7 8 Freedom Ain’t Nothin’ But A Word
As the queue nudged forward I found myself
humming Gil Scott Heron’s Johannesburg. “L.A.’s like
Johannesburg, New York’s like Johannesburg, Detroit’s
like Johannesburg...Freedom ain’t nothing but a word
ain’t nothing but a word…let me see your ID”
For these two contrasting yet similar mornings were an
illustration that freedom is not a static state, a set of
rights which, once accomplished can be relied upon to
remain eternally. It is a an ongoing struggle which once
attained must be extolled, defended and whenever
possible extended.
“The law got rid of segregation and the law can bring
it back,” one administrator at the University of
Michigan explained, after the university’s affirmative
action program to enhance the opportunities of
African American, latino and white students in the
admissions process had been challenged in the US
Supreme Court.
What those who came before us have gained can, if
not protected, be removed so that we have nothing to
pass on to those who come after.
“If there is no struggle, there is no progress,” said 19th
century abolitionist, Frederick Douglass. “Those who
profess to favour freedom yet depreciate agitation, are
men who want crops without ploughing up the ground;
they want rain without thunder and lightning. They
want the ocean without the awful roar of its many
waters.”
The means of both defending and undermining those
freedoms of course change with the times. During the
Fifties and Sixties African Americans were barred from
the polls with police dogs, water cannons and billy
clubs. Those who made it through the barrage of racial
abuse from the mob and state-sponsored violence
were often denied the franchise after failing to answer
impossible questions like how many stars are there in
the sky or how many grains in a bag of flour.