#233 – Dick Bernard: August 28, 1963 and today.

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August 28, 1963, I was a soldier in a U.S. Army Infantry Company. We were playing war in South Carolina, and had been slogging through the outback of that state for a week or more. Certainly, we had no access to television, and I don’t recall any contact with the outside world via radio either. We may as well have been in southeast Asia, which is what our training was about.
The August 28th March on Washington and Martin Luther King’s “I have a dream” speech passed by without any notice on our parts. In fact, we didn’t know it was taking place.
We had, however, had our brush with segregation, deep south style. Our unit was integrated – the Army was integrated – but in the rural south you went by the rural south’s rules.
At one point, a bunch of guys came across a high school that had a shower. Whites were welcome, only. Another time there was a restaurant incident where the whites would be served but not the colored.
In Saluda, S.C. I recall a laundromat with the white entrance (the good machines) on street level; the colored entrance (the cast-off machines) in the lower level, down the hill. Country stores had segregated counters for serving white and colored. The rules were the rules.
One time a member of our company came up with a copy of the Atlanta Constitution, then and still Georgia’s premiere newspaper. In that paper was a most remarkable advertisement/column “Pickrick Says:“, advertising Pickrick Skillet Fried Chicken for 25 cents, but devoting most of its full column length to a segregationist diatribe by owner Lester Maddox, who some years later became Governor of Georgia.
I didn’t keep that paper, but “Pickrick” and Maddox stuck in my mind. Some years later, in Atlanta for a conference, I wanted to see this Pickrick place, and did, in then-new Underground Atlanta.
Some years after that I went to the microfilm library at the University of Minnesota and printed out Maddox’ weekly rants for the month of August, 1963. There were five of them. I still have the copies.
On August 31, 1963, Maddox commented on “The Washington March” of August 28. Verbatim, here is what he said: “The Washington March proved that the Communists have gained a stronghold in labor, religion and government. It also proved that the movement is not one that is Christian, American, nor is it a movement for equality, but has turned into a fight against the white race. White renegades in public office, education, religion, labor, the news media and in business are guilty and the blood to be shed will be on their hands.“*
Maddox went on with other comments of a similar nature about other things, but when I hear later about today’s charade on the National Mall in Washington, I will be using my experience in 1963 as relevant context.
Eerily, what Maddox said 45 years ago resonates with today’s fear-ridden haters who will make up the nucleus of tomorrows gathering. These are people who would like to roll back the clock to the good old days when Negroes knew their proper place, and that place wasn’t equal.
We’ve come a long way since 1863 and the Emancipation Proclamation, and 1963, when there was a Dream that somehow 1863 would come to reality. We will not be turned back in 2010. But there is a powerful and vocal faction that considers progress in things like peace and justice to be somehow evil, and their presence will be seen today. They need to be exposed to the bright light of day.
* – The best response to Maddox is from Martin Luther King himself, in his 1964 book, “Why We Can’t Wait”, which chronicles 1963. This book is still in print. About the only point King misses in the book is the Communist accusation. At the time, he likely did not know that J.Edgar Hoover’s FBI was trying to find links between him, the movement he was leading, and Communism. To my knowledge, Hoover/FBI found no such links, ever.
In a sense, Maddox’ comment about “white renegades” probably basically fits King’s comments on what he observed in the same year. The power structure, including churches and labor unions, did its best to blunt the civil rights movement. Prosperous Negroes, who had made good money in the existing system, were not interested in the risks inherent in social change. Individual Priests, Nuns, workers, and other “renegades” did make the difference. They were the ones who appeared in public, especially in the early days. They disobeyed their bosses, people like Maddox, and took risks.

#230 – Dick Bernard: Lynn Elling, A World Citizen and Witness for Peace

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Every now and then, if one pays attention, someone wanders into their life and makes a difference just by being who he or she is.
For me, one such person is Lynn Elling, Minneapolis, closing in on 90 years young, and 67 years of marriage to Donna.

