Memorial Day (In the US)
One more day in May, and I’ll get to 100 miles. I put in a little over 5 today. I needed a rest yesterday, and I took it. So today is the day that originated to memorialize the Civil War dead in the United States. Which makes sense. Over 600,000 Americans died just because the landed-gentry in the South wanted to keep owning slaves, and expand slavery into new territories, and have Northern States be forced to “return their property” when slaves escaped. Yeah, seriously. The sad part is, only institutional slavery was ended.
But now we sit there and talk about all those who “died for our freedoms”. And we mean soldiers, and we have built a little cult of the armed forces. But the fact is, there is still slavery in the United States. Last year, more slaves were brought into the US via the Atlanta Airport alone, than ever were brought to the United States during any one year of institutionalized slavery. Most of these people were women. Most were trafficked for the sex industry, about 80%, most of the rest were for domestic slavery. Seriously. You can look this stuff up. Around the world, we turn our heads when the slavery is happening in an “allied” country. Saudi Arabia is famous for this.
More than that, what about those who died, not acting in part of a war? Those who fought in the United States, often against the government/businesses/agents who would otherwise leave us all servants to the moneyed-elite? The National Guard had been called out numerous times to “end” labor strikes in the late 1800s – early 1900s. We don’t just get our “freedoms” firstly, we realize them ourselves. Moreover, we don’t secure these freedoms just on battlefields drawn out by generals at the behest of the political elite and their business interests/benefactors. Every day, even today, a fight for freedom happens on the streets, behind closed doors, far away from the limelight, the spectacle of the news services, unless it’s to denigrate those fighting for freedoms. So this memorial day, let’s learn about one such person, Harry Simms, a young communist and labor organizer in the 1930s.
Have fun, keep running, and remember; if Gil can run then so can you!
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