1968

 

1968 is a Moebius magnet, attracting pandemic-weary minds of a certain age to live again among the ruins.

 

Marvin Gaye heard it on the grapevine.

The Tet Offensive was quite dramatic, forecasting a love affair with war  the USA faithfully maintains.

Anne Moody published Coming of Age in Mississippi.

LeRoi Jones and Larry Neal edited the landmark classic Black Fire.

Richard A. Long published the essay "Crisis of Consciousness" in Black World, May 1968.

James Earl Ray assassinated Martin Luther King, Jr.

Sirhan Sirhan assassinated Robert F. Kennedy.

Cointelpro murders were in vogue, forecasting that political violence would be the norm for the twenty-first century, a century of moral myopia.

Czechoslovakia celebrated Prague Spring, a disconnected prelude for the Spring the Arabs dreamed of having.

Massacre was common in Vietnam; liberation struggles on the African continent baptized the soil with blood; Latin Americans manufactured and exported drugs for youcanguesswho in the USA.

Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1968.

Enoch Powell's "Rivers of Blood" speech made anti-immigration sentiments  popular in the UK and on the European continent.

The Black Power salute at the Olympics in Mexico City got the attention it deserved.

When thrills journey on a Moebius strip, they never fail to return to the point of origin.

 

Jerry W. Ward, Jr.    3/22/2021 9:03:20 AM

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