Lynn Elling at Big Sandy Lake August 21, 2010


Lots of us want to make a difference. Lynn’s experience as an LST officer in the War in the Pacific 1943-45 compelled him to seek a better way to solve problems than war, and a visit to the Hiroshima memorial in 1954 cemented his “driving dream.” I’ve previously told most of his story at a website I dedicated to one of his major accomplishments. It is here. I am privileged to be on the Board of the organization he founded, World Citizen, whose mission is Peace Education for teachers, as well as Peace Sites, Peace Poles and the Nobel Peace Prize Festival at Augsburg College, Minneapolis, for school children. The Nobel Peace Prize Festival is an annual event in the Twin Cities which honors the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate. Next years date: March 4, 2011. The laureate is President Barack Obama.
Lynn was, it seems, born to lead. I was at Big Sandy Lake near McGregor MN last Saturday, at his invitation, for the annual gathering of the Big Sandy Lake homeowners association – a 500 homeowner group which has Lynn’s palm prints all over it. At the picnic he and Donna were recognized for their leadership, particularly in establishment of a Big Sandy Community Foundation to help preserve the lake environment as well as contribute to the greater surrounding community. A week or two earlier he had been honored for his work on Peace at the Concordia Language Villages camp near Bemidji (in the above photo, he’s holding a memento he received at that event.) I know he was President of his Church Congregation in Minneapolis, and on and on.
No question, he’s been a driven man, driven by his driving dream of Peace amongst all peoples and nations.
Outside the door of their cabin – a place he’s known as his lake home since he was two years old – is a symbol of his dedication to Peace.

The designation of the Elling's cabin as a Peace Site


Anyone, any place, can become a Peace Site. The information is here. Check it out. The importance of being a Peace Site is symbolic, yet substantive. It gives witness to a place of Peace.
Thanks, Lynn and Donna, for your witness to Peace over many years.

Lynn and Donna at the Big Sandy Lake homeowners annual picnic August 21, 2010

#228 – Dick Bernard: Making the Change from "Swords into Plowshares"

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This post relates directly to #227 – The Last Truck Out.
My guess is that there are relatively few who truly believe that Perpetual War is the path to Perpetual Peace. Even those who recite the assorted ‘might is right’ mantras probably doubt the wisdom of this position. Tens of millions upon tens of millions of war dead, especially in the last hundred years, testify to the insanity of war as solution to problems. We know we need a different formula for living together on this planet or we’re all dead.
Still, ours is a nation built on the value of military might and conquest, and huge numbers of us, including myself, have very close familiarity with the military system. So, when in doubt, the path to peace is usually more war: it is a national mantra, difficult to change. Sometimes it seems impossible to change.
Wednesday night I was heartened when that last combat truck came through the gate from Iraq into Kuwait. I was heartened even though 50,000 U.S. troops remain in Iraq, which is still an unstable country, politically.
I was heartened because possibly, just possibly, the scales have tipped from a military solution to every problem, to more of an emphasis on diplomacy: the possibility that a Department of State can play a larger role against an immense Department of Defense. I will continue to believe that what happened yesterday was an immense step forward, rather than a petty and unimportant one.
“We, the people” are key to encouraging this transition. How?
As I write, I have in front of me a dog-eared copy of Martin Luther King, Jr’s 1964 book “Why We Can’t Wait“. It was a used book when I received it – a plus not a minus! – a most welcome gift from my friend Lydia Howell in December, 2006. It is a book I urge everyone to read reflectively. My edition, from 1968, is the reprinted and identical edition still available at bookstores and on-line.
MLK wrote the book when he was 34 years old, and it was published shortly after his 35th birthday; and a few months after the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, who he knew personally. He recounts the sorry history of race relations in this country, with an emphasis on the more recent history of the Civil Rights movement in the 1950s, and particularly the watershed year of 1963, the year of his Letter from the Birmingham Jail (which is reprinted in full in the book.) (MLK was responding to a letter from prominent Alabama clergymen who were urging moderation. It is very difficult to find their letter on-line, even today, so I have attached it Alabama Clergy MLK 63001.)
King’s true genius was not only his rhetorical skills, in my opinion.
King knew grassroots organizing, and the politics of possibility as well as the realities of politics, formal and informal. He richly recounts the struggles in his book.
In the book he gives great credit to a minister most of us have likely never heard of: a man named Fred Shuttlesworth who built the Alabama base for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference. “The courageous minister’s audacious public defiance of Bull Connor had become a source of inspiration and encouragement to Negroes throughout the South“, King says (pp 51-52).
The hard-hearted Bull Connor also receives some of the credit for the successes of 1963.
At page 132, King goes further: “I am reminded of something President Kennedy said to me at the White House following the signing of the Birmingham agreement. “Our judgment of Bull Connor should not be too hard,” he commented. “After all, in his way, he has done a good deal for civil-rights legislation this year.” King continues: “It was the people who moved their leaders, not the leaders who moved the people….”
King and the Civil Rights Movement worked with different issues at a different time in history than today’s Peace movement.
The Civil Rights Movement was fighting centuries of oppression; in the War and Peace environment of today, Peace leaders need to recognize that War has been successful, and re-fashion their arguments around the ultimate failure of War as a solution, especially in today’s and the future environment.
It is a difficult transition which we all have to make.
War kills.
Peace and justice are the only long term solutions.

