On Brookline

This site has been too long without a game component, that’s why I’m pleased to introduce a new feature called: “Where in the World is Jesse Mermell?”

Readers will recall that Mermell chose to spend her time in New Hampshire leafletting for Hillary Clinton on Tuesday…instead of fulfilling her public responsibilities as Arthur Conquest put his case of civil rights obstruction to the Board of Selectmen (of which Mermell purports to belong).

The problem is that elections are held on Tuesdays and so are the meetings of the Brookline Board of Selectmen. What’s a young political activist to do?

The next big primary date is Tuesday, February 5th. On that day, 19 states will hold primaries (including Massachusetts).

Here’s the game. Pick from the map at right (the states in olive are holding primaries) and e-mail me your prediction as to which state Jesse will be leafletting instead of attending to her selectman responsibilities.

There’s no prize involved. Jesse’s the real winner, after all.

Update: But let’s not be mistaken, Mermell being on hand on Tuesday would add precious little to the proceedings. In December, when the selectmen denied an appeal into the police chief’s findings of no police mis-conduct, Mermell wanted to, “thank everyone involved for providing this important opportunity to talk about race in Brookline” [see previous post].

Maybe she meant Brookline, New Hampshire. Because we were talking about race on Tuesday in Brookline, Massachusetts and Mermell was nowhere to be found.

Update (2): And let’s not lose sight of the point that when Brookline was achieving its civil rights nadir, Mermell was leafletting for a candidate who says that the civil rights movement in America had more to do with Lyndon Johnson than the soaring rhetoric of Martin Luther King [see story here] and, by extension, slamming Barak Obama as an oratorically-gifted lightweight.

So much for history, as it was actually the soaring rhetoric of Hubert Humphrey at the 1948 Democratic Convention that got the movement started. His speech led to the formation of Strom Thurmond’s Dixiecrats and showed the Democrats that they can win without the South, as President Truman did that year. Many historians believe that Humphrey’s speech accounted for Truman’s narrow victory.

Here’s an excerpt:

My friends, to those who say that we are rushing this issue of civil rights, I say to them we are 172 years late. To those who say that this civil-rights program is an infringement on states’ rights, I say this: The time has arrived in America for the Democratic party to get out of the shadow of states’ rights and to walk forthrightly into the bright sunshine of human rights.

Listen to Humphrey’s speech here.