Civil rights = everyone's rights Chapter Two

Mountain Laurel

The Harp, 1939 

"Lift Every Voice and Sing," by  African-American artist Augusta Savage, for NY Worlds Fair 1939

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Today we remember the Tulsa Race Massacre when so much of a prosperous black neighborhood was intentionally irradicated by whites. See Open Yesterday's Pages blog today.

"A two-day-long white supremacist terrorist massacre took place in the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma between May 31 and June 1, 1921, when mobs of white residents, some of whom had been appointed as deputies and armed by city government officials,^[15] attacked black residents and destroyed homes and businesses. The event is considered one of the worst incidents of racial violence in American history. The attackers burned and destroyed more than 35 square blocks of the neighborhood—at the time, one of the wealthiest black communities in the United States, colloquially known as "Black Wall Street."

More than 800 people were admitted to hospitals, and as many as 6,000 black residents of Tulsa were interned in large facilities, many of them for several days. The Oklahoma Bureau of Vital Statistics officially recorded 36 dead. The 2001 Tulsa Reparations Coalition examination of events identified 39 dead, 26 black and 13 white, based on contemporary autopsy reports, death certificates, and other records. The commission reported estimates ranging from 36 up to around 300 dead."
Source: Wikipedia

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And justice for all.

You may have noticed I care about people who have had their civil rights violated. 

I take to heart Martin Niemoller's quote which rings very true these days.

First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.

—Martin Niemöller

This quote is attributed to the prominent German [Lutheran] pastor Martin Niemöller. It is sometimes mistakenly referred to as a poem. 

After World War II, Niemöller openly spoke about his own early complicity in Nazism and his eventual change of heart. His powerful words about guilt and responsibility still resonate today.

The quote “First they came for…” has been part of the permanent exhibition at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum since its opening in 1993. Initially, Niemöller's words were part of a text panel. Today, they are prominently featured on a wall as the final words of the exhibition. They serve as an indictment of passivity and indifference during the Holocaust. 

This Martin Niemöller quote originated after the defeat of Nazi Germany in World War II. After the war, Niemöller was well-known for his opposition to the Nazi regime and as a former victim of Nazi persecution. In 1946, he traveled on a lecture tour in the western zones of Allied-occupied Germany. In his lectures, Niemöller publicly confessed his own inaction and indifference to the fate of many of the Nazis’ victims. He used phrases such as “I did not speak out…” or “we preferred to keep quiet.” He explained that in the first years of the Nazi regime he had remained silent as the Nazis persecuted other Germans, especially members of leftist political movements with whom he disagreed.

Niemöller considered his fellow Germans as the primary audience for his confession. In his lectures, he lamented that individual Germans failed to accept responsibility for Nazism, German atrocities in German-occupied countries, and the Holocaust. According to him, individual Germans were passing the blame onto their neighbors, superiors, or Nazi organizations like the Gestapo. Through his confession, he wanted to show Germans how to accept personal responsibility for complicity in the Nazi regime. 

There are multiple versions of the quote “First they came for….” Some versions include a different list of victims. This is because Niemöller often presented his lectures impromptu and changed the list of victims from lecture to lecture. At different times and in different combinations, Niemöller listed: communists, socialists, trade unionists, Jews, people with mental and physical disabilities, and Jehovah's Witnesses. 

...In his post-war lectures, Niemöller specifically focused on groups that the Nazis targeted prior to his arrest in 1937, and for whom he could have advocated in the 1930s, but did not...

Regardless of his exact words, Niemöller’s message remained consistent: he declared that through silence, indifference, and inaction, Germans had been complicit in the Nazi imprisonment, persecution, and murder of millions of people. He felt that it was particularly egregious that he and other German Protestant church leaders, whom he believed had positions of moral authority, chose to remain silent.

Source: The Holocaust Encyclopedia

Note 2: Niemöller did not remain silent when he witnessed the persecution of Protestants in the 1930s. In the 1930s, as a Lutheran pastor, he repeatedly spoke out in defense of his fellow Protestant clergymen when they were harassed by the Nazi regime. 

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Asheville NC on May 1.

Washington DC May 1, 2025

Detroit MI May 1, 2025

And I'm so glad fellow blogger Marcia in New Hampshire posted lots of photos of their May 1 signs at the demonstration. 

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Next time to demonstrate is June 14, so more people won't be watching the president's personal parade!

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Thanks so much to all who give voice to any injustices being perpetrated in  the name of our government.

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No more quotes for today!

Lidded Jar by Barbara Rogers