The Free Spirit

The Changing Times, 1963 (Part Three)

"Come mothers and fathers throughout the land, don't criticise what you can't understand. Your sons and your daughters are beyond your command..."

I'd said it once, I'd said it a hundred times, by 1963, it was obvious to see that times were changing, and quickly. It was becoming unacceptable in America for white people to treat people of colour as beneath them, it was becoming unacceptable for men to treat women as worth less than them, and so on. It was becoming harder and harder to avoid an inevitable war that would change the world, and no, I don't mean Vietnam. No real social change in the world, whether it be racial relations or gender equality or homosexual rights, has ever been brought about without a revolution. It took a revolution on the part of the youth, who broke away from the conformity their elders forced upon them, to fight for the change they wanted to see. They knew that if they fought, they might not see it out until the end, but as long as they fought, the world would be a better place for their children, their grandchildren and future generations of Americans. Revolution is always in the hands of the young, and the young always inherit the revolution. Until the battle is won, the fight continues on. No freedom fighter ever fought for themselves, knowing that change would never come overnight. They fought for the future.

I would come to say these exact words and more in 1967, as I led a protest outside of the White House that fought for freedom of all kind - freedom from war, from inequality, from harassment and assault, and more. But in 1963, the seeds that had been planted in my mind way back in 1961 were starting to sprout, but only after they had been watered by none other than Ginger McAllistor. To this day, I still don't know how she found my home address, but as I was about to leave for work, I was surprised to see Ginger standing on my stoop after I had answered her knock. "Your maiden name is Cromwell. May I come in?" she said, and I stepped aside bearing a rather confused expression as she walked in.

"I haven't got long, I've got work to do," I told the little Welsh girl as she examined the contents of my home. She came across a family portrait taken of myself, Don and our two children that had been taken the previous summer in California.

"Do you like being a midwife?" she asked me.

"I dedicated my teenage years to studying midwifery," I replied.

"Instead of going out with friends, you stayed at home studying?" Ginger asked me. "But where did your youth go?"

"It was taken from me a very long time ago," I replied neutrally.

"Ah, yes, I've heard rumours of your time on the continent." She admired a picture of my children next. "You've got two beautiful children. What are their names, and how old are they?"

"Elton and Stacey. Elton is about four and a half and Stacey just turned three a couple of months ago. I'm sorry, but why are you here?"

"I hear your spirit is engulfed in the flames of revolution. They say no one is as fierce as you once you set your mind to something and you demand to see an end to whatever it is you fight for. The world needs people like you to help it change, Catherine Cromwell."

"Everly, and I haven't the time to be a protestor. I've got a career, I've got a family, and I've got responsibilities."

"People like you are suffering."

"People like me? And what kind of people do you mean?"

"An entire war was fought to stop the Nazis from eliminating the Jewish people and yet, here we are twenty years later, still pushing them down and out of the way, only we aren't locking them up and starving them. I know you aren't entirely white, that much is quite obvious. What is your heritage?"