{"blocks":[{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"I met her father once.
He'd come up from Birmingham
after the church bombing
to be a Dean at DU.
He drove out to Commerce City--
the suburb next to the stinky
oil refineries
where half the fathers
were long haul truckers
& gone most of the time
to talk to my class
about the Civil Rights Movement.
His face was full of lines
aged in from a lifetime of wariness.
He slept with one eye open.
Growing up black in the Deep South
will do that."}},{"type":"image","data":{"file":{"url":"https://hollywoodprogressive.com/.image/c_fit,h_600,w_600/MTg0NTA4MDI5NDMwMjc3NjA3/condi-200.gif"},"caption":""}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":" He said something like:
“Yes, we loved Martin;
we followed him,
but most of us
kept shot guns
under our beds.
You don't let people
shoot up your house
without a fight.”"}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":" Non-violence, yes, but
practical too."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":" His daughter
told The New Yorker
she owed the Movement
nothing.
All her success
was entirely
her own doing.
(I liked her father better.)"}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":" Now Condi
gets $150,000
to tell college students
what the Civil Rights
Movement was all about."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":" She doesn't get
put on trial
like Goring
before his suicide
& her pal,
the football fan,
he's exhibiting his paintings
instead of wearing
an orange jump suit
for unspeakable crimes."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":" Such is life
in the last days
of the Republic."}},{"type":"paragraph","data":{"text":"Phil Woods"}}]}

Phil Woods

A Little Biographical Memory