Also tonight, Dick Van ---- just released a short vid called "Voting"... of him reading a Rod Serling speech:
hi I'm uh Dick Van ---- you may remember
I used to sing and dance and fall down a
lot
actually 50 years ago May 31st
1964 I was on the podium with Dr Martin
Luther King
who was addressing some
60,000 people in the coliseum in La
I was there to read a message written by
Rod turling the guy who wrote Twilight
Zone
I got it out the the other day and
I think it it means as much today if not
more than it did then
so if you don't
mind I'd like to read it
"hatred is not
the norm Prejudice is not the norm
suspicion dislike jealousy
scapegoating
none of those are the
Transcendent facet of the human
personality
they're diseases they are the cancers of the
Soul they are the Infectious and
contagious viruses that have been
bleeding Humanity for
years
and because they have been and
because they are... is it necessary that
they shall be?
I think not
if there's one voice left to say
welcome to stranger if there's but one
hand outstretched to say enter and
share if there's one mind remaining to
think of thought of warmth and
friendship then there's a future in
which we'll find more than one hand more
than one voice and more than one mind
dedicated to the cause of man's
equality
Wishful hopeful unassured
problematical and not to be guaranteed
that's all
true
but again on this spring evening of
1964 a little of man's awareness has
shown itself a little of his essential
decency
his basic goodness his
preeminent dignity has been made a
matter of record
there'll be moments of
violence and expressions of hatred and
ugly echo of
intolerance
but these are the clinging
visages of a Decayed past not the harbinges
of a better cleaner
future
to those who tell us the
inequality of the human animal is
unnecessary evil we must respond by
simply saying that first it is evil but
not necessary
we prove it sitting here
tonight in
1964
we prove it by affirming our faith
we prove it by having faith in our
affirmations
horest man said be ashamed
to die unless you win some victory for
Humanity
I'd like to paraphrase that
tonight
let's be ashamed to live without
that
Victory
DvanD = 1964 A lot's happened not so much as
Martin Luther dreamed of but a start
thank you God bless
