I was excited and energized to blog today to tell everyone about an opera I saw last night. I love history, have read, and research the story and life of Margaret Garner. This story intrigues me years ago, I even read the inspired story Beloved that Toni Morrison wrote based on Margaret Garner. The story last night was full opera; the story was very intense in song. The voices deep, sympathetic, harmonizing, soulful, and at times upbeat transformed this ordinary story into an event.

However, the happiness that I have been experiences for a month to see this Opera was drowned in sadness. My cousin called from Mississippi to tell me that groups of her friends were attack walking on the side of the road to a friend’s house. I been living in a major city for a while and it never occurred to me anything but I listened. She told why they were killed – I immediately thought gang violence. Then I thought mmm, maybe, maybe not. It’s still much rural and not more than 10k people. Then she told me the horror of the last weeks of people being attack before she sobbed and told me they were attacked and killed for wearing an Obama t-shirt. They were 14. What do I tell her, nothing I listened. I told her to be careful. There has been increasing violence in many small towns throughout this election and no one reports it. I doubt that we ever hear about this story and many like this. However, it dampened my spirits and made me wonder, how much farther do we need to progress.

The story of Margaret Garner is one of hardship, fear, love, and death. This story is the most significant and controversial of all antebellum fugitive slave stories. Margaret Garner's family was the "property" of a Kentucky plantation owner.

One winter night, Margaret and her family joined an escape party and crossed the frozen river to find freedom in Ohio. Their hiding place was soon discovered and surrounded by pursuers. Margaret declared she would kill herself and her children before she would return to slavery. As her husband was overpowered and dragged from the shelter, Margaret seized a knife from the table and killed her daughter. She then attempted to take the life of her other children and to kill herself, but she was captured and jailed before she could complete her desperate work. The trial resulted in a major legal debate about whether she should be charged with murder or "destruction of property." Margaret Garner was found guilty of "destruction of property" and was remanded back to slavery.

The Garner trial addressed crucial issues in constitutional law and posed key questions at the core of the rift in the Union. To abolitionists, the case decisively illustrated the pathology of slavery.

Debate concerning the constitutionality of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, demanding that citizens assent to and assist in the capture of fugitive Blacks, was integral to the case. Also relevant were the all-important states' rights issues, which in the Garner case pitted a charge of murder in Ohio, a "free" state, against a mere "destruction of property" suit in Kentucky. The latter issue was hotly contested at the time in the courts of public opinion, and both sides saw in their differences nothing short of the simmering roots of civil war.

So, I am asking everyone: How Much Further Do We Really Need To Go? Do you think things will get better in the years to come? How do we mend these feelings of hate or do we? How can people still evoke so much hate and scare people to believe they are not worthy?

This is a disclaimer: I know some will want to participate and ask what about the flip side of this and violence among others: all comments are welcome; however, I would like everyone to be respectful and to try and focus on this situation. Pitting one situation or occurrence against another does not make a situation better or help us work through problems; it only makes the question, situation, go around and around. I want answers or even possible solutions not events that are compared that does not help us move forward.

Thank you