On Our Way To The Fountain

almost fifty years ago measured by moments of struggle and victory young men and women boarded buses for the South, excercising right of travel free from state to state in peace, knowing this would get them beaten and arrested or maybe even killed because the colors of their skins caused fear and hate. We called them Freedom Riders they did this as a statement, a peacful act of war against an evil called Jim Crow, and in the end they stood victorious. five decades later measured in moments of victory and satisfaction buses filled with young and old again are moving this time going North, not South still in peace but free from threat of hateful retribution tens of thousands journeying to our nation's center witnesses to history celebrating culmination of long struggle in a freely elected leader most did not believe they'd ever see in their own life and times. As to what this means to me and mine I could tell of wonderful times measured in moments of love and peace or I could speak of civil rights or legalities of race, recite the sweep of history or talk of liberty or peacful co-existance or maybe even the Land Of Promise seen from summit of the mountain but instead I'll just say this: my wife, myself, my daughter and two sons? we all drink deep from the same fountain.