#227 – Dick Bernard: The last truck out….

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Last night about 6:55 p.m. local time I turned on the TV to watch some evening news.
Rather than what I expected, I was watching the last combat units pulling out of Iraq into neighboring Kuwait. I sat transfixed by this until near 9 p.m. my time, and (if I recall rightly) 3:53 a.m. local time in Kuwait, August 19, 2010, when the last immense and other-worldly combat vehicle went through the border gate, which then closed behind it.
I felt I was witnessing history in the making.
At this moment, 5 a.m. local time on August 19, 2010, there is little on the internet news behind this screen I’m typing on. I’m sure this will rapidly change. NBC-MSNBC had the exclusive reporting rights on this one apparently because they possessed the technology to instantly cover the breaking story, which was secret until it actually happened.
Now the torrent of commentary and controversy will begin along all sorts of predicted trajectories. This was, after all, a withdrawal of the last specifically designated combat troops in Iraq, and 50,000 American troops remain in Iraq, and Afghanistan is the issue du jour. (Area map with Minnesota superimposed for scale is Iraq environs ca 2005001.)
But it is an historic event ranking, for me, with the time I stopped along highway 2 in northern Minnesota to listen to the account of “the Eagle has landed” on the moon (July 20, 1969); the early afternoon when I was in a science lab in Hallock MN when the PA announcement came that President Kennedy had been shot (November 22, 1963); the evening in 1991 when the car radio brought news that the U.S. had invaded Iraq in Desert Storm (January 16, 1991) (March, 1991, note from a GI there, to me, is Soldier letter 1991001); Afghanistan Oct 7 2001, and Baghdad (March 20, 2003); the iconic last helicopter out of Saigon (April 29, 1975)….
I will especially be watching to see how (not if, but how) the very odd “coalition” of the Far Right and Far Left will position on this particular historical development.
Neither Far Left or Far Right seem to have any time for President Obama these days, for precisely opposite reasons. They have joined forces in driving down his poll numbers – it is a perfect example (in my opinion) of the danger of drawing false conclusions from seemingly obvious data in polls. Lately “the fur has been flying” over a comment about the “professional Left” from the White House Press Secretary. Since I mostly “hang” with people over on the dark (left) side, and indeed watched last nights development on the news program of one of these “professional Lefties”, I’ve seen commentaries ad infinitum about that supposed slight a few days ago.
A friend, a couple of days ago, caught this unholy alliance idea pretty well, in a personal comment on another issue: “The truly interesting thing is how the left and the right see Obama…. One sees him as a “communist”, the other sees him in cahoots with Wall Street. Based on that alone he must be doing something right.”
Ironically (my opinion), President Obama is the voice of moderation, seeking some stability in this almost collapsed nation of ours, and this requires navigating extraordinarily rough seas.
So, I’ll watch and see how this all plays out.
Tonight, just by happenstance, I’m moderating an inaugural and small community conversation brought together by five of us to try to get into civil conversation about issues of the day. It will be an interesting experiment, hopefully the first of many such conversations of people of differing feelings and beliefs. (We gather at Peaceful United Methodist Church on Steepleview Rd in Woodbury if you want to join us – 7 p.m.)
What I witnessed on TV last night wasn’t on our agenda for tonight.
Tonight it likely will be.
Stay tuned.
(NOTE: I have other commentaries on the general issue. Most recent is a commentary on Afghanistan. Simply print the word in the Search Box. War is another category.)

