By Ashley Herndon
OCEANSIDE, Calif. | I just have to share some good fortune, having been blessed twice in 1964 and again in 1967-68. I was surprised to be introduced to and met a gentleman of grace and power.
Herndon
The chairman of the First National Bank of Atlanta was the first to introduce me to that person and program who the bank supported.
Then secondly, I was lucky to be invited to sit with him and his entourage on a Delta flight from Atlanta to St. Augustine.
And thirdly, I had the honor to hold his Nobel Peace award in my hands in his home in Atlanta while discussing the future of the proposed Vine City School in his neighborhood, where I was appraising real estate. That person, of course, was Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
The recent annual celebration of the wonder of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s commitment to humanity broadsided me again. Did I say blessed? Yes, I was. I still hear that rumble when he advised his wife’s secretary to let “the young man in.” I entered the King home and we had a “meaningful discussion” about equality, equity, and the lack of racial representation in the real estate world, especially in appraising. We had a good discussion and proceeded to organize a meeting for those wishing to participate and learn about real estate. I left there knowing goals are attainable.
Those three experiences decades ago empowered and humbled that young man. Which leads me to consider: What was the GOP wanting to shift the political agenda away from human rights issues by spewing hate and building cultural divisiveness?
They have sworn at the altar of pseudo-fascism and are committed to destroying our current administration’s agenda and straying from our founding principles. Moderates of both parties have worked toward exercising our nation’s political rights into human rights for over 90 years.
These crazies even want to destroy the civil service so they can appoint flunkies to whatever Federal jobs remain. This is a “New Reconstruction” that would be a reversal of sanity and good government. Corruption would increase even beyond the recent reign of autocracy. Many argue this iteration of the Neo-GOP has forgotten what honesty means. Promise anything using favoritism as the force de jour, which is not honest or testable qualifications.
Should the radicals succeed, it will make January 6 look like child’s play, harking back to the 1876 Election.
In the presidential election of 1876, Democrat Samuel Tilden ran against Republican Rutherford B. Hayes. Tilden’s 50.9 percent is the largest share of the popular vote received by a candidate that was not elected to the presidency. This was the only presidential election in U.S. history in which a candidate who received more than 50 percent of the popular vote did not win the election.
There is a pressed need for bringing honest government back by using the principles attested to in the preamble of the Constitution (1787), which Dr. King reminded us of.
“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”
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