The Intersection Where Everything Happens - Short Story

I carry around a card that shows I have had two doses of the pfizer vaccine.  I just got it a few days ago.  It took a significant amount of time and I was fortunate enough to be over 65.  I was also fortunate enough to have a computer, good internet access a college degree and time to navigate a system that required all of the above and the ability to walk to public transportation of get to a vaccine site at the civic center.

Yesterday was the anniversary of the first March for Voting Rights from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama, that became known as "Bloody Sunday".

Black Americans outnumbered white Americans among the 29,500 people who lived in Selma, Alabama, in the 1960s, but the city’s voting rolls were 99% white. So, in 1963, Black organizers in the Dallas County Voters League launched a drive to get Black voters in Selma registered. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee, a prominent civil rights organization, joined them.

In 1964, Congress passed the Civil Rights Act, but it did not adequately address the problem of voter suppression. In Selma, a judge had stopped the voter registration protests by issuing an injunction prohibiting public gatherings of more than two people.

Saturday, the Senate passed a $1.9 COVID 19 Relief Bill that does many things and will affect almost everybody.

Locally, The Miami Herald reported on how wealthy communities in South Florida have been able to get access to a vaccine that was in extremely short supply in January. Meanwhile as supplies of the vaccine are increasing Florida City, a small town in Miami Dade County that is over 90% Black or Hispanic, with a poverty rate of about 40% but relatively young in age is facing roadblocks in getting vaccinated for lack of a signed MD's statement which can be expensive or difficult to obtain, resulting in unused or delayed vaccinations and resources. This is in spite of the impact of COVID 19 on communities of color and poverty.

And today a trial in the case of the police officer charged in the death of George Floyd will begin.

Preparations for my 70th birthday are pending. 😎