#226 – Dick Bernard: Winning Last

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I arrived late for the Dakota County Softball League Championship Picnic on August 17, and as I got out of the car I heard the beginning of the singing of the Star Spangled Banner. I turned around and in front of me was the American flag, backlit by a brilliant sun, and as much instinctively as intentionally, I stopped in place, took off my baseball hat, and paid attention to the national anthem as beautifully sung by two young women somewhere in the park.
It was a perfect start to a perfect three hours on a pleasant Tuesday afternoon at Aronson Park in Lakeville MN.

During the Star Spangled Banner August 17, 2010


The event was, I guess one would say, the “World Series” for a bunch of truly exceptional adults, one of whom is my daughter, Heather (photo below). The program listed a dozen teams, roughly half in the “A” League, the other half in the “B”. Heather’s team was vying for 5th Place in their Division.

Heather Bernard August 17, 2010


After the national anthem, and before the games, came the picnic for about 400 of us: players, coaches, families and friends. Fried Chicken never tasted so good! Heather’s sisters and their families were there, as well as the family in whose home she lives with two other exceptional adults. We sometimes joke with Heather being “the Queen”. For sure, on Tuesday, she was! Her own cheering section was “in the stands”.
After the picnic came the game. Every player came to bat, and spent time as fielders. Can’t say I saw any double plays or ‘out of the park’ home runs, but I was truly at the World Series! Heather is a big sports fan. When she came up to bat, she did the routine, “knocking” the dirt off her sneakers; doing the stretching exercise with the bat before coming to the plate – the whole nine yards. She rapped a couple of near-hits. While in this particular game she didn’t actually reach base, it made no difference at all to anybody, including herself. She’d shown up and taken a cut!

The mighty Heather taking a cut at the Plate


Game over – each game lasts an hour – Heather’s team, Rave Red, was on the short end of an 8-4 final score. The way some people would see it, they came in last in the league.
But you wouldn’t know it from the players, the coaches, the fans in the ‘stands’. They were winners, as they congratulated the opposition, and ran the bases one last time for this season, and received their trophy for a truly winning season.

Heather receives her award


Before the game, I made a side comment to Jeff, who’s a good friend of mine, one of the volunteer coaches, and parent of one of the athletes.
“Without volunteers, this country of ours would collapse“, I said. He agreed. We are bombarded daily with all sorts of very bad news about us; it is good, sometimes, to take time to identify the good – and there’s lots of that, too.
So to all the unsung heroes, especially those folks who make things like the Dakota County Softball League happen, including the players on the field, I offer my heart-felt thanks and Congratulations!
You make my day.

Coach Jeff gives an Award to one of his players after the game.


Seen at a game in July, 2010


The sign on the car door says this: “Kate was born with a serious ability“.

