On April 15, 1968, eleven days after Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated, Mrs. Harriet Glickman, a Los Angeles school teacher, wrote a letter to Charles Schultz, cartoonist. She was concerned about the lack of integration in PEANUTS. Mrs. Glickman challenged Charles Schultz to integrate his cartoon strip with Negro children. Negro children are readers, too! After two letters to Mr. Schultz, his heart was pricked, and “Franklin Armstrong” was introduced on July 29, 1968. Martin Luther King Jr. died in the spring of 1968, and “Franklin Armstrong,” a Negro, was introduced/born into the PEANUT family in the summer of 1968.
I was very happy to attend the Monrovia Library’s Black History Program on Saturday, February 20th, featuring Harriet Glickman. Mrs. Glickman wrote her “Letters of Challenge” during a time while the United States of America faced widespread social changes over Civil Rights. I was a teenager in that era and an avid reader.
Monrovia Community/Citizens, I “challenge” you to take the time to write (one) letter of protest to make our community a better place. Write your Congressperson, your assemblyperson, your city officials. Take the “Challenge.”
Julian Fisher: the first Colored, Negro, Afro-American, African-American, Black Police Officer in the history of Monrovia, California was a “champion communicator.” He challenged togetherness. He calmed tense relations between Monrovia’s Black and White Communities. In 1974, a Park Project was started. The Julian Fisher Park was officially dedicated on, Jan. 25, 1981. Julian Fisher died in 1976.
Mr. Julian Fisher passed away about forty years ago in 1976. Julian Fisher Park was dedicated over thirty-five years ago.
I write this “letter of challenge” asking the Monrovia City Council to consider “SCRAPPING the SLOP JAR/POT,” and budget “Inside Plumbing/Rest Rooms,” at Julian Fisher Park this BUDGETARY YEAR 2016!! “Station Square Park” was dedicated (4th Saturday) on January 2016, with “Inside Plumbing/Restroom Facilities.” Library Park will soon have a new set of “Restroom Facilities” on the outside, approved in the CURRENT BUDGET.
Just how long must the “SLOP JAR/POT” remain in use? Again, February 2016 – BLACK HISTORY month – a changed budget, but NO CHANGE for Julian Fisher Park. ZERO dollars budgeted for “Inside Plumbing/Restroom Facilities.” Wait a minute: “Hold it, Johnny, until we get home!”
Respectfully;
-Gwendolyn Jones (forty-year Monrovia resident)
Your Neighbor, and an avid reader.
