Festival was a rite of spring
By Ed Tant
Created May 10 2008 - 10:03am
Last weekend's 30th annual Athens Human Rights Festival was a milestone
that
will leave fond memories in the minds of festival volunteers and
audiences.
Dedicated to the memory of Eve Carson, the young Athens woman who achieved
so much in her brief life before she died at the age of 22, the festival
was
once again a reunion for the family of humankind.
Top-notch local musicians and soapbox orators enlivened downtown during
rights rites that rated raves from event organizers and festivalgoers
alike.
The sweet-voiced children of the Athens Montessori Singers were once again
loved by crowds. A youthful group of girls called the Maybes brought
cheers
with a lilting rendition of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind."
Gabriela Mejias once again showed festival audiences a talent far beyond
her
tender years as she played guitar and sang with a clear, powerful voice.
On
the other end of the age scale, 95-year-old Fleeta Mitchell was a festival
hit with her keyboard playing and singing of what Dr. Martin Luther King
called "old Negro spirituals." Tommy Jordan added his musical artistry to
the Human Rights Festival, as he has every year. The band Dubconscious
played for a large crowd that packed College Square and roared with
delight
at the band's relentless rocking reggae sound. Atlanta's Dancing Flowers
for
Peace added color and choreography to the rights fest.
Soapbox oratory is an American activist tradition dating back to striking
workers who spoke from improvised soapbox podiums in the years prior to
World War I. That tradition continued at this year's festival. Jonathan
Robert spoke for the festival's charity beneficiary, Citizens Advocacy,
saying, "What Citizens Advocacy aims to do is to forge community
connections
that sup****t people with disabilities."
Businessman for peace Jim Barksdale, whose Atlanta-based Equity Investment
Corp. manages more than $450 million in assets, called for Americans to
speak up about the Iraq war and the Palestinian issue. "I couldn't be
silent. Silence was complicity," he said. Athens nurse Denise Grier, who
attracted national notice two years ago when she was ticketed by police
near
Atlanta for having an anti-Bush bumper sticker on her car, urged
"patriotic
Americans" to sup****t the Constitution and "make your voice count."
More than 30 speakers took the microphone this year, but civil rights
pioneer Dr. Gene Young was the oratorical standout as he brought tears to
the eyes and cheers to the throats of his listeners. An eyewitness to the
police shootings of protesters at Mississippi's Jackson State College in
May
1970, Young was arrested at age 12 for protesting segregation and was in
the
audience when King gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech in Wa****ngton
in
1963.
Young wowed his audience with his readings of King's sermons and speeches
and told of being inspired by visiting the graves of John Kennedy, Robert
Kennedy, and his friend, slain civil rights leader Medgar Evers, at
Arlington National Cemetery. "When I share my history, it becomes your
history," he said.
The Athens Human Rights Festival is history brought to life in the village
square. This year's festival will be long remembered as one of the best of
an event that enlivens and enriches this community each spring.
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"A little patience and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their
spells dissolve, and the people recovering their true sight, restore their
government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are
suffering deeply in spirit,
and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public
debt. But if the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have
patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an op****tunity of winning
back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are
at
stake."
-Thomas Jefferson
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