#225 – Dick Bernard: Social Security celebrates a birthday

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Sunday, August 15, 2010, is the 75th birthday of the signing of the Social Security Act. Actually the day was a Wednesday, and there is more than ample history available at the Social Security website.
As a veteran recipient of the benefits of Social Security, and as a contributor to the program for many years as an employee, I have an obvious interest in the act.
As a person, I most often think of the Act in the context of my Grandfather Bernard, my Dad’s Dad. In his story is the story of both the history of and the need for a national system of income security.
Grandpa turned 65 on February 26, 1937. This happened to be virtually coincidental with the first actual payouts to Social Security recipients. Since this was a brand new program, he had likely contributed nothing to it. A heckuva deal. But life is a bit more complicated than that.
For many years, Grandpa was chief engineer in the flour mill in Grafton ND. He had a first-grade education, was a self-made and hard-working man, the “bread-winner” of the family, and proud of it. In context of the times, he was middle class. They owned a house, car, and were thrifty, saving money in the local bank. In 1925, he and Grandma took their only vacation that I know of: they spent a month back in the Quebec of his birth.
Life was going along well, that summer of 1925, when he was 53, and Grandma 44. These were the good old days, when heroic men fed their families and didn’t rely on the dole. Women stayed at home and raised the kids, and if you weren’t shiftless you worked for a living: no unemployment insurance or the like.
But then as now, unbeknownst to them, a curve ball was to deliver a strikeout to their best laid plans.
In the month of May, 1927, a couple of weeks before my Dad graduated from high school, two events happened within the same week in Grafton ND: the flour mill closed its doors forever; and the bank which held all of the family savings went under, leaving the family with no livelihood or savings. Dad had planned to go to college that fall, but those plans were delayed. Grandpa was 55, not the expected retirement age.
The Great Depression is usually marked as beginning in 1929. Theirs started two years earlier. Their youngest son, Frank, was still at home, 12 years old.
There is little historical record of how they survived the first half of the 1930s. Grandpa is said to have gotten some income from being a night watchman at the closed mill. He possibly received some income from a small pension resulting from service in the Spanish-American War in 1898-99 – a promise long-delayed by Congressional inertia. They probably got some assistance from relatives in the area, and they took in a couple of farm kids as boarders during some of the winter months. Some of the bank savings finally came back to them at about 10 cents on the dollar.
But when Grandpa qualified for Social Security in ’35, it was undoubtedly a god-send to the family, and it made possible a tiny house which they bought in Grafton, and lived in till they died in 1957 and 1963 respectively.
Today Grandpa’s generation is gone, and Dad’s is rapidly departing. Social Security has been a welcome reality in their lives.
I’m in the lucky generation to have the full benefits of Social Security.
The next generation – my kids – is much more vulnerable, and seems unaware of its vulnerability, and is courted to reject Social Security in favor of rugged individualism once again.
Ironically, the coalition to privatize social security seems to be some of the the youngers and the elders, for opposing reasons.
I hope they both wake up before the youngers experience the consequences of short-sightedness.
Grandpa thought he was secure, too.

#217 – Dick Bernard: "Way Out Here"

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Every year or two I get re-hooked on Country-Western (CW), and in recent months I’ve had the radio set on the local radio station that plays only CW.
It is interesting to listen to CW music, now and then. There is a particular dark side to the often simple down home laments. Like the guy whose preacher told him to pray for his ex-girl friend, and so he prays that’ll she’ll have a blow-out while goin’ 110 – themes like that.
Probably the anthem that grabs me most right now is Way Out Here by Josh Thompson. It speaks for itself. Listen, but also look at the video and the comments.
In my hearing, at least, there ain’t much hope in many of those country anthems. The one who sings about “rain is a good thang” cuz it makes corn and corn makes whiskey which makes his “baby” a little frisky…. As with Way Out Here, listen and look at the video and the comments.
Basically, it seems, if you ain’t got much, and not much hope of getting more, enjoy what little you’ve got. Quit complaining. I guess there’s some merit in that. But the next logical step is to give up, and accept a bad status quo.
All this plays right into the hands of the really Fat Cats who are quite content to have poor people be happy being poor and downtrodden.
“Way Out Here” seems to be set in coal mining country. The relatively recent tragedy in coal country, where 13 miners were killed, likely due to coal company negligence and flagrant ignoring of many safety regulations, doesn’t seem to have strong “legs” of outrage against the company among the local population. The mine, after all, is their livelihood, dangerous as it is. The multi-millionaire boss of the mining company can go around and publicly blame the government regulations for his problems, and get away with it. He knows how to get the choir to sing against the very (and only) entity that can help them out – government. Even “the good Lord” comes in second to their “gun” in protecting them from the outsiders “way out here”.
Does the Red-Neck CW represent a part of the Tea Party base? Mebbe so. Though it seems the true Tea-Partiers are more to the establishment Fat Cat side of society.
But not necessarily totally so. The difference between feeling hopeless and hopeful is only a few letters.
And CW ain’t bad. Even putting the links into this post is fun. Here’s Dierks Bentley. Dierks is a guy I actually saw in person at the North Dakota State Fair in 2007, and liked, a lot. I’d never heard of him before. You only get a sample here. Here’s the total song. And while you’re there listen to “What Was I Thinkin'”

