As we approach the fiftieth anniversary of this tragedy, I believe that it is good to look back an reflect of the good that came out of it, but also we must take note of the evil that existed even then.
The following is excerpted from the Wikipedia post on the crash, which is wholly an accurate representation of the facts and the history. The reflection on the remarks of Malcom X stuck in the mind as an example of the hatred and racism that existed fifty years ago, but I am forced to ask myself this question. "What has really changed?"
Not a lot apparently. There are still Muslims who rejoice in the death of 'white people' both in the middle east and at hoe here in America. America was at odds and at war with their ideology and theology five decades ago. Four decades before they flew planes into our buildings and killed over 3000 Americans.
"Those who do not learn from history, are condemned to repeat it."
F-BHSM was the registration and callsign of a Boeing 707 named Chateau de Sully used by Air France for Flight 007, a charter flight which crashed on June 3, 1962 while attempting to depart Paris's Orly Airport en route to Atlanta, Georgia via New York City's Idlewild Airport (now John F. Kennedy International Airport). The 707 carried 122 passengers and 10 crew, of whom 130 died.
The Atlanta Art Association had sponsored a month long tour of the art treasures of Europe and 106[2] of the passengers were art patrons heading home to Atlanta on this charter flight. The tour group included many of Atlanta's cultural and civic leaders. Atlanta mayor Ivan Allen Jr. went to Orly to inspect the crash site where so many important Atlantans perished.[3]
During their visit to Paris, the Atlanta arts patrons had seen Whistler's Mother at the Louvre.[4] In late 1962, the Louvre, as a gesture of good will to the people of Atlanta, sent Whistler's Mother to Atlanta to be exhibited at the Atlanta Art Association museum on Peachtree Street.[5]
The Woodruff Arts Center, originally called the Memorial Arts Center and one of the United States' largest, was founded in 1968 in memory of those who died in the crash. The loss to the city was a catalyst for the arts in Atlanta, helped create this memorial to the victims, and led to the creation of the Atlanta Arts Alliance. The French government donated a Rodin sculpture, The Shade, to the High Museum of Art in memory of the victims of the crash.[6] Ann Uhry Abrams, the author of Explosion at Orly: The True Account of the Disaster that Transformed Atlanta, described the incident as "Atlanta’s version of September 11 in that the impact on the city in 1962 was comparable to New York of September 11."[2]
The crash occurred during the civil rights movement in the United States. Civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. and entertainer & activist Harry Belafonte announced cancellation of a sit-in in downtown Atlanta (a protest of the city's racial segregation) as a conciliatory gesture to the grieving city. However, Nation of Islam leader Malcolm X, speaking in Los Angeles, expressed joy over the deaths of the all-white group from Atlanta, saying "I would like to announce a very beautiful thing that has happened...I got a wire from God today...well, all right, somebody came and told me that he really had answered our prayers over in France. He dropped an airplane out of the sky with over 120 white people on it because the Muslims believe in an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. But thanks to God, or Jehovah, or Allah, we will continue to pray, and we hope that every day another plane falls out of the sky." These remarks led Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty to denounce him as a "fiend" and Dr. King to voice disagreement with his statement. Malcolm later remarked that "The Messenger should have done more." This incident was the first in which Malcolm X gained widespread national attention.[7]
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