Because They Are Comfortable Here

Another rather powerful edition of Michiana Chronicles:

I like the everlasting symbol of the building itself: as a segregated public swimming pool, it was once a site of the most blatant kind of civic racism, but the building has been recaptured, its spirit renovated and turned toward better use. Getting there took a lot of work, over many years, yes. But the building reminds me that activism and social change are always real possibilities, if only we know how.

Not that the task is easy, or even encouraging, sometimes. When I ask myself, who is the average American these days, I picture someone demoralized or angry. A person who doesn’t often speak in public because it’s hard to believe it matters. A person who doesn’t know how to cut through the chaotic noise of news and political media. A person who feels ineffectual as a citizen and doesn’t know where to turn except to live a quiet private life. That’s my hunch about the average American these days.

But the film I saw recently at the Civil Rights Heritage Center had a practical insight that I can’t forget.  ...continue (or listen) here.

-- Ken Smith