Dare to Furnish the Light

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Fifty-three years ago this month, Valparaiso University was holding its popular WEEK OF CHALLENGE. The inspiring speaker on that particular morning was a well known Black clergyman/activist from the West coast. I was briefly among the standing room only audience, packed in the Great Hall of the Student Union, Another challenge was taking shape at the same time. One block away, a cavalcade of cars carrying the brave family from Chicago that would be our new neighbors on S. Cedar Lane. was pulling off of U.S.30 onto Linwood Ave. I made it out the back door, down the hill and to the valley, where Walt and a host of friends who had helped build the little red Cape Cod next door were already doing the welcoming. The picture of that event that I carry in my mind is always sun-lit and echoing with shouts of encouragement. That’s what it was like, the day Barbara Cotton and her six children dared to furnish the light that encouraged an entire community to understand and BE good neighbors.

Lois Reiner

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