In
an attempt to shorten the bloodshed and bring WWII to a sooner end
Allies
had a plan to cross the Rhine at Arnhem and troops into the Ruhr sent
Operation
Market Garden involved dropping three divisions of parachutes
To
seize and hold the bridges until reached by British armor following on an elevated narrow route
Sadly
for the Allies, Arnhem was the bridge too far
Allies’
attempt to enter Germany, the Germans would bar
In
the 60’s we were at war at home this time to achieve goals not if but when
And
a bridge to cross would come into play yet once again
In
1965 blacks and supporters were trying to end decades of Jim Crow’s racist grip
While
the KKK and many southern police wanted to such aspirations with violence in
the bud nip
Demanding
an end to the literacy tests and suppression that prevented a black vote
On
a Sunday in 1965, time to assemble and a march from Selma to Montgomery to
devote
600
unarmed peaceful black and white marchers started to the Edmund Pettus Bridge to
try to cross
Facing
a wall of Alabama State Troopers and deputies who viewed them as useless dross
Ordered
by bull horn to disburse then with clubs and batons into the crowd to force
them to reverse
John
Lewis was in the front row and was beaten the worse
Skull
fractured by a baton and but for the grace of God could have died
As
TV cameras caught the one sided violence coming from the troopers’ side
The
other side on the bridge was too far to cross
Beaten
they fled back but the forces of suppression would suffer the loss
ABC
was showing Judgment at Nuremberg as
its movie for the night
Crimes
against humanity yet 20 years later were again in sight
Outraged
that mere peaceful protesters trying to register to a vote cast
Were
beaten so badly that most viewers were repulsed and aghast
A
bloody sacrifice led by John Lewis that led to the Civil Rights Act of 1965 finally
being passed
And
for the rest of his life a recovered John Lewis worked to see the momentum for
Civil Rights never ran out of gas
His
has now died and his body in a casket passed slowly over that bridge drawn by
mules
Another
symbolic nail in the coffin to a now despised decades of Jim Crow rule
Met
by white Alabama troopers not to beat but to into a Rotunda his casket to carry
Giving
all of us some hope that a good part of racial divide and animosity we have
brought to some sort of bury
Today
in the Washington, D.C. Capitol Rotunda the bridge, once a bridge too far
Has
been crossed, led by the Conscience of the House, a lasting Civil Rights star.
© July 27,
2020 Michael P. Ridley aka the Alaskanpoet
Alaskanpoet for Hire, Poems to Admire
Poet Extraordinaire Beyond Compare
The
Perfect Gift, All Recipients to Receive a Lasting Lift
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