For No Kings Day, I've chosen to walk with the military burial flag of my father-in-law, who was a WWII veteran. I was there as upon this flag, William Edward Stiles Jr. received his final salute: three volleys from the rifles of the honor guard before it was folded and presented to my mother-in-law by two Navy men. Later, at his memorial, I was astonished to discover that a white man of his era had so many Black friends.
You see my father-in-law's fight against injustice did not end when he returned from the second World War. His fight continued in the civil rights movement negotiating for teachers unions in the shadow of Brown v. Board of Education America. Out of prejudice or fear of the Klu Klux Klan, few white people were willing to do what he did because it meant also representing Black teachers unions.
#NoKingsDay
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