Memo to Rick Santorum: On Martin Luther King, Jr. Day It is the Men and Women Who Fought Bigotry, Hatred and Prejudice That History Honors

Those Who Fought Against Basic Rights are Long and Appropriately Forgotten

[Editor’s Note:  For Dr. Martin Luther King Day most Forums will write a warm and positive Post.  Being a contrarian, The Dismal Political Economist believes the proper way to honor Dr. King is a discussion of the current Republican Presidential candidate whose positions are directly opposite of the anti-bigotry, anti-prejudice work of Dr. King.]

In the last 150 Years  there have been two great struggles for equality and basic human rights against those who would deny these two things to various groups. In the 19^th and early 20^th century the fight was for equality of rights of women.  Few citizens today would recall that until well into the 20^th century women were denied the right to vote in many places and that it took a Constitutional Amendment to change that.

The most recent decades saw the emergence of the civil rights movement, the drive to end prejudice and discrimination against African Americans.  Men like Dr. King and Medgar Evers and others lost their lives in the battle.  Others survived to have their courage recognized and rewarded.

Today both of those battles continue, and they are now joined by a third fight, the fight to end discrimination and hatred against the Gay and Lesbian community.  One public personification of the hatred and discrimination that the Gay and Lesbian community is subject to is Presidential aspirant Rick Santorum.  For example, Mr. Santorum would not just deny those individuals to right to marry, he would by Constitutional Amendment take away the marriage status of those already legally married.  And he would fight for the right of states to enact laws that make homosexual activity illegal and punishable by imprisonment.

Mr. Santorum presents himself as a Conservative, but he is the exact opposite of a Conservative.  He is a Statist who would use the force and power of the Federal Government to intervene in the private lives of American citizens.   One can have an honest disagreement on abortion rights.  But in some cases there should be no disagreement about who, government or the individuals involved, should make the decision.

Consider this situation.  A woman becomes pregnant and learns that carrying the pregnancy to term would almost certainly result in her death, and that if she were to somehow survive she would be physically crippled for life.  The baby has serious defects and would be expected to live for only a few years. 

A decision about continuing the pregnancy needs to be made.  A true Conservative, one who actually believes that government should not insert itself into the private lives of its citizens would say this decision should be made by the woman in consultation with her family, her counselors, her friends and her clergy.  A true Conservative would say that government has no basis for making this decision, that in fact its only role is to preserve the right of the woman and her family to make the decision as they see fit.

But Rick Santorum believes that he should make that decision for this family, even though he has never met them and knows nothing about them and has no rationale for even being involved in the decision.  His decision would be to carry the pregnancy to term, regardless of the impact on everyone who is actually involved.  And Mr. Santorum would use the full force and authority of the Federal government to enforce that decision.  This is not Conservatism, it is not freedom, it is not democracy.  It is theocratic statism at its strongest. 

 

For those that do need a story to serve as an antidote to Mr. Santorum and others, the New York Times great sports writer Bill Pennington has the story of New York Giants and Green Bay Packers safety Emlen Tunnell.  Who is Mr. Tunnell?  Well if one looks at the career leaders in interceptions one sees this.

NFL Career Interceptions Leaders

Rank	Player (age), + - HOFer, Bold - Active	Int	Years	Teams
1.	Paul Krause+	81	1964-1979	2TM
2.	Emlen Tunnell+	79	1948-1961	2TM
3.	Rod Woodson+	71	1987-2003	4TM
4.	Night Train Lane+	68	1952-1965	3TM
5.	Ken Riley	65	1969-1983	cin
6.	Darren Sharper	63	1997-2010	3TM
	Ronnie Lott+	63	1981-1994	3TM
8.	Dave Brown	62	1975-1989	3TM
	Dick LeBeau+	62	1959-1972	det
10.	Emmitt Thomas+	58	1966-1978	ka

But Mr. Tunnell was more, much more than just a football player.  Yes, to quote Ray Kinsella from “Field of Dreams”, it’s is a long story but it’s a very good story.  Mr. Tunnell was an African American who helped integrate professional football.  In 1948 he jointed the New York Giants football team

Vivian Robinson recalled her brother’s call from the Giants’ offices.

“He was very excited and kept saying into the phone that he made the team — that he was going to be a Giant,” Robinson said.

Tunnell signed a one-year contract worth $5,000. A few weeks later, Robinson went to watch his first game in New York.

“It was the most horrible situation I had ever seen,” she said. “The fans were chanting ‘Go home’ at Emlen. They were yelling all kinds of things at him. They didn’t want a black player. I sat there thinking how upset Emlen must be.

