Recently, I had the very pleasant experience of going to the Rosie the Riveter museum in Richmond, California. It brought back memories of a time when the city of Richmond was an example to us all. It was a time when all of America came together to work towards a victory over Fascism and Hitler’s Germany.

Henry Kaiser put a plan together whereby we were producing Liberty Ships at a record pace. Women were essential to the war effort and they did a remarkable job and in many cases they did a better job at riveting than the men who preceded them on the assembly line. Minorities worked alongside whites in harmony with a common goal in mind and that was to win the war and bring our guys home from the war.  There was not harmony at first but the workers put aside any differences that were existed in the beginning of their efforts but over time they all worked together towards achieving the larger goal of victory over the tyranny that fascism and the Nazis represented.

We could use a victory garden now. We need to plant the seeds of unity instead of division. In war, a trench does not know race, we all bleed the same. We are brothers and sisters in arms against a common enemy. We fought against an enemy who were responsible for the worst acts of barbarism in the history of man. Nazis were responsible for the Holocaust.

A victory garden is needed now because the same seeds of hatred and fear are being planted in our country to divide us and set one group of Americans against the other. Without realizing it, Americans are doing exactly what the Russians and Putin would like, we are unwittingly destroying our own country by allowing the worst of our nature overcome the better angels of our own people.

Lincoln so wisely spoke about how a house divided against itself can not stand. Well, we must overcome and get beyond the current administration who have individuals who play upon our fears and our hate. We are better than that! Time will pass and this administration will belong in the dust pan of history. Perhaps this administration will bring us together after all as we realize what our true values are. We are and exemplify the attributes that the women and men of the Kaiser factories represented. We are Rosie the Riveter!