John’s Blog

I had not planned to get into this subject at the present time but events sometimes arise that push us in directions not of our choosing.

Today, there was a news article on the Internet from The Christian Science Monitor. It was an article written by Mackubin Thomas Owens who is Professor of National Security Affairs at the Naval War College in Newport, R.I.

In it he writes, “This week, New Jersey became the first Northern state to apologize for slavery. The resolution expresses “profound regret … for the wrongs inflicted by slavery and its aftereffects in the United States….”

The reason I am writing this is that last week I met an extraordinary man, Dr. Jefferson Wiggins. Dr Wiggins started out life as the son of share-croppers in Alabama and his first recollection of his past was when the Klan came to his house to lynch his father. They came because his father had sold a bale of cotton that the family had picked and he was told not to sell until prices rose.

The family had not eaten for four days and this was their only means of survival.

They were no longer officially slaves. Slavery had long before been abolished but they were not free by any means.

Dr. Wiggins rose from that frightening beginning to enlisting in the US Army during WWII when he was well below age.

His story is of the long struggle that racism inflicts on people and his efforts to become not just a “boy” in Alabama but to a commissioned officer in the US Army.

It is truly an amazing story and is the subject of his book that I highly recommend to every American. “Another Generation Almost Forgotten.”

Dr Wiggins is Chairman of the Wiggins Institute for Social Integrity in New Fairfield, Connecticut.