I. Via Wounded Bird, a quote from Brother Eldridge Pendleton, Society of St. John the Evangelist:
To each of us God gives riches that we may enhance by squandering on those who need us.
II. A book by a fellow Texan whose title I've heard of many times, but somehow never bothered to find out anything about - until now.
III. By chance today I rediscovered this breathtaking Norman Rockwell painting, ''Murder in Mississipppi'', which he created in response to the killing of three civil rights workers in 1964 - click to enlarge:
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5 comments:
Black Like Me is an extraordinary book. It packed quite a wallop at the time, because white folks were forced to see themselves as they were. Of course some of them didn't care, and their racist views were only reinforced by the book.
I don't know that I've ever seen Rockwell's painting, but it's quite a departure from the old 'Saturday Evening Post' covers.
The Rockwell piece is new to me - so much more of a "painting" than an illustration - very interesting.
Rockwell had a lively social conscience and did several civil rights paintings, commissioned to accompany articles in Life or Look in the 1960's. The most famous is "The Problem We All Live With," which President Obama had hung in the West Wing last summer.
This painting I posted reminds me very much of Goya's "Third of May, 1808." Perhaps in time Rockwell's will be regarded as just such a masterpiece, too.
The 1964 film version of "Black Like Me" starred James Whitmore. As a kid I found it gripping.
Somehow I missed both book and movie growing up. I've searched YouTube and Netflix for the film, but can't find it anywhere.
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