Happy Year 2,026 after the birth of Jesus, the Christ! If He was on Earth today, he’d be 2,026 years old, as A.D. time is measured from His birth.
By Audrey Peterman
I’m a 74-year-old Black Jamaican American woman that has spent literally 30 years “in the wilderness” with my American husband. What I am seeing from the natural side is entirely different from the artificial emergencies of our present society. It emphasizes the need for us to live close with Nature or risk going crazy.
We’re on the verge of crazy now, with a unilateral war being pursued by an unstable regime. The avalanche of issues and emergencies being hurled at us are designed to keep us feeling destabilized and powerless. I’m grateful that I know we still have time to course correct, because the message in the natural areas that we’ve been protecting since 1864 “for the benefit of this and future generations” is quite different. It speaks of the long term and the responsibility “ to this and future generations.”
The regime wants to smash and grab this legacy along with everything else.
The passing of our friend Ranger Betty Reid Soskin at 104 years old just before Christmas, on the Winter Solstice has renewed my vigor to press for truth and justice as she did. I took it as a big sign that when the sun paused for just that moment, her spirit got onboard.
She was part of the WWII production factories for ships and planes at Rosie the Riveter WWII Homefront National Historical Park in Richmond California, that helped win WWII. So, I’m almost glad she’s not around to see our beloved Democracy sidestep the constitution and strike another sovereign nation, unprovoked. Not even Congress was consulted.
Ranger Betty did more to protect and promote the history and integrity of our country in the National Park System than anyone else I know – except for former Director Robert Stanton, the only African American ever to lead the National Park Service which will be 110 years old August 25. We need millions more Bettys and Roberts!
Going into the new year each of us has to become ACTIVE with a GROUP or ORGANIZATION. We must take our self-palliating tirades OFF SOCIAL MEDIA AND INTO THE OFFICES OF THE PEOPLE WE ELECT TO REPRESENT US. We must be ORGANIZED, UNITED AND VISIBLE, because posting on social media DOES NOTHING except GIVE US A FALSE SENSE OF INVOLVEMENT. The tech bros have given us a “pacifier” and shunted us off to the side while they try to rob and pillage even the very Earth that supports life.
The National Parks contain the place where the first shot was fired in the Revolutionary War and the Civil War; the place where the Constitution was debated and signed; the place where the Emancipation Proclamation was issued; the place where Grant surrendered the confederacy to Union General Ulysses S Grant, ending the Civil War and the National Mall in Washington, DC, is “home to iconic monuments including the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. At the eastern end is the domed U.S. Capitol, and the White House is to the north,” all part of the National Park System.
This year when the regime removed Dr. Martin Luther King Day and Juneteenth from among those days when entrance to every single one of the national parks offer free entrance, the joke is on them because 327 of them, including Dr King’s Birth Home Sweet Auburn District and Historic Ebenezer Baptist Church ARE FREE ALL YEAR ROUND.
THIS YEAR we can use our freedom and make a statement by flocking to the national parks and learning the history they contain, including the homes of Mary McLeod Bethune; Dr. Carter G. Woodson; Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman and many other icons. A visit to Independence National Historical Park in Philadelphia will acquaint you with the tumultuous times when the constitution was being debated; the call to freedom still echoes from the cracked Liberty Bell outside, and the story of Africans enslaved at this monument to freedom tells us the complexity of the American Story.
One thing is unequivocal about: elected leaders swear an oath to uphold the constitution and defend the nation. We all need to use these facts to decide whether “WE THE PEOPLE” will accept the assault on our democracy taking place right now or reject it with everything we’ve got. The truth is in our National Park System of natural, cultural and historic treasures dating back to antiquity.
(Audrey Peterman is a longtime activist for national parks and connecting them with the public. Audrey@AudreyPeterman.com)
