I intended to write about some thought provoking articles in The Christian Century, but I clicked on the television to check news and watched the PBS special on the Freedom Riders instead. I was eleven in May, 1961, but remember news broadcast images of the Civil Rights struggle including some of the Freedom Riders. Watching the special last night was both horrifying and inspiring.
I know people who have marched with MLK Jr. in Selma and one who worked with the bus boycott in Montgomery. As a teenager, I joined in protests for the Farm Workers Union and marched in protests against the Viet Nam war. Facing National Guard bayonets on my college campus, I experienced rubbery knees and covered my nose and mouth with wet towels to lessen the effects of tear gas.
None of these actions of mine required the raw courage of those college students who became "The Freedom Riders." Trained in non-violent resistance, these young people knew they were likely going to face beatings, arrest, and possibly death, yet boarded the buses anyway, intent on calling national attention to the immortality of segregation and the need to change Jim Crow laws. Read More
The movie, "Agora," tells the story of Hypatia, the great female mathematician, philosopher, and scientist of ancient Egypt during the fifth century CE. The story follows atheist Edward Gibbon's account of the destruction of the great library in Alexandria that has Christians destroying the collected wisdom of the ancient world. While a number of ancient sources place the burning of the library well before the time of Christ let alone the life of Hypatia, the library's destruction was likely not due to a single event but to many, some as mundane as crumbling papyrus and lack of time, money, and interest to maintain such a huge collection.(see