Lama Hasan reported on ABC television today with the following to report from Libya: "The wave of change sweeping across the Arab world has finally given women a voice. Everywhere I went in the region, I was impressed and surprised by the women I saw. Something changed; a barrier was broken, and they felt empowered and determined to bring down regimes that had denied them their freedom for too long. "'Maybe we will die, so? History will not die,' said Salwa Bugaighif, a lawyer I met here in Benghazi." <http://abcnews.go.com/International/women-revolution-middle-east-uprisings-shaped-women-egypt/story?id=13069696>

I am pondering today that freedom and democracy do not come easily.

Tomorrow is the anniversary of what came to be called Bloody Sunday in America. When the civil rights movement leaders men and women, struggled for voting rights for all American citizens regardless of skin color. It wasn't so long ago.

On March 7, 1965 the first of a series of three marches took place. This one was of more than 600 marchers. When the marchers got across the Edmond Pettus Bridge they were set upon by the police and state troopers with dogs, billy clubs and tear gas. Two marches later, on Sunday, March 21, about 3,200 marchers set out for Montgomery. When they reached the capitol on Thursday, March 25, the numbers were 25,000. Within five months after the last of the three marches, President Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act of 1965. But there was a high cost, including Detroit homemaker Viola Liuzzo who was attacked and killed by Klansmen as she drove marchers back to Selma. http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/civilrights/cost.htm

Viola Liuzzo and Salwa Bugaighif challenge me. Is this a moment when resistance to oppression requires this kind of courage from me? At the very least I can remind the next generation what their parents have done. At the very least I can ask the people around me to decide today that they will vote the next time. The vote is hard won. Let's not waste it – ever.