#216 – Dick Bernard: "Wherever you go, you must find your own Calcutta"

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Sunday one of my favorite Catholic Priests, Fr. Joe Gillespie, was recalling a 1994 visit to Mother Teresa’s Sisters of Charity in Calcutta.
At the time, he was a university professor in the United States, and he came by unannounced during a heavy monsoon rain. He knocked on the door and a Nun answered. “Would it be possible to see Mother Teresa”, Father Joe said. “Yes, she’s been expecting you.”
So, off the street he came, and face to face with Mother Teresa for a 35 minute conversation, puzzling all the while at the “she’s been expecting you” comment.
Visit nearing an end, she said to him, you should come here and work. “I can’t”, he said, “I’m under contract at the University”.
She understood, but as he departed, she said, “wherever you go, you must find your own Calcutta”. No more needed to be said.
This particular Sunday we had a visitor, a Priest from the Parish of Ste Catherine d’Alexandre de Bouzy, about 60 miles and four hours west of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, on the north side of the long peninsula. We had expected this visitor, Fr. Claude-Renel Elys’ee.
After Mass Fr. Elys’ee met with those of us who were interested, talking about the usual things one would expect when talking about Haiti: their infrastructure was damaged, not destroyed, needed to be replaced. What they need is actual money – they can get the materials and they have the people who can do the work. They need medicines and school supplies. It was good to have him there, as it was a chance to reconnect directly with Haiti which has, six months after the quake, essentially gone invisible to most of us.

Fr. Ely'see at Basilica of St. Mary Minneapolis July 25, 2010


“Wherever you go, you must find your own Calcutta” came to mind often during his talk (in French, with interpreter).
We each can do much. We just need to exercise our imagination, and have the will and determination to follow through.
The question kept nagging at Fr. Joe after he left Mother Teresa. “How did she know I was coming, when I had done nothing beforehand to announce my visit?”
Back home in St. Louis he asked an older colleague about this.
“Oh”, he said, “she tells everybody that.”
But what a neat, neat, neat idea of a welcome.
And what a doable concept: “Wherever you go, you must find your own Calcutta”.

#214 – Dick Bernard: Exploring a Cultural Heritage

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There was a particularly remarkable moment at the closing program of the Initiatives in French Annual Conference in Bismarck ND July 10.
We had been treated to an evening of wonderful music and dance with a French flavor. The performers were Metis, Native American, African, and Caucasian. They performed ancient and modern music from West Africa to the North Dakota Indian Reservations to the traditional music and dance of the French-Canadian settlers to the Midwest. In common, they celebrated elements of the French culture, which they either represented, or were part of by native language or ancestry. It was a very rich evening.
The final number brought all the groups back to the stage and they improvised together. It was absolutely delightful. Here’s a photo (others from the program are at the end of this piece):

Metis fiddler Eddie King Johnson leads the improv at Belle Mehus Auditorium, Bismarck ND, July 10, 2010.


