REBELLION AND REMEMBRANCE

John Ball

In June 1381, 630 years ago, Kentish rebels formed behind Wat Tyler and marched on London to join the Essex contingent. When the Kentish rebels arrived at Blackheath on 12 June 1381, the renegade Lollard priest, John Ball, preached a sermon including the famous question that has echoed down the centuries: "When Adam delved and Eve span, who was then the gentleman?" The following day, the rebels, encouraged by the sermon, crossed London Bridge into the heart of the city.

Anne Frank

For her 13th birthday on 12 June 1942, Anne Frank received a book she had shown her father in a shop window a few days earlier. Although it was an autograph book, bound with red-and-white checkered cloth and with a small lock on the front, Frank decided she would use it as a diary, and began writing in it almost immediately. While many of her early entries relate the mundane aspects of her life, she also discusses some of the changes that had taken place in the Netherlands since the German occupation.

On the morning of Monday, 6 July 1942, the family moved into their hiding place, a secret annex. She wrote in her diary on Wednesday, 5 April 1944:

“I finally realized that I must do my schoolwork to keep from being ignorant, to get on in life, to become a journalist, because that’s what I want! I know I can write ..., but it remains to be seen whether I really have talent ...And if I don’t have the talent to write books or newspaper articles, I can always write for myself. But I want to achieve more than that. I can’t imagine living like Mother, Mrs. van Daan and all the women who go about their work and are then forgotten. I need to have something besides a husband and children to devote myself to! ...I want to be useful or bring enjoyment to all people, even those I’ve never met. I want to go on living even after my death! And that’s why I’m so grateful to God for having given me this gift, which I can use to develop myself and to express all that’s inside me! When I write I can shake off all my cares. My sorrow disappears, my spirits are revived! But, and that’s a big question, will I ever be able to write something great, will I ever become a journalist or a writer?”

In 1963 Civil Rights leader Medgar Evers was murdered in front on his home in Jackson, Mississippi by Byron De La Beckwith. Here is a 2008 you tube video in remembrance of his death: