mindful monday : sit in.

Today is the 50th anniversary of the moment when people just like you and I said "enough."

They sat. And because they sat, we live the lives we are living now. 

"Fifty years ago, on Feb. 1, four black college students sat down at a whites-only Woolworth's lunch counter in Greensboro, N.C. The 'Greensboro Four,' along with friends and supporters, returned to the counter every day for six months until the lunch counter was desegregated." –NPR

Those students were Ezell A. Blair, Jr. (now Jibreel Khazan), Franklin E. McCain, Joseph A. McNeil, and David L. Richmond.

Here's to sitting. Here's to taking action. Here's to figuring out, today, what injustice you care enough about to sit for it, to speak out for it, to do what needs to be done to end it. Here's to sitting.

Those four black college students didn't sit once, write a check to assuage their need to help, and then go home to their safe homes. No, they kept sitting. Every day for six months until the lunch counter was desegregated.

We need to keep sitting. It's too easy to get all worked up about something, write a post about it, retweet a mention of it, send a check, and cross it off our list. We need to be in this for the long haul.

Thank you to all those who have come before me–like these four young men–with voices and actions that have effected positive change for all of us. I can only hope to add my name to that number with the things I speak up for and about. And may you, too.

It seems incomprehensible today, in 2010, to remember "whites only" rules.

It will seem incomprehensible in 2060, that we ever thought it right to limit the rights of our brothers and sisters who are lesbian, gay,  bisexual, transgender, queer, or intersex.

Mindfulness. Mindful of others. Mindful of injustice and hate and judgment. Let's sit for someone who hasn't a seat. Let's.