They believe they are keeping down an insurrection by bloodying observers in the streets. The idea of a massive self-organizing resistance that is about care and not confrontation is beyond them. That is why they will lose.

6. Which isn't to diminish their accomplishments. It's simply to note, as Charles Neblett once told me that "once you have a movement, you need a leader. But movements always come first". en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles...

5. Frederick Douglass wasn't the first slave to beat up his master, get free and talk about it. Homer Plessy, Claudette Colvin and a lot of others sat down before Rosa Parks did. Lincoln pushed for "colonization" before he finally accepted freedom.

4. The story may be more compelling, and easier to remember with singular characters but the characters we learn were the tip of a spear. Their successful "bend of the arc" didn't happen because they were the first. It was because the moment was finally ready for what they did.

3. All of which makes for a nice story, but would come as news to anyone in the moment. There was almost a full century between when we declared all men are created equal and the end of slavery. Another 100 yrs before we'd pass consistent with the 14th amendment promise of equal protection.

2. The world becomes more democratic. Our democracy becomes more inclusive. Douglass frees himself and writes a book. Lincoln frees the slaves. Rosa sits down. Progress happens.

1. While never implicit, the subtext of my history classes was that progress is inevitable and history advances through the works of singular individuals.

Early sports makes me want to move to the west coast.

They had guys like Bovino and Hegseth in the 12th Century too, and they were smart enough to tell them "Wow what brave heroes you are, wanna do brave hero stuff?" and send them away to die outside Byzantium because the Pisans were like "Yeah sure we'll provide the ships" and didn't.

It makes perfect sense that the idea of the Crusades appeals today to the exact kind of loud, adolescent-brained, self-aggrandizing, just-rich-enough-to-cause-problems idiot that the actual Crusades were designed to siphon out of the body politic like the snake venom they were, and are.