Category: Writing

Always do the right thing

Da Mayor: “Always do the right thing.”
Mookie: “That’s it?”
Da Mayor: “That’s it.”
Mookie: “I got it, I’m gone.”
Do the Right Thing, Spike Lee (1989)

Did Dr. George S. Benson apologize for his racism?

That was, without a doubt, one of the first questions that came to mind among the leadership at Harding University when the online petition to change the name of the campus auditorium from George S. Benson Auditorium to Botham Jean Auditorium dropped in June 2020.

I also believe–very strongly–there was a “Drop what you’re doing!”, five alarm fire, all-hands-on-deck search for an exonerating piece of evidence that would have shown that George Benson apologized, showed remorse, or otherwise recanted the obviously racist views that he held and expressed openly in the 1950s and 60s.… Read the rest

Chapel protests, or hey, someone really *is* awake!

Let no one despise your youth, but be an example to the believers in word, in conduct, in love, in spirit, in faith, in purity.

–1 Timothy 4:12 NKJV

I am indebted to Harding University President Dr. Bruce McLarty for sharing Larry Bills’ story at the beginning of his message to the Harding community about the 18,000-plus signature petition to remove George S. Benson’s name from the auditorium on campus and rename it after Botham Jean.  This was, for me at least, an unforeseen development driven in part by public and alumni reaction to the story I published in the Arkansas Times on the Statement of Attitude protest by Harding students in 1957 during the Little Rock Crisis but one which I accepted with dutiful resignation if not outright enthusiasm.… Read the rest

Recent correspondence

On 06/24/2020 6:15 PM MICHAEL BROWN  <                         > wrote:
Hi Bill,
Greetings from Alabama, where we strive to not only be #1 in college football, but new coronavirus infections per capita as well. Roll Tide.
I imagine Mark or “JN Armstrong” have already sent you this, but I thought I would pass it along just in case:  https://harding.edu/benson
Of course it could never be otherwise. I find it all very wearisome. However, I did take note of McLarty’s dismissive description of my literary quest for truth as a mere “newspaper article,” the subtext being, of course, “Fake news!”
People still don’t get it.
… Read the rest

Name Them, One By One

“There’s a story called the ‘Cowtail Switch’ from Liberia that states that as long as a person’s name is spoken, they are never truly forgotten.”

–Laconia “Lott” Therrio, therapist, chaplain, professional storyteller, first African American student association president, Harding University

From the beginning, I believed that my story about a large group of white, Christian college students in the 1950s protesting racial segregation, at the same time as, and in the shadow of, one of the American Civil Rights Movement’s early battles at Little Rock Central High, had the “legs” to travel far.

But only now, three months after publishing my story ‘Distinctions Which God Has Not Made’ in the Arkansas Times, can I truly see just how far–and deep–it ran.… Read the rest

The 947th Signature

If there is one question that animated my efforts and drove me to spend the hundreds of hours of research necessary to write this article in The Arkansas Times (be sure to read the Author’s Note, as well), it is “Would I have signed?”

If someone had asked me in 1957, in the early days of the American civil rights movement when passions were rising to fever pitch, to put my name on the line for desegregation and make one small step toward integration, would I have signed?

Bottom line, I can’t be sure. What I can be sure of: Nine hundred and forty-six Harding students, faculty and staff did, and I’m proud of each and every one of them and thankful for the progress that my alma mater has made since those difficult days.… Read the rest

Ten Thousand Words

Ain’t it like most people? I’m no different
We love to talk on things we don’t know about

“Ten Thousand Words” –The Avett Brothers

In a perfect world, each of us would have both a personal trainer and a personal editor; the former for our obesity, the latter for our verbosity.

I’ve seen America fatten right before my very eyes. As a grunt on the front lines of primary health care over the past 25 years, I know first hand the effects of increased sedentary lifestyles and the “cornucopia” of processed and fast foods available at nearly every turn with just the swipe of a credit card.… Read the rest

Robert Rex Meyers: Student, Soldier, Professor, Preacher, “Heretic”–My Friend

Robert Rex Meyers was born in 1923 and raised by loving and devout parents on a three hundred acre farm in the eastern hills of Oklahoma near Henrietta. From an early age, he would rise early in the morning and plow the land, sowing seeds in the rich, moist earth in much the same way he would later plant ideas in the fertile minds of eager students. He studied the Bible and was baptized by a traveling black evangelist named R.N. Hogan in a small, fundamentalist Church of Christ, but it was his full-bodied immersion in the deep waters of natural revelation, the whisper of God in the rustling of wind-kissed leaves and the fragrant incense of meadow grass, that would eventually set his heart aflame.… Read the rest

“I Want To Believe”

“Mulder and Scully came right out of my head. A dichotomy. They are the equal parts of my desire to believe in something and my inability to believe in something. My skepticism and my faith.”

–Chris Carter, creator of “The X-Files”

A friend of mine told me recently that I was “altogether too polite” and that I didn’t ask enough “tough questions.” This came as news to my family, especially my sons who, on more than one occasion, have felt the probing, white heat of one of my infamous, late-night interrogation sessions following one of their nights on the town (“Vee have vays of making you talk!”).… Read the rest

“Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish”

Those were the words that Steve Jobs, CEO and creative backbone of Apple, passed on to the graduating class at Stanford University a few years ago.

After hearing of his death last night, I watched that commencement address and those particular words stuck. I went to bed thinking about them, and they were the first words on my mind when I awoke this morning. I’ll take that as a sign that I should write about them.

Steve Jobs was delivering his own “Last Lecture,” just like Randy Pausch. For the most part, the students were listening, but not really listening.… Read the rest

Giving the Mundane Its Beautiful Due

Eyegal said it in passing just as the Duke v. Bradley game was set to tip off last night. It was one of those comments designed not so much to inform as to query, and I recognized it as such. I was preoccupied with Duke point guard Kyrie Irving who was sitting out the game with a toe ailment and the effects that would have on my beloved Dukies’ offense to pay it much mind. But I suppose I paid it enough since I did answer back, and if that wasn’t enough, there’s always this blog post.

“We’re starting to get some Christmas cards,” she called out from the kitchen.… Read the rest

Five Years On, The Times They Are a-Changin’

Come writers and critics
Who prophesize with your pen
And keep your eyes wide
The chance won’t come again
And don’t speak too soon
For the wheel’s still in spin
And there’s no tellin’ who
That it’s namin’
For the loser now
Will be later to win
For the times they are a-changin’.

–Bob Dylan

I recently passed my fifth blogiversary without so much as a blink. I completely forgot about it until someone else who started blogging about the same time as I did mentioned theirs.

I marked the first one with a post in which I basically interviewed myself (Hubris alert!).… Read the rest