Still Relevant Today

 Today is Martin Luther King Jr. day. 

With all upheaval going on today, his quotes are even more relevant. Here is one:

Honoring Martin Luther King Jr.

More than ever, we need his messages to resound with us.

Cyrsti's Condo "Thought of the Day"

The Day the Music Died

For the majority of you Cyrsti's Condo readers who live in the United States, you would have to be living in a cave to not know this week marks the 50th anniversary of the assassination of John F. Kennedy.

I was a newly minted 14 year old wandering the halls of the school I attended when the news came across the public address system. The day turned out to the first of two (so far) in my life, when time stood still. The other of course was the 9/11 attack.

My first thought was assassination?   What the hell happened and wasn't that just something you read about in history books and not a modern reality?

Well, as the coming years were to prove, the term was going to become all to common. It's not up to me to dwell on the charisma and leadership Kennedy brought to our country or the idea Kennedy was perhaps the last President to be totally claimed by two completely diverse generations.  My parents, because he was a hero in their war (WWII) and a hero to mine because he inspired us to be proud of who we were as a country.  We backed down the Russians, were going to the moon and established a radical idea like the Peace Corps to help other less fortunate countries. Plus lets not forget his wife Jackie whose style and grace seemed to elevate his charisma to another level or the sexy, mesmerizing Marilyn Monroe "Mr President"  birthday song which quickly erased all thoughts of Jackie's style.

So quickly, the era was over and with all due respects to Don McLean and his "American Pie" classic song, JFK's death was the day the music died. Vice President Lyndon Johnson took over and with him any hopes of me not visiting Southeast Asia with him.  All of the sudden our government was not inspiring anyone except with handouts and a totally ridiculous war.  The pressure got to be so much LBJ bailed and "Tricky Dick Nixon" stepped in.  The antithesis of JFK in many ways Nixon stepped into the presidency in 1968, the same year as the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. Finally let's not forget the fall of 1970 when the music really did begin to die along with Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.

Certainly, John F. Kennedy benefits from being frozen in time. We will never know what directions our country would have taken and I'm certainly not smart enough to speculate.  In my life though, November 22, 1963 was the day the music died. Somewhere deep down inside, I knew it.


 

Martin Luther King

Thanks Dr. King!
For those of you outside the United States today is Dr. Martin Luther King Jr's. birthday. He was a leader in the African American Civil Rights struggle in the 1960's and was assasinated in 1968.
Many of his non violent efforts spearheaded a civil rights campaign which extended basic civil protections to the Black American public.
Finally last year the transgender population of our country began to achieve some protections under law which Dr. King fought for - and many gay Americans already have.
In recent history it's easy to say the Civil Right's movement in the 1960's was the beginning of the civil rights struggle which we as transgender American's still are lacking.
Dr. King provided a very clear path. In many ways he indeed could have been a  very sympathetic supporter of our cause if he was alive today.
I just wanted to take the moment to thank him!

1969

For many of us who lived through the 1960's (and remember it) 1968 and 1969 were especially exciting years.
All different genres of music were bursting onto the scene and were showcased in the 1969 Woodstock Music Festival in upstate New York.
The previous year Martin Luther King Jr.  and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated in 1968. Nothing was for certain except we were stuck in a lose/lose non war in Vietnam which was drafting and killing friends. D.M - R.I.P.
In the midst of all of this came the Stonewall Riots in late June of 1969.
Of course Stonewall is widely regarded as the beginning of the gay rights movement long before the "T" words were widely recognized. (transgender, transsexual excepting transvestite) Don't hold me to dates and people here, my point is looking back Stonewall was huge for me as a transgendered person. Let's remember even the gay community had nowhere to go easily or even legally before it.
As gay venues became more accessible they were a wonderful starting point for me to take steps out of my gender closet.
Being the historian that I am (amateur with a degree=dangerous) I decided to pass along another article before July settles in tomorrow:
Take a look here for the original "Advocate" article from 1969!