The U.S. is without any question a multi-cultural nation, in a multi-cultural world. Every world culture is represented within our borders. Increasingly, this is true of other nations as well. This reality can complicate relationships and, worse, can be used to fuel division and dissension through fear. The IFMidwest aim is to celebrate this diversity, and build bridges across boundaries of geography, language, race, culture, tradition….
This bridge building is not easy. On that single stage on Saturday night were performers from Togo, Cameroun, Congo (Zaire), and Cote d’Ivoire – all African countries whose official language is French. (One of the performers – I believe from Cameroun – said that in her country alone there were 218 different tribal cultures, each with their own dialect.) Within my French-Canadian extended family, I have cousins whose first language in Canada is French, including some who have considerable difficulty communicating in English. Then there’s me, who was never exposed to French, even in a school elective course, and is thus language handicapped when someone chooses to speak French, as happened on occasion on Saturday night.
The organizers of the Bismarck conference sought to implement the idea of Heritage as defined by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).
As identified in the conference program “1. …Heritage consists of the worlds natural environment, its history and social institutions and its human spirit to imagine.
2. Examples…in the natural environment are the prairies, bodies of water, wetlands, mountains, oceans, buttes and bluffs, etc. In our social institutions and history, they are schools, families, businesses, farms, ranches, parishes, libraries, and museums, etc. The third heritage, that of the human spirit is found in paintings, stories, drama, the interpretation of history, politics, in moving speeches, music, sculpture, architecture, and daily customs we cultivate from cuisine to gardening.
3. Living heritage…consists of reflection on our past and the pursuit of relationships with the elements that constitute Heritage. Study in genealogy or other aspects of Heritage develop our curiosity, causing us to raise such questions as where our ancestors lived, how they fit into the society of their time, and what motivated them. Living heritage leads to new relationships among the three areas UNESCO defines as heritage.”
During the year preceding the conference, indeed for the previous 30 years, I had been delving into the “living heritage” component of my own family, culminating in a 500 page family history I brought to the gathering. So, the issue was very fresh on my mind.
At the end of the conference, I delivered to the Director of IF Midwest three large boxes full of material I had used for my book. They now reside in the IF Midwest archives at the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks.
As I picked up one of the boxes, in which my father’s papers had been stored for many years, I noticed on the end of the box something I had never seen before: whichever company had made the box included instructions about its contents. The instructions were in English, in French, and in Spanish. American business has, for some time, really, come to grips with a reality that we all need to face as Americans. We are not, and will never be, a place where one language and one language only will dominate. Best for us to learn how to make the best of the abundant riches that come with our diversity.

African Arts Arena of Fargo and Grand Forks joined by a member of the audience.


Members of the audience join the on-stage performance


Dance Revels of the Twin Cities performs traditional French-Canadian and Metis dances.


Additional photos here.

#211 – Dick Bernard: Creating History, "Fact" vs "Story"

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“History: 1) an account of what has happened; narrative; story; tale.”
Websters New Universal Unabridged Dictionary, 1979 edition
July 8, about 6 p.m., I arrived at Bismarck ND, where I was to attend a French in America conference. My father was 100% French-Canadian, and I’d just completed a 500 page book on his family’s history, so the conference was a great reason for a trip (and an excellent experience, by the way.)
I was tired, but before I checked into my hotel I wanted to find the site where General Henry Hastings Sibley and troops had reached the Missouri River in the summer of 1863. A long-ago relative, Private Samuel Collette, had been one of the 2800 troops under Sibley’s command. I found the site (General Sibley Campground 3 or 4 miles south of downtown Bismarck at the south end of Washington Street). The next day I was at the ND Capitol grounds, and saw a large pie-shaped monument on the grounds. It turned out to be a map of the last part of the Sibley campaign. The Sibley venture had been, apparently, a very important event in the history of North Dakota, which was to become a state 26 years later. His unit had been in what is now Bismarck July 29-August 1, 1863.

