MOLLY IVINS: AMERICA'S JERICHO VOICE
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From: Indigo S.
Date: Wednesday, February 7, 2007, 6:43 PM
Subject: Molly Ivins: America's Jericho Voice
ID: 255791
~by Maya Angelou
Up to the walls of Jericho
She marched with a spear in
her hand
Go blow them ram horns she cried
For the battle is in my hand
The walls have not come down,
but they have been given a
serious shaking.
That Jericho voice is stilled now.
Molly Ivins has been quieted.
The writer and journalist, dearly loved and admired by many, hated
and feared by many, died of cancer in her Texas home on Jan. 31.
The walls of ignorance and prejudice and cruelty, which she railed
against valiantly all her public life, have not fallen, but their
truculence to do so does not speak against her determination to make
them collapse.
Weeks before she died, she launched what she called 'an old-
fashioned newspaper crusade' against President Bush's announcement
that he was going to send more troops to Iraq.
She wrote, 'We are the people who run this country. We are the
deciders. Every single day every single one of us needs to step
outside and take some action to help stop this war. We need people
in the streets banging pots and pans and demanding, `Stop it now!' '
Years ago there was a fundraising gala for People for the American
Way in New York, and Molly Ivins was keynote speaker. I was a loyal
collector and serious Ivins reader, but I had not met the author.
Another famous journalist, who was to have introduced her, had his
flight canceled in a Southern city. Norman Lear, founder of the
organization, asked me to introduce her. I did not hesitate. I spoke
glowingly about Ms. Ivins for a few minutes, then, suddenly, a six-
foot-tall, red-haired woman sprang from the wings. She strode onto
the stage and over to the microphone. She gave me an enveloping hug
and said, in that languorous Texas accent, ``Maya Angelou and I are
identical twins, we were separated at birth.'
I am also six feet tall, but I am not white. She was under 50 when
she made the statement, and I was in my middle 60s, but our hearts
did beat in the same rhythm. Whoever separated us at birth must know
it did not work. We were in the struggle for equal rights for all
people since we met on that Waldorf Astoria stage. We laughed
together without apology, and we wept when weeping was necessary.
I shall be weeping a little more these days, but I shall never
forget the charge. Joshua commanded the people to shout, and the
walls came tumbling down.
Molly,
I am shouting,
With two voices,
Walls come down!
Walls come down!
Walls come down!
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