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Lewis long ago showed
that Black lives matter
Fifty years ago, John Lewis demonstrated that Black lives matter. His courage to stand up to the government-sanctioned bigots and bullies in Selma inspired the 1965 Voting Rights Act. It changed America … not just for the millions of Blacks who then could finally register and vote but for so many others. It was the renewal of the act five years later that lowered the voting age to 18 for federal elections.
When I was laboring to lower the voting age back then, John Lewis was our hero. He was a student when he organized sit-ins and promoted voter registrations and voting. He was only 23 when he led 600 nonviolent protestors over Selma’s Edmund Pettus Bridge and into history. Students, young people, had significant roles in the civil rights movement and the redefining of what it is to be American. As they do today.
Yes. Black lives matter … for us all.
Dennis King
San Jose
Neighbors can step in
to help homeschool
In 1994, a member of the Santa Clara Board of Supervisors ran for the Democratic Party nomination for the U.S. House of Representatives against a popular former mayor of San Jose. That county supervisor was also a mother and proposed to include “mother” as part of her “occupation” to appear with her name on the ballot. State law did not recognize “mother” as an occupation – but voters did and Zoe Lofgren has been in Congress ever since.
Now we need mothers again to go beyond the critical and often tough job of raising their own children. We need some thousands of parents to supervise a classmate or two of their own children for small-group distance learning. That would permit other parents to return to some jobs not possible from their homes. Sharing students carries some risk — but nothing compared to schools mixing hundreds or thousands.
Gary Wesley
Mountain View
Put country first;
wear a face mask
There was a time when our country was broad-shouldered enough to face a pandemic; putting our whole bodies to the wheel, we got ‘er going. Franklin Delano Roosevelt did not allow his country to sit down and feel small when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor; there was no time for that – he had a country to run, to save and to defend.
A time when our country asked us to put on more than a face mask, they told us to put on a uniform and go to Belgium’s Flanders Fields. Our education was strong enough to accept vaccines. We weren’t giants or towering intellectuals. But, that was so long ago.
Now every blogger thinks he’s an Edward Morrow or a Walter Cronkite, every medical coding clerk knows more than Dr. Anthony Fauci. Wear the mask, the life you save is not yours to take.
Peter Brown
Willow Glen
Local leaders must decry
federal agents in cities
Local governments must react strongly against the sending of the haphazard and untrained and unidentified medley of armed federal officers into our cities (“House leaders ‘alarmed’ by federal officers,” July 20) to perform the duties of local law enforcement agencies, who are trained in controlling protests, riots, etc.
If citizens and local officials do not react swiftly with legal action and public condemnation, then we are tempting President Trump to send such forces out to “ensure fair elections in November.” These are the methods of dictators.
Gary Latshaw
Cupertino
What comes next after
federal police crackdown?
So it has come to this: American citizens are being seized by federal military police units, stuffed into unmarked vehicles, and held in unknown locations without charge.
I realize it is not politic to draw comparisons to fascist regimes. But can we be forgiven for at least spelling out the word G-e-s-t-a-p-o?
What should we expect next?
Anthony Lavia
San Jose
Islam doesn’t support
Hagia Sophia conversion
The Turkish government is wrong to reconvert the Hagia Sophia, which was once the world’s greatest cathedral, from a museum back to a mosque. My interfaith community is saddened by this news. From Rev. William Bishop Swing, founder of United Religion Initiative, to Pope Francis, who said he was “pained” by the move, and the spiritual leader of Eastern Christianity, Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew, who said he was “saddened and shaken.”
Erdogan is starting a new jihad in the 21st century: Islam vs. Christianity.
Forced conversion of temples and churches is wrong from the Islamic point of view.
When the first Muslims were persecuted in pagan Mecca, a Christian King in Ethiopia gave them sanctuary. Prophet who ruled from Medina welcomed Christians from the city of Najran to worship in his own mosque for three days with all their Holy symbols.
The Quran says any good person from any faith will attain salvation if they believe in God, the Day of Judgment and who do righteousness.
Iftekhar Hai
President, UMA Interfaith Alliance
South San Francisco