The January Just Posts

Welcome to the latest edition of the Just Posts, a monthly roundtable of posts on topics of social justice hosted here and at Holly’s.

January was tough month. The earthquake in Port-au-Prince was a tragedy of such mind-numbing proportions, and the healing and recovery for Haiti has barely begun. Many of the writers this month’s roundtable have reflected on these events.

January also saw the celebration of Martin Luther King Jr. Day in the United States, an occasion which inspired some happier reflections on progress our society has made.

Slow as it seems, it helps to remember that progress has been made. In my quest for new voices to bring into the Just Posts community, I came across a short post from early February that really stuck with me:

On February 1, 1960, for the first time, black students went to a drugstore, made some purchases, sat down at the lunch counter, and wouldn’t get up. It was the first sit-in.

In six months, that drugstore counter in Greensboro, NC, was desegregated.

(An excerpt from Fifty Years Ago Today By Morganna of UUCIF Social Justice)

Something to think about.

And now, the The January Just Posts:

• Amber of Making the Moments Count with Teen Pregnancy, Is Education Helping?
• Andrea of Andrea’s Buzzing About with I can haz civil liberties?
• Casey of Moosh in Indy with on giving depression a voice
• communicationsforchange of bad words blog with Today’s Bad Word: Gay Marriage
• dodgerdeliberation of A Dodger’s Deliberation with Sweat Pants and White Privilege
• Emily of Wheels on the Bus with Take my hand come along
• girlgriot of If you want kin… with You can’t hear me …
• Holly of Cold Spaghetti with A Forgotten Hero for Modern Times
• Jane of Finding My America with Louisiana: A Story I Can’t Tell, An Unsolvable Mystery, and the Joy of Acceptance
• jen of one plus two with civic dreaming and toupatou
  Julie of Using My Words with When does the end justify the means?
• kgirl of The Kids Are Alright with Miami
• litlove of Tales from the Reading Room with Books, Ebooks and the Environment
• Mary G. of Them’s My Sentiments with Headlines. And a Mission
• Mary Lee of Merrilymarylee’s Weblog with reading by moonlight
• meloukhia of this ain’t livin’ with The Next Phase
• Meredith of PR Unfriendly with Tribute to MLK
• pgoodness of Life as I Live It with The (Monetary) Costs of Melanoma
• slouchy of Slouching Past 40 with On Haiti, The Baggage We Carry and Their Bodies, Themselves
• submom of The Absence of Alternatives with We are all in this
• Susan of Toddler Planet with In the name of awareness
• thordora of Spin Me I Pulsate with The scars of others should teach us caution.
• Tiffany Sellers of PR Musings of a Clemson Student with Sometimes the voiceless have brilliant things to say

This month’s posts were nominated by:

submom
Mad
Emily
Kitty
Holly
Alejna

If you have a post in the list above, or would just like to support the Just Posts, we invite you to display a button on your blog with a link back here, or to the Just Posts at Cold Spaghetti. If you would like to have a post included next month, you can find out how to submit posts and all sorts of other stuff about the Just Posts at the information page.

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We should have more updates soon on our big project to highlight the fantastic Just Posts of 2009. We have gotten 2 independent reviews on all 300 posts, and are working on finalizing our lists of finalists. (Hmmm…our final lists of finalists…) Thanks so much to all of you who have participated in this project! We couldn’t do it without you.