{news} Norwalk protest featured in The Hour

[David Bedell]

This was on the front page of the Norwalk Hour last Monday.

Living her beliefs

Publication The Hour
Date January 23, 2006

By JAMES WALKER
Hour Staff Writer

NORWALK -- It's hard to know what will inspire a child and set him or her on 
a lifelong mission to make the world a better place.

Years ago, a young girl eavesdropped on a conversation in her grandmother's 
kitchen and learned relatives in Germany were being persecuted and massacred 
in camps because they were Jewish.

She never forgot that conversation -- or the reason why members of her 
family were being systematically destroyed. She decided to spend her life 
battling injustice.

When she was 28 years old, the young woman headed to North Carolina to join 
demonstrators in her first national protest. It was against the Ku Klux Klan 
and a local police department and their persecution of three young black 
children who were jailed and charged with victimizing a white girl.

"We won," said Berta Langston. "They released the kids. Things had to be 
changed. But it's still not good. Look at what happened in Louisiana."

During the next 50 years, Langston would raise her picket sign to fight for 
racial equality and stomp-out injustice. She joined tens of thousands during 
the 1960s march on Washington to protest the Vietnam War.

The 79-year-old Norwalk woman no longer marches on Washington, but she was 
right in step with a small group of protesters outside City Hall Saturday. 
She was still sending a message to the White House that war -- this time in 
Iraq -- is wrong.

"I won't give up until there is an end to all oppression and 
discrimination," Langston said. "I'll die with my boots on."

The fiery, diminutive senior citizen, who is recovering from pneumonia, 
scoffed at suggestions she should take it easy. Langston said she has no 
time for sick beds, rocking chairs or sitting at home while there is still 
injustice in the world.

She helped organize the small group that has demonstrated outside City Hall 
from 12:30 to 2 p.m. every Saturday for three years.

Her present illness aside, studies show Langston is doing what many seniors 
should do to help impede the effects of aging. Experts are urging seniors to 
remain active, read, hold healthy discussions and have social interaction, 
along with daily physical exercise to stay mentally alert and physically 
fit.

Langston knows time is catching up to her, but the years have taught her 
it's the voice of people that can help change the world.

"You have to fight against injustice," she said. "I really feel strongly we 
can change the world."

So does Sally Hasted.

Born into the comfort of affluence, Hasted was a student attending Smith 
College when she decided to join hundreds of thousands of other students 
nationwide in the battle for civil rights in the 1960s.

The move prompted arguments with her parents who wanted Hasted to be a 
"proper society girl who would stay at home and take care of a husband."

"I shocked my family," she said. "I wanted to be an activist. I was fighting 
for racial equality and living it everyday."

Hasted, 60, said she was so involved in the furious battle for civil rights, 
she never made it to the march in Washington to protest the Vietnam War.

"I really regret it," she said.

The wind whipped furiously around Langston and Hasted as they held onto 
signs that read "Peace" and "Bring Them Home Now" while waving to dozens of 
people who blew their horns in support from behind the wheels of cars, 
trucks, SUVs and 18-wheelers.

"I want them to yell and scream, no more injustice, no more war," Langston 
said. "There were not many people protesting before the war got started. We 
need to see more people spreading the word. It works."

David Bedell, secretary of the Fairfield County chapter of the Green Party, 
who joined the demonstrators, said it's an "unjust war."

"It was poor planning all around," he said. "There was a plan to go in, but 
no plan to get out."

Robert Stanton said protesting is his way to "express my outrage."

"I could write to my elected officials or take a bus to D.C. one weekend, 
but it would only be the status quo," he said.

For Hasted, the protest is personal.

A one-time teacher at the United Nations International School in New York, 
she said her classes were filled with students from Iraq, as well as other 
countries.

And as she watches images of the destruction in Iraq on television, she 
wonders about the fate of her former students and those of their children in 
the war-torn country.

"I think of them being blown up," she said. "It just breaks my heart."

Much has changed for Langston since the days she traveled to North Carolina 
and marched on Washington.

Granny dresses have been replaced by the moniker "grandma" and sneakers have 
replaced sandals. Her hair is snow-white and her eyes now look through 
horn-rimmed glasses. Occasionally, she has to sit down in her carry-along 
chair to rest.

But her passion to crush injustice and end discrimination is as torrid as 
the day it was ignited in her grandmother's kitchen.

Pulling the hood of her jacket over her head to ward off the cold, Langston 
raised her picket sign and continued waving to supporters to protest for 
"poor people who have always been cannon fodder for wars."

And the senior citizen, who is aging with attitude, said she'll be standing 
in the same place at the same time next Saturday.

"It makes me feel virtuous," she said. "It gives me a reason to live."

Staff writer James S. Walker can be reached at (203) 354-1004 or jswalker@ 
thehour.com