The Song of a Little Girl

I opened my computer screen last Friday morning, ready to get a head start on my planned Ashland Chautauqua column. But first, a quick check on the Tribe score (they lost), and a scroll through Facebook. I knew I’d see the names Alton Sterling and Philandro Castile, but I had no idea those names would be joined by news of a massacre in Dallas.

Now, in the aftermath of the vicious sniper attack at a peaceful rally against violence in Dallas, we tremble. We tremble in the shadow of the Republican National Convention, not too many miles away, where the hoopla inside the “Q” will be challenged by the protests on the streets of Cleveland. As hatred is live-streamed across our country through social media, it’s no longer if the other shoe will drop; instead, it’s the question of which shoe it will be today, where that shoe will land.

As we tremble, some choose to turn off television, cancel the newspaper, leave Facebook, ignore Twitter. Perhaps if we don’t hear about it, it won’t be real. Others withdraw in fear, as the prophet Jeremiah described centuries ago: “Death has crept in through our windows and has entered our mansions. It has killed off the flower of our youth: Children no longer play in the streets, and young men no longer gather in the squares.” And then the sorrow, as Jeremiah knew so well. We “teach our daughters to wail, we teach one another how to lament.”

But even as we tremble, we can respond with courage, with resolve. In Dallas, Police Chief David Brown displayed that resolve. “We’re hurting. Our profession is hurting. Dallas officers are hurting. We are heartbroken. There are no words to describe the atrocity that occurred to our city. All I know is that this must stop, this divisiveness between our police and our citizens.”

Chief Brown and his department have worked hard to lessen that divisiveness in recent years, with extensive training in conflict de-escalation techniques and an on-going emphasis on community policing. Despite the actions of one man who chose to take matters into his own hands on July 7, their courage and commitment will continue to improve the city of Dallas.

When considering how change has occurred over the course of America’s history, we see it modeled in the actions of courageous people, like Chief Brown, who have continued on despite personal tragedy. When Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in 1968, Bobby Kennedy was running for president, with a campaign rally scheduled for inner city Indianapolis. Urged to cancel the rally, he wouldn’t agree. “I’m going to go there, and that’s it.” After announcing King’s death with a trembling voice, he spoke of his pain in the loss of his brother John. Yet he didn’t stop there. “What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love, and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.” Riots broke out in more than one hundred cities that week, but not in Indianapolis.

As for Ashland Chautauqua, my planned column, this week brings the presentation of “Voices of Freedom” to the Myers Band Shell. In their own words, Harriet Tubman, Lucy Stone, Mary Chesnut, Frederick Douglass, and Susan B. Anthony will echo a cry for peace and justice, as they remind us of the struggles of abolition and women’s suffrage, of the horrors of the Civil War and of a nation divided. Their actions altered history, yet still carry significance for today.

The lovely Madelyn Simone attended day camp last week, and Thursday afternoon she sang the beautiful yet haunting melody she learned there: “Shalom, my friend, shalom, shalom.” As our nation reels once again in the aftermath of the heinous actions of a few, might we listen again to the ancient prophet, to Chief Brown, to Robert F. Kennedy, to the 19^th century voices of freedom, and to the song of a little girl. Shalom, shalom.