FAIR's Rising Generation

Posts Tagged ‘Awesome People’

SuAnne Big Crow lived in Pine Ridge, South Dakota in an aboriginal community. She was a star player on her high school basketball team, a motivated student, and a positive person. There’s an intriguing and well-known story about SuAnne that may or may not be true. The story goes that her basketball team was getting ready to play in a nearby town when the crowd in the bleachers started jeering and heckling her and her team mates. They allegedly made mock Indian battle cries and called out offensive racial slurs. SuAnne purportedly responded to this by performing a traditional shawl dance with her jacket while singing a Lakota song, thereby hushing the crowd and inspiring peace and reverance for her culture.

Like I said, this may or may not have happened. There are contradicting accounts of the night in question, with some people saying the story is completely fabricated, some saying it’s exaggerated, and some saying it’s bang on.

Regardless, SuAnne Big Crow did inspire, uplift, and motivate people; she did work to build her community; and she did fight social problems and racism facing aboriginals. Through her achievements as an athlete and a student, she was able to reach out to her peers. She spoke across the United States on the dangers of drugs and alcohol and made great strides toward fighting racial bigotry. She also dreamed of a youth facility in Pine Ridge that would facilitate growth and learning in young people.

SuAnne’s life was tragically cut short in a car accident before she was even able to attend college, but the Pine Ridge community started the SuAnne Big Crow Boys and Girls Club in her honour.

The gym shawl dance story is dramatic and interesting, but I think her positive attitude and lifetime of encouraging those around her are more impressive. I would rather think of her as someone who did the little things every day until they accumulated into her life’s achievements. It would be nice if we could resolve contention once and for all with a dance, but it’s really our daily conduct the that defines our legacy. Whether the story of the dance happened or not, SuAnne was an admirable person simply because she worked endlessly to instill confidence into people facing great challenges.

If you know of anyone, personally or not, living or dead, from near or abroad, let me know about them! I’ll add them to my list of awesome people who I will be highlighting weekly.

I had quite a few people in mind for my weekly post but couldn’t decide who should go first. Since this is the first person to be highlighted, I’m going with someone fairly obvious and famous. He epitomizes the good Christian.

Albert Schweitzer, born January 14, 1875, spent much of his life seeking to know God and immersing himself in the teachings of the Bible. He had aspirations of travelling abroad as a pastor but later changed his mind. Having a profound reverence for life, he decided that the ultimate missionary work was making life better for those around him. He took on the formidable task of becoming a physician and serving as a “medical missionary” in Africa. Spreading the gospel through actions instead of words, he brought the light of Christ to those around him.

Most of us don’t have it in our agenda to become doctors and travel to a foreign country to help those in need. However, we can learn a valuable lesson from this man: The Lord’s work is in helping others. We can’t change the entire world, but our actions inevitably affect those around us. Whether for good or bad is up to us, but how we treat others says a lot about our relationship with Christ (whether we realize it or not). It’s no insurmountable task to improve our world. We just need to cultivate a love of humankind, and the rest will come naturally.

If you know of anyone, personally or not, living or dead, from near or abroad, let me know about them! I’ll add them to my list of awesome people who I will be highlighting weekly.

Since this is my first post, I guess I’ll introduce myself and explain my involvement with Rising Generation a bit. I’m 22 and had been a member of the FAIR mailing list for a few months when someone brought up the idea of a FAIR branch specifically for young people. Feeling like somewhat of a sapling among towering redwoods, I thought it was a great idea! So I volunteered, and here I am.

As I was thinking of what I wanted to contribute to this blog, I had the idea of profiling awesome people. Something I always find extremely uplifting is when I hear stories of real people displaying integrity and courage. Sometimes, with the news and media focusing so much on the people who behave badly, we can really overlook the individuals who live in a way that helps others and makes the world a better place. You know: Good Samaritans.

Speaking of Good Samaritans, it seems very profound how the term originated in the first place. If you play word association with someone and say “Samaritan,” most likely they will say “good.”  If you ask someone what a Samaritan is, they probably won’t know.

Well, a Samaritan is actually a person belonging to a religious sect, similar but separate from Judaism. At the time the parable was given, the Samaritans and the Jews had somewhat of a rivalry as they both claimed to be the true Israelites to the exclusion of the other. In fact, the Jewish community (in general) despised the Samaritans, which is why Jesus included one in his parable. The priest left the traveller lying by the roadside, as did the Levite, even though priests and Levites were supposed to be the “good guys.”

What I find so profound is how this one parable in the Bible has changed the worldwide perception of Samaritans. People now don the name to symbolize charity and love for their fellow man, though Samaritans were once a loathed people. It inspires me. I hope I can be a Good Mormon, because I know that my influence on others always ends up being greater than I think. We have a tendency to assume that we’re too small to make a difference in the world, but it’s billions of seemingly small things happening each day that make the world a nice place or a nasty place, depending on what we choose to let our actions be.

I believe there are tons of awesome people out there; and that they can inspire us; be they young or old, alive or dead, LDS or not; from where ever in the world; and I’m going to make regular blog posts to prove it.