Skip to main content

I'm Feeling Nostalgic

By


There's seems to be a nostalgia for Woolworth's lunch counter these days on Facebook.  I think many people don't know the history of Woolworth's in the South, or have conveniently forgotten it.  Here's a clip from the History Channel on the sit-ins during the 60s as Blacks tried to break the color barrier and have a hot lunch.

It seems a lot of folks have been "Gumped" when it comes to contemporary American history, preferring the warm and fuzzy world of Forrest Gump to what actually happened in the early 60s.  This nostalgia takes on many forms, ranging from Whitman's famous chocolate sampler to the way conservative politicians try to reshape the way we should view this deeply divided time by resorting to homilies.


Comments

  1. Rick DiguetteJanuary 29, 2013 at 1:52 PM

    I know where you are coming from on this, but isn't there some room for nostalgia here? Just because these lunch counters became potent symbols of segregation doesn't mean that is the only way they should be remembered.

    ReplyDelete
  2. James FergusonJanuary 29, 2013 at 4:11 PM

    True, but judging by the political nature of the persons posting these "nostalgic" images, I have a pretty good idea where they are coming from. Same persons who try to use the Civil Rights movement to defend gun rights.

    ReplyDelete
  3. James FergusonJanuary 29, 2013 at 10:35 PM

    Facebook has become a pin-up board for political action groups, although this particular site seems to be relatively innocuous. Still, the lunch counter photo upset me since it has such an obvious allusion to the Civil Rights Era.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Rick DiguetteJanuary 30, 2013 at 1:09 AM

    I must be missing something. What website are you referring to?

    ReplyDelete
  5. James FergusonJanuary 30, 2013 at 9:00 AM

    This is the site,

    https://www.facebook.com/pages/Im-Feeling-Nostalgic/476507909051434?fref=ts

    and this was the Woolworth lunch counter pic,

    https://fbcdn-sphotos-e-a.akamaihd.net/hphotos-ak-snc6/265176_477841565584735_1789357261_n.jpg

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

By
  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, not...
230 comments
Read more

Team of Rivals Reading Group

By
''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005
293 comments
Read more

The Searchers

By
You are invited to join us in a discussion of  The Searchers , a new book on John Ford's boldest Western, which cast John Wayne against type as the vengeful Ethan Edwards who spends eight years tracking down a notorious Comanche warrior, who had killed his cousins and abducted a 9 year old girl.  The film has had its fair share of detractors as well as fans over the years, but is consistently ranked in most critics'  Top Ten Greatest Films . Glenn Frankel examines the origins of the story as well as the film itself, breaking his book down into four parts.  The first two parts deal with Cynthia Ann Parker and her son Quanah, perhaps the most famous of the 19th century abduction stories.  The short third part focuses on the author of the novel, Alan Le May, and how he came to write The Searchers. The final part is about Pappy and the Duke and the making of the film. Frankel noted that Le May researched 60+ abduction stories, fusing them together into a nar...
123 comments
Read more