Douglass Wilder: Healing Needs Work, Starting at Local Level

• Originally published in the Richmond Times Dispatch (Virginia) April 3, 2005 Copyright 2005 Richmond Newspapers, Inc.

By L. Douglas Wilder 
L. Douglas Wilder is Mayor of Richmond


One of the things I stressed during last fall's campaign for the election of a Mayor and the earlier campaign to change the way Richmond chooses so to do was the need for healing in our city.

This is a priority with me, but not just for the City of Richmond. We are becoming a divided nation. The "us's" and the "thems"; the good guys and the bad guys. We fall prey to whose religion is said to be superior or more closely aligned with God. Being a Democrat or a Republican carries connotations far beyond what was contemplated by those who founded the parties and separated themselves for the pragmatic approaches they felt that government should take to their lives.

Everywhere we turn there is violence. It's not just the physical violence: It's the lack of civility and/or respect for differing opinions. There is violence in our churches, synagogues, and temples; in our schools and workplaces; on our streets and in our communities; and even in our homes. Nations around the world are still engaged in wars and even the rumors of wars continue.

We cannot solve the problems of the world, the nation, or even our state. But we can individually commit to looking directly at some of the causes and calling them what they are. I have watched and joined in, as people would join clasped hands, usually at the end of an occasion, while singing the old song readily identified with the civil rights movement, "We Shall Overcome." I remember as a boy, and then as a young man, listening to another song. The intonation of the slave song, "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot," was the lamentation of a slave believing that only in the aftermath of death could there be any relief for the suffering involved here on Earth.

Song Is Still Being Sung

Now, 51 years after the 1954 Brown v. Board of Education decision declaring segregation in public schools was unconstitutional; 40 years after the 1965 Voting Rights Act was passed, ending years of denial of minority access to the ballot box; and 41 years after the 1964 Civil Rights Act was enacted, declaring racial discrimination illegal in public accommodations and most aspects of citizen participation in public life, the song is still being sung. We have heard time after time how African-Americans emphatically state that the Republican Party "ignores" the African-American vote and the Democrats take the African-American vote for granted. And nothing is done to change that situation.

There is always the talk of another group to address the issue of just what is wrong within the African-American community. The memberships of the new groups are usually picked from those who have been or are as much a part of the problem as the others.

Three years ago, when the movement started to change Richmond's charter, the charge of the leadership against the measure was that the change would result in a "race war." What surprised me about this senseless rhetoric is that it was never put down or even addressed by the leadership groups. It wasn't even discussed. But the people put it down resoundingly by using the education they received and the freedom to exercise their free will at the ballot box.

People Are Ahead of Leaders

It would serve us all well if we spent more time listening to the people. I have maintained that people are always ahead of their leaders. The people look for healing, for moving ahead, for dealing with the problems that still confront us everywhere.

Moreover, wherever and whenever the occasion presents itself, we should maximize the things that unite us, those on which we can all agree. On the things that continue to divide and separate us, we should make serious efforts to determine why that is so, and work to eliminate them.

The inevitability of life is that there will always be differences among individuals and nations. We can lessen the degree of those differences. Living in the past helps none of us. What we learn from the past does. When next we gather to sing the old song, "We Shall Overcome," hopefully there will be that silent refrain at the end asking: How?