Many organizations have been posting thoughtful, well-reasoned announcements regarding their attitude toward recent events and toward the Black Lives Matter movement.
We, Carole and Jay Furr, are just a middle-aged married couple with no special standing — but nonetheless, it seems wrong that our website is lacking any sign or testament of our attitudes and beliefs.
So here goes:
We are tremendously sorry that it took until the year 2020 for people to finally wake up and start saying “NO MORE”.
We are tremendously sorry for black and brown citizens who’ve had to give their children “the speech.” And who’ve had police called on them for just existing and being Americans. And for all those who have lost their lives via brutality, hatred, and society turning a blind eye. And everything else.
And most of all, we are sorry that so many people have said, for so long, “Why such a hurry to change things? Just wait, change will come in time.”
‘For years now I have heard the word “Wait!” It rings in the ear of every Negro with piercing familiarity. This “Wait” has almost always meant “Never.” We must come to see, with one of our distinguished jurists, that “justice too long delayed is justice denied.”’
Martin Luther King wrote that in 1963.
Nineteen. Sixty. Three.
The time to wait is OVER.
The only way change is going to come is if we all stand up and tell the people who defiantly talk about their heritage as they wave Confederate flags that the heritage they speak of consisted of slavery and oppression and genocide. And if we tell the people who insist on saying “ALL lives matter” to demonstrate that belief by agreeing that BLACK LIVES MATTER too… and stop looking the other way.
We support the Black Lives Matter movement. Unequivocally.
Carole and Jay Furr
Richmond, Vermont
June 2020
Well said. I hope you’re both doing okay, as much as anyone can be in 2020. How are things?
Things are pretty good. We’ve both been working from home full-time and trying to stay safe. How are you?