Not sure what the scaffolding of the Statehouse statues is really about, but it looks like Abraham Lincoln is in prison. That’s where he was before fully committing to anti-racism and abolition – when he wanted to do the right thing for the wrong reasons, like fighting the war to preserve the union, or solve problems in roundabout acceptable ways, like getting Blacks to emigrate so they wouldn’t anger whites. Likewise Everett Dirksen, just down Second Street, is now behind bars. This must be the good old Republican pol from Pekin, known as the “Wizard of Ooze,” before his unlikely vote for the 1964 Civil Rights Act catapulted him to the status of statesman. We hope these guys soon break out of their jails, and that we all get free from what’s holding us back. –Fletcher Farrar, editor and CEO
This article appears in Above and Beyond.
