I spent the holidays in Central Florida, where the only signs of life political life were a Huckabee for President sign propped up on a John Deere tractor, Rudy Giuliani's 9/11 TV ads and Ron Paul's blimp flying over Orlando.
Before leaving for the airport yesterday, I watched Tom Brokaw's talk on his book, "Boom!: Voices of the Sixties," personal reflections of the "causes and effects" of that tumultuous decade.
For me, the leading voices include Fannie Lou Hamer, Eldridge Cleaver, Huey P. Newton, and Bill Lucy who helped organize the Memphis sanitation workers' strike. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his last speech, "I've Been to the Mountaintop," on April 3, 1968, at a rally for the striking sanitation workers.
The voices also include James Brown who told Negroes to "Say It Loud – I'm Black and I'm Proud," and John Lee Hooker, who released his signature song, "Boom Boom," in 1962.
