Martinsville Journey

As I indicated a couple days ago, I was in Martinsville, Virginia, in rural south central Virginia to argue a case involving a state employee discharged by the Virginia Museum of Natural History for being gay. I was aided on the legal research by the Washington, D.C., office of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual Transgender Project of the ACLU and having made the arguments we are awaiting a decision within the next week and a half or so. Needless to say I will be keeping my fingers crossed.

*

Martinsville is a physically beautiful place located in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Progressive, however, it is not and it truly makes Norfolk look like a bright shining cosmopolitan center of liberalism (which it is not) in comparison. As the case of the "Martinsville Seven" from circa 1950 reveals, Martinsville has dark elements in its past. Yet, by the same token, it's amazing what even the main stream media was like at that point in time. A Time magazine article from the time period described those who were supporting the efforts to clear the names of seven blacks accused and condemned for raping a white woman as "communists:"

*

The well-greased Communist apparatus was making propaganda hay out of the Martinsville Seven—with suitable adjustments in the facts.

*

It was a pretty scary world back then and it's encouraging that the nation and Martinsville have progressed from that period of time. It is ironic, however, that it is to that time period that the Christianists seem Hell bent on trying to return the country to.