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May Tangen Christmas Letters, 1961-1974
Tangen Christmas Tribute, 1968 Page 1
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Tangen's 1968 Tribune to the Stanleys WITH BEST WISHES FOR A HAPPY NEW YEAR! JANUARY - On the train coming back to Holly Springs after spending Christmas in New Orleans I had a thoughtful appraisal of my new work at Rust College and decided I wouldn't be elsewhere, that every moment has significance, that this is where God wants me to be. I learned this month that there could be snow, beautiful, deep, and clinging, but there were also dandelions blooming after the thaw and that frogs sang their spring songs in the swampy areas. FEBRUARY - Mrs. Bernice Marmon, leader of the Asbury Head Start group, found for me my Little Brother, Dennis Ray Walker, and I became the sister of a family of eight, a relationship that has grown warmer as the year progressed and brought me also my Little Sister, Mary Erma, who now is four and in Head Start too. Rev. and Mrs. John Moore and 5-year-old Jonathan from Iowa City came to visit, and my loving community at Asbury Church received them in fellowship one evening. I was proud and happy to have my old friends meet the new ones. Daffodils were blooming on Brittenum's lawn when they were here. MARCH - Our dear Aunt Mabel died. A carpet of white and pinkish star flowers and little yellow flowers began to spread over the campus and nothing has done more to bind me to the south. I attended meetings of Marshall County citizens, becoming acquainted with the leaders of the county and admiring deep - the conduct of the ever-renewed battle for the rights of Negroes. Their 18 grievances ranged from a fight to restore the food-stamp program to the protest against the city for not renewing contracts for the teachers who had been candidates for county offices. The poignancy of the mounting difficulties came into shar focus in APRIL 4th, just as we were assembling for a meeting, the news of Martin Luther King's death was confirmed. With emotion and grief they held the meeting, singing his favorite songs, talking out their great loss, wondering what he would have us do, praying, trying to comfort each other. But the days that followed saw rebellion among students and brought the awe-striking news of rioting, looting and burning. Holly Springs was spared, but in MAY there was a boycott of the schools by Negro students protesting vehemently the loss of their teachers and demanding better facilities. Arrests, marches, meetings dwindled at the closing of school at graduation time. But except for the activity of some sympathetic students and faculty this did not touch as much at Rust College as we moved into the end of the spring semester. JUNE was for me a sort of misery as I was acting librarian when Mr. Jackson went to Atlanta U to work on his masters during summer school. I felt the greater guilt at leaving Miss Pegues and Mrs.Rayford in charge while I attended the Regional School of Christian Mission at Lake Junaluska, N. C., a school I had been preparing for in order to lead the dialogue on the Gospel of John. But the Lake Junaluska experience was so big and so heartfelt and Miss Pegues and Mrs. Rayford did so well that I felt somewhat forgiven. JULY brought the second session of sum-
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Tangen's 1968 Tribune to the Stanleys WITH BEST WISHES FOR A HAPPY NEW YEAR! JANUARY - On the train coming back to Holly Springs after spending Christmas in New Orleans I had a thoughtful appraisal of my new work at Rust College and decided I wouldn't be elsewhere, that every moment has significance, that this is where God wants me to be. I learned this month that there could be snow, beautiful, deep, and clinging, but there were also dandelions blooming after the thaw and that frogs sang their spring songs in the swampy areas. FEBRUARY - Mrs. Bernice Marmon, leader of the Asbury Head Start group, found for me my Little Brother, Dennis Ray Walker, and I became the sister of a family of eight, a relationship that has grown warmer as the year progressed and brought me also my Little Sister, Mary Erma, who now is four and in Head Start too. Rev. and Mrs. John Moore and 5-year-old Jonathan from Iowa City came to visit, and my loving community at Asbury Church received them in fellowship one evening. I was proud and happy to have my old friends meet the new ones. Daffodils were blooming on Brittenum's lawn when they were here. MARCH - Our dear Aunt Mabel died. A carpet of white and pinkish star flowers and little yellow flowers began to spread over the campus and nothing has done more to bind me to the south. I attended meetings of Marshall County citizens, becoming acquainted with the leaders of the county and admiring deep - the conduct of the ever-renewed battle for the rights of Negroes. Their 18 grievances ranged from a fight to restore the food-stamp program to the protest against the city for not renewing contracts for the teachers who had been candidates for county offices. The poignancy of the mounting difficulties came into shar focus in APRIL 4th, just as we were assembling for a meeting, the news of Martin Luther King's death was confirmed. With emotion and grief they held the meeting, singing his favorite songs, talking out their great loss, wondering what he would have us do, praying, trying to comfort each other. But the days that followed saw rebellion among students and brought the awe-striking news of rioting, looting and burning. Holly Springs was spared, but in MAY there was a boycott of the schools by Negro students protesting vehemently the loss of their teachers and demanding better facilities. Arrests, marches, meetings dwindled at the closing of school at graduation time. But except for the activity of some sympathetic students and faculty this did not touch as much at Rust College as we moved into the end of the spring semester. JUNE was for me a sort of misery as I was acting librarian when Mr. Jackson went to Atlanta U to work on his masters during summer school. I felt the greater guilt at leaving Miss Pegues and Mrs.Rayford in charge while I attended the Regional School of Christian Mission at Lake Junaluska, N. C., a school I had been preparing for in order to lead the dialogue on the Gospel of John. But the Lake Junaluska experience was so big and so heartfelt and Miss Pegues and Mrs. Rayford did so well that I felt somewhat forgiven. JULY brought the second session of sum-
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