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Born May 18, 1953; got saved at Truett Memorial BC in Hayesville, NC 1959. On rigged ballot which I did not rig got Most Intellectual class of 71, Gaffney High School. Furman Grad, Sociology major but it was little tougher than Auburn football players had Had three dates with beautiful women the summer of 1978. Did not marry any of em. Never married anybody cause what was available was undesirable and what was desirable was unaffordable. Unlucky in love as they say and even still it is sometimes heartbreaking. Had a Pakistani Jr. Davis Cupper on the Ropes the summer of 84, City Courts, Rome Georgia I've a baby sitter, watched peoples homes while they were away on Vacation. Freelance writer, local consultant, screenwriter, and the best damn substitute teacher of Floyd County Georgia in mid 80's according to an anonymous kid passed me on main street a few years later when I went back to get a sandwich at Schroeders. Had some good moments in Collinsville as well. Ask Casey Mattox at www.clsnet.org if he will be honest about it. I try my best to make it to Bridges BBQ in Shelby NC at least four times a year.

Wednesday, July 06, 2016

Gaffney South Carolina's Baptist influence on Bobby Kennedy

      Yesterday I called the DC office of US Congressman Joe Kennedy Jr or the Third, the grandson of RFK, Bobby Kennedy. I'd just heard the hour long interview on NPR's Fresh Air of Larry Tye, the latest biographer of Bobby.

   In a long stretch he Tye talked about the influence of Marian Wright Edelman on the evolution of Bobby's conscience regarding Civil Rights and the poor, specifically a tour of the Delta then Marian Wright took Bobby on in a visit to Jackson in 64 when Bobby was Senator from New York.

     You can find the transcript here and I hope to post that segment with this blog soon.

     http://www.npr.org/templates/transcript/transcript.php?storyId=484780316

     One of my proudest moments was a conversation with Marian Wright Edelman Jan 31, 2009 outside ML King's iconic 16th Street Baptist Church in Bham. Wright Edelman spoke that day with President Carter and singing by Emmy Lou Harris and my friend Kate Campbell. In President Carter's address he pointed to the stain glass window that exploded the face of Jesus the day the church was bombed in September of 1963. I was standing room only standing under that window when President Carter pointed in my direction a couple people down from Wayne Flynt, the Pulitzer Prize nominee often called the conscience of Alabama.

     Whatever folks may say of me when I'm gone, at least one day I was in good company.

     Talking to Ms. Edelman late that afternoon it surfaced we shared Gaffney SC in common. MRE's grandfather was a Baptist preacher over around the Thicketty Creek community and she spent many summers there as a young girl.

  I took that info to some Gaffney friends, notably my friend Charles Edwards from Central Elementary school in the 3rd grade on through Gaffney High then Furman. His Mother Faye then collaborated with Furman grad Ron Singleton, Chaplain at Limestone and Marian Wright Edelman was in Gaffney for the King Holiday to speak at Limestone in 2011.

    The school was within a mile from my Dad's church for 16 years there. I was proud of all the circumstances and delighted to be part of the concocting of the event.

    If you haven't read the transcript by now it should follow here in a few days. Bobby's children told Tye of all the lectures the educational talks they got around the family table at Hickory Hill, the story Bobby Told when that Sunday Afternoon when he came back from Mississippi and the hands on tour with Marian Wright Edelman was the most memorable.

   It should be noted that whatever reservations many of you have about Hillary Clinton, it has been long standing motif of her life her mentors include in the highest eschelon, Marian Wright Edelman and Maya Angelou.

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