crossposted from dailykosThe 1960's were a time of disruption. It was not just America. Yes, we had undergone a great deal of turmoil, starting with the assassination of John F. Kennedy. We had seen riots in 1965 in the Watts section of Los Angeles, in Chicago in 1966, in Detroit and Newark in 1967, and all across the country after the assassination of Martin Luther King in 1968, a tragic death followed too soon by the death of Bobby Kennedy. The hope that had come out of the civil rights movement after the Birmingham bombing had seemed to lead to the Civil Rights March of '63 and Civil Rights Act of '64, when Selma had led to the Voting Rights Act of '65, was now dashed in the trashing of many inner cities, in the rise of the law and order approach of Nixon. 1968 had seen not only the police riot at the Chicago convention, but all across Europe student rebellions.
But for a moment, in 1969, all that seemed held in abeyance. On July 20, 1969, 20:17:39 UTC, the world heard Neil Armstrong say to Mission Control "Houston, Tranquility Base here. The Eagle has landed." Man was on the Moon.
It would be a few hours later, at 2:56 UTC July 21, 1969 (although in the US the date had not yet changed), that the nation was riveted to their tvs and saw Armstrong step off the ladder from the Lunar Landing Module to the surface of the Moon. Most people misheard what Armstrong said, which is why we often see his quote partially in parentheses:
That's one small step for [a] man, one giant leap for mankind.Absent that small indefinite article, "a," the phrase loses its real meaning, and the fact that Armstrong was, humble man that he was, acknowledging that his personal presence was incidental to the event that had just occurred: mankind had reached out and landed on a celestial body other than our own planet.
It had all seemed so improbable. How improbable? When Jack Kennedy had said in a speech on May 25, 1961,
I believe that this nation should commit itself to achieving the goal, before this decade is out, of landing a man on the moon and returning him safely to the earthit seemed a wild idea to many. But at that moment with the first president born in the 20th Century, the dream of man on the moon seemed to demonstrate some of the ideas expressed in the inaugural, of a new beginning.
I often remember something else, perhaps appropriate to recall this summer. When manager Alvin Dark first saw his future Hall-of-Fame pitcher Gaylord Perry swing a bat he remarked that there would a man on the moon before Perry ever hit a home run. And in Perry's first plate appearance after the landing? Yes, he homered. It seems illustrative of how despite the turmoil of the 60's, the disruption in the nation over Vietnam, the loss of hope for many as the movement to obtain civil rights peacefully was abandoned by some asserting Black Power, we could still have our spirits lifted.
I was 23 years old, living in New York, having by then dropped out of college three times, twice from Haverford and once from NYU. In two years I would return to Haverford and finally graduate from College. I cannot say my life was dramatically changed by the landing of Apollo 11. I do remember wondering what was still possible - for mankind to be sure, for a nation still very much in turmoil as well, but also for me as an individual despite my having crashed and burned on several occasions. By then I had seen service in the Marines, spending time in Greenwich Village, watching up close the sexual revolution in the "meet markets" of bars on the Upper East Side. And also having watched so many dreams and lives be shattered - by riots and assassinations, by war and protest. I had seen one presidency broken by Vietnam, and I saw another that was beginning to assert doctrines of presidential power that would seem shocking to us a few years later, regardless of how mild they might seem compared to the present administration.
Today is not a major anniversary of that moon landing. And yet it seems appropriate to take a moment to remember and reflect. This is not sentimentality on my part. It is to point out how despite turmoil, anger and disappointment we can find events that can re-inspire us. Although the secret bombings of Cambodia had already begun in March, we still had several years of progress in domestic affairs that would occur under Nixon, including his decision to enforce court rulings on integrating schools, the establishment of EPA, NOAA and AMTRAK, and many other initiatives. The "White House Horrors" of Watergate and related events were still in our future.
We face a time now as troubling in its fashion as was the period leading up to 1969. We are again in an intractable overseas conflict in which Americans seems to be killing and dying for no good reason, against the will of the American people, although the opposition to Iraq is greater now than was that to Vietnam in 1969. Absent a draft we do not have the same level of visible and visceral opposition that was a part of the 1960s. Instead of assassinations of leading political figures, we have had what can be considered assassination of our rights and freedoms in the name of security and executive authority. During the conflicts over the rights of African Americans some whites wondered why it was their concern, just as when the rights of Muslims, many of whom were not citizens, were denied some argued that it really did not threaten the rest of us, even though it did: if anyone's rights can be denied so can yours, so can mine.
Every day this administration seems to make yet another ridiculous assertion, such as that of yesterday, that the Justice Department CANNOT prosecute a contempt charge flowing from a presidential assertion of Executive Privilege. At times some wonder if the battle to preserve our republic may already have been lost to the arrogation of power by this administration.
I included in my title "when dreams still seemed possible." That might imply that I have lost hope. I have not. While there may be no singular moment of inspiration of what we can do parallel to the moon landing, there are many events and occasions, every day, that inspire me to keep going. It may be the face of an adolescent in my classroom grasping a difficult idea. It could be the message I received yesterday from one of the most conservative students I have ever taught who sent out an email blast to his entire address book passing on the Human Society's reaction to Michael Vick and this conservative young man demanding that the NFL immediately suspend Vick. It can be seeing increasing numbers of true conservatives like Bruce Fein articulate persuasively why this administration needs to be brought to heel. It can even be the arrogance of this administration asserting yet again a proposition about its authority that is so preposterous that it forces yet more people into open opposition.
Bobby Kennedy was famous for a line that he offered regularly. It was not his line, and it was something that became appropriate as he matured. He was, after all, an active supporter of Joe McCarthy in the 1950's, working on his staff during the Army McCarthy hearings. And yet he had been moved - by Harvest of Shame, by his own visits to places of poverty across the nation. He came to represent hopes for many. By his presence and words in April of 1968 he kept Indianapolis from the riots seen in so many cities after the death of Martin. His own death seemed to mark a last straw for many, even those who had not supported his quest for the presidency.
And yet I prefer sanity, which requires me to maintain some sense of optimism, that all is not lost. So I argue that dreams are still possible. And let me repeat, as did Bobby Kennedy so often in his later years, those words first penned by George Bernard Shaw:
Some men see things as they are and ask why. Others dream things that never were and ask why not.
Peace.