Should 2020 be forgotten?
As always, the first moments of the upcoming new year will be spent singing “Auld Lang Syne,” which opens by asking how one should respond to memories of the past: to remember or erase?
Folks will soon gather to celebrate, many in surgical masks, eager to leave this year behind with a song whose melody is known more than its meaning. But then what? Where does the collective trauma of 2020 go, despite the optimism that better days are magically ahead?
It’s in this historic moment of reckoning with the past that we measure the weight of our journey together. And in Birmingham, Alabama, a place that dismantled its Confederate monument this summer, a group of Black community singers reimagine “Auld Lang Syne.” The traditional Scottish poem, usually associated with booze and beads, is paired with archival imagery from the year and recorded in a church that refused to seat any Black visitors during the city’s Civil Rights Movement.
Now, in a strange New Year’s season of quiet refrain, the song honors a time of progress and struggle that deserves to not be forgotten any time soon.
To preserve these memories with a cup of kindness.
Featured on NPR: “You Might Be Ready To Forget 2020. This Film Reminds You Why You Shouldn't”
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