Posted 7 years ago
artfoot
(367 items)
GET OFF YOUR APATHY! A Biography of Florence Beaumont, Who Burned Herself Instead of Others!---Like Phony Politicians! by Thomas Michael Dunphy.
On October 15, 1967 Florence Beaumont, a Southern California housewife and mother, became so fed up with the lack of progress toward ending the war in Vietnam she decided to set a shining example. She went to downtown Los Angeles, set her things down in front of the Federal Building, poured gasoline on herself and set herself on fire. By accounts, she walked about 40 feet, moaning and covered in flames, before collapsing in an ashy heap just as a guard arrived with a fire extinguisher.
With the co-operation of the family, Tom Dunphy (aka General Waste-More-Land) wrote this small run paperback in an attempt to, if not explain her ultimate motivation, at least explain her reasoning.
Many people are willing to die for a cause, but few are willing to live for one.
Many people are willing to fight for a cause, but very few are willing to voluntarily die in such a painful manner. Her final act did open the eyes of many people to the injustices of the Vietnam war. Look what it took to get people to shut it down.
i understand the need to not glorify what she did, but at the same time, i believe she deserves respect for it.
Democracy: we deliver.
What did she prove & how many remember ?
To choose to be a candle rather than a bomb.
Florence Beaumont was a hero and a martyr. That she isn't remembered isn't her fault.
She was a mother--what about her kids!!! To me, I think she was needing mental help and didn't get it. How awful for her children. She is mother first before a martyr--- it was suicide. She couldn't have been a Catholic. I don't understand her reasoning.