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I wrote this some time ago for a newsletter…… I stand by each and every word. Our voices are powerful instruments!
Sometimes when I have a glimpse of the “bigger picture” I am humbled and awed at the threads that weave a greater tapestry.
In 1849 in Denmark a man was born to a huge family that totaled 17 children. At the young age of 21 he immigrated to America. It was a time of hardship. He survived many years of extreme poverty in filthy, overcrowded conditions. His life and his prospects seemed mighty dim and he grew suicidal. Slowly he pulled himself out of the pain of his surroundings. Eventually, he became a police reporter for a prominent NYC newspaper.
The fortuitous invent of flash for pictures met the capable hand of this writer/photographer. Rather than ignore what was an extremely painful time in his life, Jacob A. Riis wrote a book called “How the other half lives”. He documented both in picture and through his writing the demoralizing and inhumane conditions of the tenements in New York City at the turn of the century.
Coming home one day he discovered a calling card with the words “Came to help”. The card belonged to Theodore Roosevelt who had read Jacob Riis' book and was moved to act. Roosevelt visited the decrepit tenements with his new found friend. He was able to see the horrific conditions for himself.
You need to understand the enormity of the challenge Riis & Roosevelt met. The tenements were truly horrors. The worst had stalls set up which would sleep six per stall (the size of a queen bed). There was no ventilation, indoor plumbing, insulation, heat, or bedding. Bottom floors received the sewage that ran off during rain. Picture your life held to sleeping in wet muck and sewage next to strangers.
As New York Assembly man, NYC Police Commissioner, Governor for NY State and finally U.S. President, Teddy Roosevelt worked to change these horrific conditions.
The willingness of Jacob Riis to rise above the adversity he had experienced and offer a voice of advocacy cheers me greatly. He had the choice to become embittered. He had the “justification” to allow the low points in his life dictate the man he would become, and yet he allowed the man he was dictate a better way of life for millions of people and their children, and the children that followed through another century.
Problems we think are insurmountable aren't. One simple person can change the course of the future! In case these words seem empty and overly optimistic, one man, Jacob Riis, spoke up with dignity and assurance that change needed to happen. One man heard him. The nation changed.
We live in times that beg us to change. Your voice matters. I believe there is someone to hear. All it requires of us is to sound the call and rise to the challenge.
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