Ordinary people can do extraordinary things.
“I’ve been thinking,” wrote Puerto Rican author Jesus Colon, “you know, sometimes one thing happens to change your life, how you look at things, how you look at yourself.”
That’s the message behind “Choosing to Participate: Facing History and Ourselves,” an exhibit at the Central Library from Feb. 17 to April 14.
For Colon, that “one thing” was a subway ride on a cold night in New York City. He was going home, and quietly watched while a white woman struggled to get off the train with a suitcase in her arm and her children pressed around her.
“I remember thinking,” he wrote, “I’m a Negro and a Puerto Rican. Suppose I approach this white lady in this deserted subway station late at night? What would she say? What would be the first reaction of this white American woman?”
The exhibit encourages tough questions like these.
“Choosing to Participate focuses on civic choices, decisions we make about people in our neighborhoods, our city, and our nation,” reads a billboard outside the exhibit.
It’s part of a nationally-touring project that encourages its audience to take a stand in their communities.
“These choices may not seem important at the time,” the billboard reads, “but little by little, step by step, they shape our identity, forge a community, and define a nation today and for generations to come.”
Along with the story of Jesus Colon, the exhibit presents two other compelling stories about ordinary Americans who found themselves in extraordinary situations.
One of them is that of Elizabeth Eckford. One of the “Little Rock Nine,” Eckford was one of the first African-American students admitted to an all-white school in Arkansas.
When she arrived at Central High School on Sept. 4, 1957, National Guardsmen crossed their rifles and refused to let her enter. Local police purposely let the crowd get out of control. A mob closed in on her and began to chant “Two, four, six, eight. We ain’t gonna integrate.”
Eckford’s part of the exhibit includes a colored drinking fountain from the era and a copy of the Central High School yearbook from 1958, the year the first of the African-American students graduated.
Rachel Shankman, Memphis regional director for the national project, said the exhibit was brought here to encourage historical awareness about stories such as Eckford’s.
“A desire to bring this complex picture from recent moments in American history to our students and our community inspired the idea,” she said.
There is a quote from Harry Fosdick on one of the walls of the exhibit.
“Democracy,” he said, “is based upon the conviction that there are extraordinary possibilities in ordinary people.”
Based on that idea, a companion exhibit, “The Hero Next Door,” is also being shown with “Choosing to Participate.” It focuses on 20 people from the local area who made a positive difference in their community.
“Many questions remain,” Shankman says, “but so do many answers. They can be found in the responses of ordinary people, who by their involvement are creating a better chapter in our history that is still being written.”
Ordinary people like Jesus Colon, who now has a simple response to his situation in the subway.
“Perhaps the lady was not prejudiced after all,” he says. “If you were not that prejudiced, I failed you, dear lady. If you were not that prejudiced, I failed you too, children. I failed myself.
“... So, here is the promise I made to myself back then. If I am ever faced with an occasion like that again, I am going to offer my help, regardless of how the offer is going to be received.”
A small group of school children move quietly and thoughtfully through the exhibit hall. They stare and point, walk and whisper.
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world,” wrote Margaret Mead, whose words are written on a wall in the exhibit room. “Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”
Ordinary people, extraordinary things.
