to come back.
The Revolution didn't happen then, but there was still a war to rise against, civil rights to demand, a corrupt government to deal with.
You may have noticed that everything has not turned to roses and rainbows since 1970. Once again, we are in a state of upheaval. People have taken to the streets and will again. After all these years, my protesting chops are a little rusty but still, I march and chant with the young people. I write letters and emails, pick up the phone, canvass door to door. I just might not drive at night.
When the world is topsy-turvy and the malignant powers-that-be are in ascendence, what else is there to do but join together and assert that love and justice matter?
