HOWEVER, it takes a strong will and very real courage to stand up alone for what is right and just - especially when divorced from any support infrastructure, or safeguarded by the law. For every great example of inspirational human rights leadership, there are others - unrecognised, unsung - whose courage has been all the more remarkable because of their isolation. For every Martin Luther King, there are countless unknown individuals who have demanded to be heard with as much conviction and vehemence as that great man.
This is a book of portraits in words and pictures. It is about basic Civil Rights in the USA from 1916 to today, and it is without doubt an important document - and a tribute to authors Bud and Ruth Schultz. The people featured are not, on the whole, zealous activists, but more ordinary citizens who tried to exercise their right to a free opinion within a declared democracy. And it is sobering to see the immense power the faceless State machine can bring to bear on an individual who cannot turn to the legal system for protection. More so when this is a nation that spends a lot of time dictating to the rest of the world on democracy and probity.
There are more than 90 testaments recorded here, starting with Jack Miller. He tried to unionise in Everett, Washington, and was involved in the infamous Everett Massacre, when, in 1916, the Sheriff's Department fired on unarmed men landing a boat. In 2005 Janet Nocek, a respected librarian, was victimised by the FBI using their powers under the American Patriot Act to examine her library's confidential data - and prohibiting her from mentioning this invasion of privacy to anyone else, in or out of the library system. In the years between, the witnesses here testify to a host of similar physical and psychological abuses of government power as it attempts to pervert the law and legislation in order to silence dissent and free speech. And the all powerful State is not above savaging one of its own when the need arises. The entry for 1987 is Jack Ryan’s. This veteran FBI agent, who had served the Bureau with distinction, drew a line when it was clear that a brief to investigate two peaceful groups protesting the US involvement in Central America was wrong. Ryan saw it as an attempt to reclassify these regular people as terrorists and issued an internal memo questioning the path the FBI had been instructed to take. He was fired for ’insubordination’ - only ten months before retirement.
What is the image of a dissident? Blue collar white communist; disenfranchised black; long haired drop out college kid? Prepare to be surprised! The power of this book and the inherent message it contains is the very ordinariness of the people tested and found to be true. The portraits are unfailingly dignified images of inherent strength and quiet reserve. It is inspirational. It is life enhancing. It should be read by everyone who operates in within the media and enjoys the firm belief that they have it tamed.