“When I saw him afterward, he kind of shrugged it off. He said: ‘Those guys don’t know what they’re doing. And it’s just a few. They’ll get over it.’ And you know, I went back a month later after Emlen was playing so well, and the same fans were cheering him.”

Mr. Tunnell had fought earlier and harder before he joined the Giants.  He had fought for his country, and before he fought for his country he had fought to get into the Coast Guard, because he was horribly injured in a football game. 

While in the Coast Guard Mr. Tunnell was a genuine hero, a genuine American hero.

Fred Shaver, a machinist who had remained in the lower deck shutting many of the ship’s functions to prevent a larger explosion, was soon engulfed in flames. He hurried up a ladder and ran onto the ship’s deck. Tunnell, one of five African-Americans in the crew of about 200, had befriended Shaver, a white man with whom he had spent hours at sea talking sports.

“I really don’t know how I knew the horrible figure running toward me in the darkness was Freddy,” Tunnell wrote in his autobiography, “Footsteps of a Giant,” published in 1966. “There was almost nothing recognizable about him. He was covered with fire.”

Tunnell chased Shaver, picked him up and carried him to shelter, beating out the flames with his hands. Shaver sustained burns over nearly 80 percent of his body, but he survived, unlike two other machinists in the engine room. After the war, Shaver returned to the Washington, D.C., area. where he worked as an auditor for nearly 40 years.

“It was an amazingly brave thing for Emlen to do,” Shaver, now 88 and living in Panama, said in a telephone interview Thursday.

Tunnell wrote in his book that he did what any other crew member would have. All these years later, Shaver chuckled at that thought.

And of course that was not all

Two years later, another Tunnell shipmate, Alfred Givens, fell off the dock of the Coast Guard cutter Tampa near Newfoundland. Tunnell jumped into the 32-degree water to rescue Givens. Tunnell was treated for hypothermia and shock.

“I said to him one time, ‘You could have drowned; you’re not that much of a swimmer,’ ” Robinson said. “He looked at me and said: ‘I had to take the chance. My buddy needed me.’ ”

Was the heroism of Mr. Tunnell recognized?  No,

Tunnell almost never spoke of his wartime exploits — teammates contacted last week, for example, were unaware. In 1946, he was nominated for a Silver Lifesaving Medal, but when he left the Coast Guard soon after, the commendation was never pursued.

No doubt racism played a large part in denying Mr. Tunnell his recognition.  Racism was the official policy of government at that time, with government promulgating and enforcing segregation.  And segregation was not the product of Republicans, or Democrats, or Socialists, or Communists or Anarchists.  Segregation was defended by Conservatives, who all by themselves delayed the full enjoyment of basic civil rights by African Americans for decades longer than it should have taken.

Read the article, because it also publicizes a part of the life of legendary coach Vince Lombardi.  Mr. Lombardi was a champion of equal rights, and used his position as Green Bay Packers coach to forward equal rights.

Lombardi worked to find more suitable lodging for his African-American players, like the future Hall of Famer Willie Wood, who joined the Packers the same year. And Lombardi stepped into the social void the black players often felt.

“He went to the bars in town and told each one that if they discriminated against his black players, then the bar would be off limits to all Packer players,” said David Maraniss, author of the definitive Lombardi biography, “When Pride Still Mattered.”

And if you think there was nothing special about this, consider the situation in the same era  when one went to watch Mr. Tunnell and his Giants play the Washington Redskins in Griffith stadium in the late 1950’s.  The Redskins were owned by a staunch racist who would not employ African American football players until ordered to do so by the NFL.  The irony of this man owning a professional football team in a city where African Americans were a large bloc of the population was lost on many at that time.

So Mr. Santorum and his views will eventually be consigned to the scrap heap of history.  But before that happens Mr. Santorum and his supporters should recognize that there is no holiday for those who opposed equal rights for women and and no holiday for those who opposed equal rights for African Americans.  In fact, no one remember who they were, what there names were or even why they were what they were. We remember and honor heroes, not villains.

The haters only interest a few historians and a few others who want the stories of the haters told, so that those stories will inspire the rest of us to continue the fight against bigotry and against the people who would use the power of government to enact their own prejudices into law.  This fading into oblivion is the fate to come for Mr. Santorum. 

And if anyone doubts that future for the former Pennsylvania Senator, well get back to us when there is a holiday for Theodore Bilbo. Who?  Yeah, that’s exactly the point.