Yolanda King is spokeswoman for father’s powerful legacy
Internet Resources for Black History Month

Colorado initiative: restoring the right to vote on nuclear weapons use.

NORMAN SOLOMON  -The Los Alamos story: spinning like crazy (Media Beat)
                                         -50 Years Later, The Tragedy of Nuclear Tests in Nevada

FAIR -Depleted Coverage of NATO's Depleted Uranium Weapons

US delegation  arrives in Baghdad

Two peoples, frozen in terror

Peace Community

Peace/Life Center Annual Meeting Feb. 24
Meet the new Office Coordinator for the Modesto Peace/Life Center!
March 31st community celebration will honor Cesar Chavez
Adopt a minefield: clear a path to a safer world
Tri-Valley CARE -Back from the brink: It’s time to take all nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert

Howard TenBrink: A Life Well Lived

Peace and Justice Links

Living Lightly:

Poets' Corner

"Now that he is safely dead," she pointed out ,"dead men make such convenient heroes. It is far easier to build monuments, than make a better world."

Ms. King was a memorable and inspiring speaker at Modesto’s 7th annual Martin Luther King, Jr. Commemoration last month. The Modesto Peace/Life Center, one of 11 local sponsoring organizations, helped orchestrate the local 15th national holiday celebration, which commemorated what would have been Rev. King’s 72nd birthday.

This "holiday is not a day off," she instructed but "a day on...a day of [good] deeds, service and offering acts of kindness."

She lamented the tendency for people to be what she labels "bystanders," which she breaks down into three groups: "Woulda, coulda, shoudas" - people who talk the talk, but who disappoint by walking out the door, when it’s time to walk the walk. "Can’ts" - who always have an excuse for being unable to follow through. She tells these people "you have to do your best, then God can do the rest." "Won’ts" - who fear conformity or are greedy; whose attitude is "it’s always been like this and nothing is going to change."

She is convinced that miracles can happen when people come together around clear issues and just causes.

"We all have our prejudices," she points out. "No one is exempt from racism, sexism" or other preconceived ideas. "We must do something to fight them every day."

"You must be the change you wish to see in the world," she challenged with the words of Mahatma Gandhi. The beginning of the change that was the Civil Rights Movement led by her famous father came to life through the choice of one woman, Rosa Parks, who on December 1, 1955, refused to give up her seat and move to the back of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama. "Women have been in the forefront of change all over the world. Their stories need to be told."

Her father was influenced by the "power and practice of nonviolence" inspired by Gandhi and Jesus. "It is not suffering in silence, but active and responsible opposition to evil." Nonviolence needs to be used to "end conflict by refusing to perpetuate it."

"If we [are to] go forward as a nation, we must go beyond the things that separate us. We must learn to disagree without being disagreeable. It is hard working with people, but we must reach across all the differences and learn to feed [and nurture] each other."

"We must resist the temptation of trying to be color blind," she warns. "This is naive, not the solution. It does matter what color we are. Don’t ignore color, look beyond it. Celebrate and embrace our differences until difference doesn’t make a difference" in the way we treat each other.

"If I could make any dream come true, I would wave a magic wand" and cause "every single person to learn to honor themselves as divine originals.

As an actor and public speaker, she chooses to carry on her father’s legacy through what she calls "edutainment," a way of using theater and the arts to create stories that make history real. She feels bringing history to life encourages young people to want to know more by digging deeper."

Although her father and Malcolm X met briefly only one time, she says they had great respect for one another and a shared vision that the latter years of the movement were more about the haves and the have-nots. Her father risked the last six months of his life seeking common ground for all ethnic groups. She shares her father’s wish that we can all "live together as brother and sisters without fear."

"I am proud of my father and what he contributed. People love me and don’t even know me. They love me because they love my father. If I had my druthers, I ‘d rather take him out to dinner on his birthday." This time is "bittersweet" for me.

Myrtle Osner, a long-time peace activist, Stanislaus Connections editorial member, likened Ms. King’s talk to "a necklace of precious stones," which offered "valuable insights into the life of Martin Luther King, Jr." and "was a poignant reminder of the days of the civil rights struggle" pointing to "how far we’ve come - and how far we still have to go."

