The more things change . . . .

Ah, yes: ‘Give light. and the people will find their own way’

In 1965 I was a young and optimistic kid of 19 summers, a sophomore at Memphis State University. The war in Vietnam was not yet called a war, but I suspected it might be worth noticing. So, in my optimism, I tried to convince people to write to their congressmen asking how they, their elected representatives, expected how US policy might evolve. Radical, huh? I made some fliers suggesting we might gather at Union and East Parkway and walk to the main post office on Front Street to post our. letters (I made no suggestion that one should support or oppose the war.) This being the dark ages before Twitter or Facebook, I had to pay for the fliers and put them up by hand around town. I took copies of them to the local newspapers, and to  radio and TV stations. I remember well the reception I received from the receptionist at the local Scripps-Howard group when I said, innocently but patriotically,  ‘Here’s a news release.’ She looked at me dismissively and said, ‘It’s news if we say it’s news.’

My release did not make it to Channel 5 news, nor to the pages of the Commercial Appeal or Press Scimitar. But, as our little group of about twenty people walked past the beige brick building on Union that was home to those august enlighteners of the way of the people, we picked up an escort of two or three men in cheap brown suits who alternately took a our photographs and threw eggs at us.. That evening there was a brown Chevrolet with small hubcaps parked below my apartment windows, with either two of the photo-eggers or their clones. Scripts-Howard had reported us.

I was reminded of this incident this week when I was invited to join a Fast from Facebook for the month of May, and when folks started complaining that Facebook is not publishing invites to Corona lockdown protests, but is passing the information on to state governments.

Now that I am a bit older than 19, and neither innocent nor patriotic, no longer expecting people to find their own way and certainly not looking to newspapers or Facebook for light and on the path, I am at least a bit amused. And I haven’t thought about consulting ‘my elected representatives’ since Bill Fulbright retired. I’m not sure, however, if I would look to the Fulbright family newspapers for enlightenment.