INNOVATION . . . INFORMATION . . . INSPIRATION

 January 22, 2013                                          Issue XXIV

 
In This Update . . .

The Abolitionists

 

THE ABOLITIONISTS

 

If you've been watching the PBS American Experience series The Abolitionists, you've been witnessing the resolve of Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, Angelina Grimk�, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and John Brown, the "radicals, agitators, troublemakers, and liberators" whose stories have been told for the past two weeks and conclude tonight in Part 3.  

 

(To catch up on the first two episodes, go to http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/abolitionists )

 

If you're born in Massachusetts, you're born abolitionist. It's in the gene pool here.

We see a social wrong, we want to right it. We see a social evil, we want to end it.

 

Around the country, for the last 30 years our sleeves have been rolled up, but we've not seen the intended outcome.

 

The strategies have been inadequate. They've led to compassion fatigue and solution exhaustion.

 

We embraced the continuum of care hoping that it would bring the solution we longed for and because we knew the resources would flow that way.

 

Now we see the performance outcomes around our country and here in Massachusetts - more of our neighbors homeless on the streets, in shelters, and in welfare hotels. That's what the researchers tell us.

 

We need some change.

 

Well, the time has come. Other social evils have had their day, run their course, and come to an end. So, too, will homelessness. The stories of the abolitionists tell us that. All of history is on our side. We need to be remoralized to our first calling - remoralized to the possibility of change.

 

There will be those voices. Voices of doubt, cynicism, nihilism. Voices that tell us that we're foolish and na�ve. Foolish to believe that our efforts will make a difference. Na�ve to think that it is possible.

 

These voices have been around for a long time. They harassed the abolitionists, mocked the suffragists, abused the civil rights activists. Those voices were wrong then and they're wrong now.

 

Things do change. Our country, once tolerant of slavery, abolished it. Once limited suffrage, expanded it. Once denied civil rights, extended them.

 

Things change. Social evils are undone. So, too, will homelessness be abolished.

 

So set your watch. Mark your calendar. Time is expiring on another social evil. Even now the next Harriet Tubman, Fredrick Douglass, and William Lloyd Garrison for this movement are being formed. They are the foolish and na�ve exponents of Justice and Compassion and Love of Neighbor. The time has come for this social wrong, this long misery to be abolished. Let's join The Abolitionists in our commitment to end another social wrong.

 

The Abolitionists Part 3 airs Tuesday, January 22 at 9 p.m. Eastern on PBS.

Visit  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/abolitionistswatch episodes on line or to find your local PBS station.

 

Philip F. Mangano

 


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