Sunday, May 22, 2011
The Holocaust, Days of Rememberance
What is Days of Remembrance?
The U.S. Congress established Days of Remembrance as the nation’s annual commemoration of the Holocaust and created the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum as a permanent living memorial to the victims. This year, Holocaust Remembrance week is May 1 through May 8, 2011. The Museum designated “Justice and Accountability in the Face of Genocide: What Have We Learned?” as the theme for the 2011 observance. In accordance with its congressional mandate, the Museum is responsible for leading the nation in commemorating Days of Remembrance and for encouraging appropriate observances throughout the United States. The United States Holaucaust Museum: http://www.ushmm.org/
What is the Holocaust? Who are we remembering?
The Holocaust was the state-sponsored, systematic persecution and annihilation of European Jewry by Nazi
Germany and its collaborators between 1933 and 1945. Jews were the primary victims—six million were murdered; Roma (Gypsies), people with disabilities, and Poles were also targeted for destruction or decimation for racial, ethnic, or national reasons. Millions more, including homosexuals, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Soviet prisoners of war,and political dissidents, also suffered grievous oppression and death under Nazi Germany.
Why is Days of Remembrance observed in the United States?
In 1980, Congress unanimously passed legislation to establish the United States Holocaust Memorial Council, which oversees the Museum. The Council, which succeeded the President’s Commission on the Holocaust, was charged with carrying out the following recommendations:
• That a living memorial be established to honor the victims and survivors of the Holocaust and to ensure that the lessons of the Holocaust will be taught in perpetuity
• That an educational foundation be established to stimulate and support research in the teaching of the Holocaust.
• That a Committee on Conscience be established that would collect information on and alert the national
conscience regarding reports of actual or potential outbreaks of genocide throughout the world.
• That a national day of remembrance of victims of the Holocaust be established in perpetuity and be held annually.
The Days of Remmberance 2011 Theme: What Have We Learned? http://www.ushmm.org/remembrance/dor/years/detail.php?content=2011&lang=
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Scottsboro Boys Play - West Coast,
Picture taken at Lyceum Theater, New York.
"Scottsboro Boys" play, west coast...The Old Globe - Conrad Prebys Theatre Center, San Diego-April 22-June 3, 2012 and American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco-June 19-July 15, 2012. http://www.playbill.com/news/article/150561-California-Bookings-of-Scottsboro-Boys-Confirmed-Seattle-Boston-Chicago-Being-Eyed The article states: "The Scottsboro Boys tells the true story of nine black youths accused of raping two white women in the Depression-era South." The play "tells the true story," says the "Playbill" article, but their meaning of a "true story" is certainly different from my meaning of a true story.
The play is a modern minstrel depiction of one of the most tragic events in American legal history. The "Scottsboro Boys" play minstrel production does not tell the "true story" of this event which lasted for 45 years within the American justice system and destroyed the lives of the nine youths - beginning in March of 1931 and ending with the Pardon of Clarence Norris, "The Last of the Scottsboro Boys" in October 1976.
The "Scottsboro Boys" play is controversial in a positive way, it brings to light the historical significance of the Scottsboro Boys Trials. It cannot depict the sacrifice of African Americans subjected to a system of Jim Crow racial injustice nor depict the the sacrifice of blacks and whites united in a cause to see justice served. The play should spark an educational curiosity in the minds of the attendees and others to make an inquiry into the reality of Jim Crow Era America and why we can not afford to repeat the past mistakes of our history.
I wish all involved in the "Scottsboro Boys" play the best of luck in your west coast endeavor.
Thursday, May 5, 2011
For the record: Cinco de Mayo is not about independence or Mexico - A U.S. Civil War Connection?
"In 1862, the United States was in the middle of a civil war. All the South needed was a strong exterior ally and its strengthened cause might have permanently split the United States. A possible exterior ally was closer than Abraham Lincoln liked, as the French Army under Gen. Laurencez was making its way through Mexico." PBS story - http://www.pbs.org/kpbs/theborder/history/timeline/10.html More on Cinco de Mayo from UCLA: http://www.clnet.ucla.edu/cinco.html
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