We Are Losing a Generation of Civil-Rights Memories
America’s response to the pandemic harkens back to ugly times in our country’s history. But to recognize that, we need to know our elders’ stories.
by Leta McCollough Seletzky
May 03, 2020
4 minutes
I knew it was only a matter of time before coronavirus deaths hit my social-media feeds—before people I knew would grieve, or even become ill and die themselves—but I wasn’t prepared for the speed or relentlessness with which it happened. Or that most of the victims I’d see would be black. I knew that to a large extent this reflected the people and topics I followed, but it was something bigger too, a hint of the grim reality that was only just emerging.
My eyes began to search for COVID-19 in every death announcement. It wasn’t always there, as with the Reverend Joseph Lowery, known as the “Dean of the Civil-Rights Movement,” who died on March 27 at the age
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