One of my sweet young friends got me to thinking today when she posted this facebook status: "And I think to myself what a wonderful world" yeah sure, maybe for you Louis Armstrong... but that was in 1968... wonder if you would say the same now days?"
That date "1968" stood out in mind for a number of reasons and it got me researching...what WAS Louis Armstrong seeing in the world around him when he released the lyrics to "It's a Wonderful World"?
Well, for starters, if he was listening to his radio or watching TV he would have heard the following news stories...all within that momentous year:
January 31, 1968: Televised coverage of the Tet Offensive in Vietnam begins to shift opinion and anti-war & anti-military protests take on new passion.
Feb 8, 1968: Police fire into a crowd protesting the segregation of a bowling alley in SC. 3 killed, 27 injured.
March 8, 1968: 15,000 students in Los Angeles stage the Chicano Blowouts - the largest high school protest in history.
March 16, 1968: US Troops kill 500 unarmed Vietnamese civilians in My Lai prompting world wide outrage at America and its military.
March 19, 1968: Students shut down Howard University in mass protest.
April 4, 1968: James Earl Ray assassinates MLK, Jr in Memphis.
April 6, 1968: Several shot dead in a shootout between Oakland police and the Black Panthers.
April 23, 1968: Columbia University shuts down and more than 700 students arrested.
June 5, 1968: Sirhan B. Sirhan shoots Presidential candidate and US Senator, Bobby Kennedy.
August 20, 1968: Soviet Union invades Czechoslovakia following months of street demonstrations about democracy. Fears of Cold War and Soviet aggression are renewed.
August 26, 1968: Anti-war protesters hold a rioting spree at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. The "Chicago 7" arrested.
October 16, 1968: American athletes and and world record holders, Tommie Smith and John Carlos raise the symbol of the Black Panthers in protest during the playing of the Star Spangled Banner at the World Olympics and are expelled from the Olympic community.
December 23, 1968: North Koreans finally release 82 crew members of the USS Pueblo after 11 months of accusations of spying.
December 25, 1968: President Johnson approves airlift of aid to Nigeria where almost 1 million Nigerians have died due to starvation.
Sooo...what was Armstrong seeing in 1968? Fear, starvation, dissension, prejudice, murder, war, mayhem, protests, segregation...and yet he was still able to look around him and see beauty in the world.
Just a couple things we can learn from this: 1. The more things change the more they stay the same. 2. The "good old days" had their share of bad because we live in a fallen world and 3. We will usually see the things we are looking for.
So, for today, regardless of what the news reports are, remember those words sung by a black man born in the south at the height of the Jim Crow laws, a grandson of slaves and abandoned by his father.... and sing along with Louis Armstrong as YOU look for the beauty in the world around you.
I see trees of green, red roses too
I see them bloom for me and you
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.
I see skies of blue and clouds of white
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself what a wonderful world.
The colors of the rainbow so pretty in the sky
Are also on the faces of people going by
I see friends shaking hands saying how do you do
They're really saying I love you.
I hear babies crying, I watch them grow
They'll learn much more than I'll never know
And I think to myself what a wonderful world
Yes I think to myself what a wonderful world.
Monday, January 24, 2011
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