Thanksgiving is a true American holiday. I discovered this while trying to explain it to someone new to the country. It isn’t a religious holiday, a saint’s day or anything like that. It doesn’t mark the day some big treaty was signed or an important battle was fought. It doesn’t really mark anything. It’s just a day when we are supposed to stop for a moment and give thanks for all that we have, although with all the hoopla of traveling and preparing food, sometimes the giving thanks does seem to take a back seat.
*****
The first weekend in December is a big night in downtown Greensboro and a busy weekend for Downtown Greensboro Inc. Friday, Dec. 2 is the Festival of Lights from 6 to 9 p.m., when the streets of downtown Greensboro are filled with lights, music and people. Then Saturday, Dec. 3 at noon is the Christmas Parade on Greene, Market and Church streets. Once again this year the parade will feature Macy’s style balloons.
*****
There is a move afoot, apparently led by the News & Record, to rewrite the history of Greensboro. The N&R repeatedly states that Greensboro public schools were not integrated until 1971. This is false. The Greensboro Board of Education voted to desegregate the Greensboro City Schools in 1954, shortly after the Supreme Court decision Brown v. the Board of Education – the first school board in the South to do so. Because of issues with the state government, the actual desegregation didn’t take place until 1957. It was a slow desegregation process, but it was far more peaceful than in other Southern states.
Greensboro should be proud that it was the first to vote for desegregation and that the desegregation of schools was not wracked with violence as it was in other places.
What happened in 1971 was forced busing for racial integration, which did result in violence and was opposed by some black civil rights leaders. About 30 years later the Guilford County Board of Education finally decided it wasn’t working and ended forced busing for racial integration.
*****
Congratulations to 6th District Rep. Mark Walker for being named chairman of the Republican Study Committee. It’s a much bigger deal than it may sound like. The Republican Study Committee has been around since 1973 and is a group of conservative Republicans who join forces to try and bring about a more conservative agenda. It has a low-key name, but the RSC gets a lot of good work done.
*****
Formerly respectable newspapers like The New York Times, which went overboard in their attacks on Donald Trump and their adoration of Hillary Clinton during the presidential campaign, don’t have to pretend that they are going to do better or that they didn’t do what everyone knows they did.
What they could do is admit that they are not what they have for decades claimed to be – unbiased newspapers. I think it makes a lot more sense for them to stay the course and admit that they don’t have one conservative on the staff and they don’t have any idea how conservatives think about topics.
It would be freeing for them to be honest. It is so hard to hide your true self. I invite them to free themselves from the burden of pretending to be something they are not.