Some Internet Resources for Black History Month

"We should emphasize not Negro History, but the Negro in history. What we need is not a history of selected races or nations, but the history of the world void of national bias, race hate, and religious prejudice."

- Carter Woodson, on founding Negro History Week, 1926

The African-American Mosaic/The Library of Congress
Writing Black, Literature and History written by and on African Americans
The Archives of African American Music and Culture, Indiana University
A Librarian's Guide to Web Resources for Black History Month, from the Philadelphia Inquirer
Black History Month in the News/RealCities
African American Culture, a web guide from About.com
Black History Hotlist
Black Facts Online

Connections Black History Month Special Issue (Feb 1999)

A series of lectures to explore issues faced in the Middle East from various perspectives will be held at Congregation Beth Shalom, 1705 Sherwood Ave., Modesto. The public is invited.

Lectures will begin at 3 p.m.

• February 18; Dr. Samuel A. Oppenheim, Professor at Cal State University, Stanislaus, will speak on "A Historian Looks at Israel"
• March 4: Mira Mayer, Professor at Cal State University, Stanislaus, will talk on "An Israeli in the United States".
• March 18: Rabbi Paul S. Gordon, religious leader of Congregation Beth Shalom in Modesto, will talk about "A Religious Perspective on the Existence of the State of Israel."
• April 22 is to be announced.

A group discussion will follow each talk..

ACTION: For more information, please phone 571-6060.

"We have guided missiles and misguided men."

— Martin Luther King

Colorado Proposition #3, The Citizens Right To Review All Nuclear Weapons Use. If approved by the voters in the November 2001 election, it would require the state attorney general to begin a class-action lawsuit against the power of the president to start nuclear war on his word alone.

For the first time ever, the military establishment would have to justify their fossilized nuclear war fighting policy in the court of public opinion as well as a court of law. But the best part is that the lawsuit would question only the president's ability to instantly launch land-based missiles while leaving the bombers and submarine-based missiles still under his control. This allows for a slow and gradual legal inspection of a policy that is no longer in touch with the defense realities we face in the 21st Century and do so without leaving us vulnerable to potential attack. Read Proposition #3 (www.respectthelaw.org/initiative.html) and learn that these missiles are not only still on hair-trigger alert despite the end of the Cold War, but that many are hidden inside Colorado right near our homes.

Now this may not be the best plan for restoring the rule of law and the voice of the citizens when it comes to nuclear war fighting systems left over from last century, but it is a workable plan with a set timetable. If you ever want your opinion to matter about the most import decision a free people can ever make, when and if to go to nuclear war, now is the time to take a stand.

ACTION: contact: Respect The Law Foundation,  641 Eldorado Blvd. #812 Broomfield, CO 80021, ppenk@indra.com

Poets' Corner

Prayer in School

Prayer in school is not illegal.
It happens all the time
with no arrests or public brawls.
People talk to God every day, and
God listens to every word.

What is illegal is to pray out loud
for an audience of human beings
who may not want to pray
out loud with you right now,
thank you just the same

They may not want to use the same words,
addressed to God as you know Him.
(Does He have a long white beard?
Does She wear a wreath of laurel?
Is this God black or white or brown?)
They may not want to pray in the name
of Cod's relatives, nice though they may be.

What motivates those who insist on praying
in front of everybody else and demanding
that everybody else do the same?
Do they think the only prayers worth praying
are the ones that fall on human ears?
Do they simply enjoy public speaking?
Are they just a little too pleased
with their own piety?

Our every waking thought and
sleeping dream is known by God.
School prayer is no more likely to be heard
than traffic prayer or baseball prayer or
hospital prayer or harvest prayer.

Those of us who want to say our prayers in school,
taught ourselves how to pray
long ago outside of school.
Nothing can keep us from it.
We are doing it now.

- Sheila D. Landré

CYNICS PRAYER

A millennial pace
makes a one-man Jesus
obsolete.
How can the myths
that follow
300 years after
salve the pains
of modern-day
Mary Magdelens?
Thousands
were separated
by time and place.
Now millions
view each other daily
in pixeled cyber-space.
No need
for story-told metaphors
to pinpoint shame
upon an ancient map,
when CNN
and
the shuttered eye
capture
nameless media christs
to take away
our present day sins.
And we say
Amen
and
Amen

- Tina Arnopole Driskill