Posts with the civil rights tag

Barris Beat

The will that sparks change

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Double T Diner, where I worked and learned in 1965.

I should have recognized the prophetic nature of his view of life. I could have understood it, if I’d experienced as much living as he had. But when I met him, he was a 50-year-old dishwasher in the back of the Double T Diner, a popular roadside diner near Baltimore, Maryland, and I was a 16-year-old bussing tables and stocking shelves in the same restaurant, owned and operated by my uncle. I worked many a hot night side-by-side with Mr. Beale (as we all knew him) back in the summer of 1965. And early on in our kitchen co-worker relationship, I naively asked him what life as an African American had taught him.

“We shall overcome,” he said. (more…)

Barris Beat

Rubble and rabble

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment

On Sunday morning, I picked up one of the Toronto daily newspapers. I saw images of city towers tumbling, apartments smouldering and people wandering aimlessly in the streets. Two days later, I watched breaking news on TV and I saw a dishevelled downtown, stores smouldering and people wandering in the streets.

The first disrupted city was Kathmandu, Nepal. The second was Baltimore, Maryland, in the east-central U.S.

Did it occur to anybody else that civil unrest looks a lot like the aftermath of an earthquake? (more…)

Barris Beat

Quiet victor

Written by Ted Barris on . Leave a comment
Nelson Mandela emerges from Robben Island prison in February 1990.
Nelson Mandela emerges from Robben Island prison in February 1990.

The morning the world changed, I had tumbled from my warm bed, found a cup of coffee to help me on my way and driven from the countryside to the old CBC Radio building on Jarvis Street, next to CBC corporate head offices in downtown Toronto. By 5 a.m. I had cleared my head and my throat to deliver one of my first newscasts for the CBC Network that morning. Little did I know within the first hours of my shift, I would be part of something momentous.

“Here is the CBC News,” I said at the top of each hour that morning to begin the five-minute hourly newscast. But that day I also got the chance to announce repeatedly as the top story, “Nelson Mandela, the black African leader imprisoned for treason since 1963, has this morning left notorious Robben Island prison, a free man.”

(more…)