On this Palm Sunday, school shooting, other events of the past week stir concern | Opinion

Today, Palm Sunday, marks the first day of Holy Week for Christians around the world. It is the week where on one day Jesus was herald as a King, and before the week was out, he was crucified between two thieves. Yet, the story doesn’t end there. Because on the third day after his crucifixion, our Lord was gloriously resurrected. And today, He lives in my heart and in the heart of all believers.

I thought about Palm Sunday as I read the paper on my front porch with a cup of hot coffee, and sometimes, as hot cup of tea. I like doing that when the weather is nice. It is one of my favorite pastimes. I learn from the stories I read and sometimes they bring me joy.

However, my thoughts on Palm Sunday were interrupted recently when several stories in the paper caught my eye and caused me a lot of concern.

People gunned down at Tennessee school

One such story was about another school shooting, this time in Tennessee, where three children and three adults were murdered at The Covenant School, a private Presbyterian parochial school in the Green Hills neighborhood of Nashville. Their deaths left families and friends, and even strangers like me, in unimaginable grief.

The fact that the shooter could enter the school left us again with the unanswered questions of “How long?” And “How many more innocent lives must be lost before our lawmakers do their job and pass stiffer gun laws, which should also ban assault rifles? As with much of America, I am still waiting for answers.

Later, I watched the news and saw the shooter strolling into the school after the school’s back door was shot up. It was obvious to me that she was on a mission to kill. Age and/or gender or ethnicity didn’t matter. And at the end of her mission, six people would lay slaughtered — three children and three adults.

(Police have given unclear information about the gender of the suspect, who was assigned female at birth. Later Tuesday, at the news conference, a police spokesperson referred to the suspect, Audrey Hale, with female pronouns.)

In Florida, residents will be able to carry concealed guns without a permit under a bill the Legislature sent to Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday. The governor said, at a suburban Atlanta gun store, that he will sign the bill that the Senate passed on a 27-13 vote. It will allow anyone who can legally own a gun in Florida to carry one without a permit.

This is not good news, people. The bill means training and a background check won’t be needed for people to carry concealed guns in public. And while gun-carriers must have valid identification to carry a concealed weapon, this does little to protect the innocent.

Anyone can get a “valid” ID. The person who shot up the school in Nashville probably had valid identification. Still, six innocent people were killed.

Will we ever learn?

Potential sale threatens Eatonville’s character

Another story that caught my eye was the one about Eatonville, Florida, where land developers want to change the history of one of the first historically Black towns in the country by buying the 100-acre property where the Robert Hungerford Preparatory High School once stood. If the $14.6 million dollar sale goes through, the developers propose to build 350 new homes with space for businesses on the land. As of Thursday, the people of the town don’t want the sale to go through and are suing the Orange County School Board to stop the sale.

The Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community has said that the sale, if it happens, would threaten the cultural heritage of the town. I believe it will, too. And the quaint little town where author Zora Neale Hurston was born and where her father once served as its mayor will be changed forever. And maybe not so much for the good of the people of Eatonville.

I have personal ties with Eatonville, and precious memories of time spent there. Eatonville is where my late father Adam Johnson Sr. lived, and where I used to take my two sons every summer to visit him. Those visits were filled with Rick and Shawn going fishing with Dad, and siting on the porch shaded by a gigantic mahogany tree drinking ice tea and listening to Dad’s tall tales.

It was where once I had the opportunity to visit with some of the people who knew Hurston, and who told me delightful stories of how Hurston used to stage plays on her front porch, using the neighborhood children as the actors.

Eatonville is also the town that hosts the annual Zora Neale Hurston Festival, drawing artists of every genre to the tiny town that is only a 15-minute drive from downtown Orlando. At the writing of this column, the verdict wasn’t in. I can only hope…

Then, there was the story about a parent in St. Petersburg, who filed a formal objection against a film telling the Ruby Bridges story after it was played in her child’s class as part of a Black History Month lesson. In the complaint, the parent said the film “isn’t appropriate for second-graders, because it might teach them that “white people hate black people.”

I am wondering what that parent thinks that the then little Ruby Bridges must have thought that day when she was escorted by two U.S. deputy marshals to and from Williams Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans?

I wonder if Ruby felt that the whites who were yelling out racial slurs to her actually loved her? That their angry yells were just their way of showing her some love?

Come on parent, whoever you are. Are the scenes of whites bullying little Ruby in the movie “Ugly”? Yes. But it happened and it’s a part of our history. Ruby Bridges grew up knowing that it wasn’t ALL white people who showed her their hateful side as she integrated that school. Her parents taught her that. And she grew up healthy in mind and spirit and became a kind and contributing citizen to the country, where many of its white people were not that kind to her. Are you saying that your child is any less intelligent than little Ruby?

Just some thoughts to ponder during this Holy Week.

Bea L. Hines can be reached at bea.hines@gmail.com

This story was updated in to include the Legislature’s decision on the gun bill that was sent to Gov. Ron DeSantis on Thursday.