Progress in St. Augustine, Florida

It is from numberless diverse acts of courage such as these that the belief that human history is thus shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.--Robert F. Kennedy, Day of Affirmation, University of Cape Town, South Africa, 1966.

Look around you and see the progress.
There’s a lot of progress in St. Augustine, of which we are justly proud.
Where once there was bigotry, there is healing.
Where once there was secrecy, there is accountability.
Where once there was pollution and environmental injustice, there is growing sensitivity that we are environmental stewards, there is only one Earth, and as JFK said at American University, "We all breathe the same air and we are all mortal."
Riberia Street is being built properly for the first time in St. Augustine’s history. The entire street is being replaced, not just the part in the white area, as once proposed.
Sewers will be provided for West Augustine, where African-American families have long suffered from health effects of septic tanks and wells.
Our city public officials are now listening to the people, instead of ripping them off and violating our civil rights.
Our county government has a long way to go, however, as does our state government (see below).
The stain and stink of corruption are still upon and about them.
Our Founders, including Thomas Jefferson, believed in the power of human beings to change.
In the words of Mahatma Gandhi, let’s “Be the change that you want to see in the world.”
Our City of St. Augustine in 2011 dedicated a Civil Rights Monument, to the Civil Rights Footsoldiers and a second one, honoring Ambassador Andrew Young, who led the courageous Civil Rights Footsoldiers here, changing our world for the better.
The City of St. Augustine Beach has adopted Fair Housing and Employment Nondiscrimination Ordinances protecting everyone, including Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered People.  Our Anastasia Mosquito Control District, the City of St. Augustine and Sheriff David Shoar ban sexual orientation discrimination.  St. Augustine passed its Fair Housing Ordinance on December 10, 2012.
The Commissioners of the City of St. Augustine, City of St. Augustine Beach and Anastasia Mosquito Control District and St. Johns County Sheriff David Shoar all deserve credit.  That's seventeen elected officials -- and four government entities -- against sexual orientation discrimination (four more than in Jacksonville and Duval County, where homophobic miscreant misanthrope misogynists, closet KKK members and mendacious ministers railed against equality for months last year).  Our leaders here spent less time debating equality than the burghers and bigots of Jacksonville (formerly known as "Cowford") spent clearing their throats.
Let us leave Jacksonville (f/k/a "Cowford") behind, in our dust, when it comes to tourism and recruiting new enterprises, whether young startups or Fortune 500 companies -- good and decent people like to visit and work in tolerant places, and that includes creative enterprises, whether young startups or the Fortune 500.
Who knows what, if anything, our five Republican St. Johns County Commissioners are thinking on the issue. Let us leave them to worry about their Tea Party and KKK problems (Republican former County Commission Chairman Ben Rich told Folio Weekly that St. Johns County was one of the KKK's "last bastions"). 

Let us leave Jacksonville's bigotry in the dustbins of America history -- what matters to us here is that St. Augustine is moving forward.  We're becoming more tolerant and more sophisticated, as I pointed out in a St. Augustine Record column last month.
We’re looking forward to establishing a St. Augustine National Historical Park, Seashore and Scenic Coastal Parkway, to include a National Civil Rights Museum and an Indigenous American Indian Cultural Museum. www.staugustgreen.comYes we can!
In the words of the Prayer of St. Francis:
Lord, make me an instrument of your peace.
Where there is hatred, let me sow love.
Where there is injury, pardon.
Where there is doubt, faith.
Where there is despair, hope.
Where there is darkness, light.
Where there is sadness, joy.
O Divine Master,
grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled, as to console;
to be understood, as to understand;
to be loved, as to love.
For it is in giving that we receive.
It is in pardoning that we are pardoned,
and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.
Amen.