Map of the last portion of the Gen. Henry Hastings Sibley Campaign in 1863


There were some likely facts leading to my interest: I had Samuel Collette’s military records from 1862-63; I now had seen the end-point of the campaign he’d been part of, and knew the many stops in between Minnesota and the Missouri River.
Beyond this, everything was story: the varied interpretations of why Sibley went west, and their meaning etc. etc. Such it is with history: as the above definition suggests, history is simply a collection of stories, perhaps illuminating, perhaps confusing or deliberately distorting.
The family history I had written, which was many years in the making, is many things. But a primary celebration of the history was the recording of stories, particularly of my common folk ancestors: a collective story which included their own recollections, or second or third hand recollections, or documents or written records. I was lucky in that I had a cadre of past and present family members who seemed to have an interest in recording people and events, including through photographs. But my reality is similar to most common families: people lacked literacy, or the time, or the interest, to record things that later generations might find interesting or significant. And every family has pieces of their tale that they’d rather not tell – the hidden and untold story is part of every narrative, without exception. So, for me, the task became assembling a puzzle from assorted scraps of evidence. A very significant portion of those 500 pages were stories recorded by various people over many years. I didn’t call these “facts”; rather they were “stories”. I acknowledged the missing pieces in the book….
On the final afternoon of the conference, I “skipped school” for a couple of hours, just to drive around Bismarck, a city I had last visited 25 years earlier.
Driving down the Main Street of the town, towards the Missouri River bridge, I saw a most unusual sign:

My curiosity was peaked, and I set out to find this Memorial. There was a monument (below) and on two plaques at this Memorial were two very carefully written narratives defining the composers view of the “Global War on Terrorism”. The words on the plaques are reprinted below, and speak for themselves. The Memorial was dedicated September 11, 2009.

Global War on Terrorism Memorial


Were these indelible words representations of “facts”, or were they, simply, some unnamed person’s “story” – a carefully written attempt to fashion a heroic one-sided narrative of a troubling and divisive time in United States history? This “War on a Word” (Terrorism) almost ruined us economically, and severely tarnished our reputation as an ethical society through things like sanctioned use of torture. We lost standing as a part of the world community; and reputation lost is difficult to regain.
Did the permanent recording of heroic victorious words in bronze, in a public space, with a sign showing the way to them, elevate them from “story” into “fact”, more significant than other stories? Or were they, rather, simply an attempt to diminish or eliminate other stories, perhaps even more factual, from the community consciousness?
Earlier, in driving around Bismarck, on individual lawns I saw Peace signs on a couple of lawns. I wonder what their opinion of that Terrorism Memorial might be.

Peace sign in Bismarck ND July 9, 2010


Let the conversation continue.
*****
The Story as told by the plaques at the Global War on Terrorism Memorial:
#1
THE GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM
Operation Enduring Freedom
Operation Enduring Freedom began October 7, 2001, in Afghanistan following al-Qaeda’s attack on the United State on September 11, 2001, and has also included operations in the Philippines, Horn of Africa, Trans Sahara, and Kyrgyzstan. In October, 2006, NATO forces, led by the United States and United Kingdom, assumed command of Coalition forces. Afghani Presidential elections were held in October, 2004, and parliamentary elections followed in October, 2005. The enemy continues to resist the elected government of Afghanistan and Coalition efforts to secure freedom and democracy for Afghan citizens.
Operation Iraqi Freedom
Operation Iraqi Freedom began on March 20, 2003, with the liberation of Iraq. Coalition forces from 40 nations participated in military action in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom. By mid-April, 2003, Coalition forces began restoring civil services, despite violence aimed at the new Iraqi government and Coalition forces. In 2006 the first democratic elections were held. On June 29, 2009, United States forces withdrew from Baghdad and other cities across Iraq.
“We seek peace, knowing that peace is the climate of freedom” Dwight Eisenhower
#2
Memorial to the Fallen
in the Global War on Terrorism
This Memorial is dedicated to the members of the United States military and Department of Defense civilians who lost their lives in the Global War on Terrorism. It is a place where families, friends and fellow citizens can reflect on the lives of the Fallen and remember their service to our country. It was funded through the generosity of businesses, organizations and individuals throughout North Dakota and across the United States. The memorial is a joint venture between the City of Bismarck and the North Dakota National Guard.
The Battlefield Cross
The Battlefield Cross has been used as a visible reminder of a deceased comrade since the Civil War. The helmet and identification tags signify the Fallen. The inverted weapon with bayonet signals a time for prayer, a break in the action to pay tribute to the Fallen. The combat boots represent the final march of the last battle.
“We will always remember. We will always be proud. We will always be prepared, so we we will always be free.” President Ronald Reagan