Just a Simple Human Act

This is Leroy Smith.

Thoughtful, composed.

This is Leroy Smith, too.

Therein lies a tale.

Smith is the Director of South Carolina's Department of Public Safety.  He was working the state capital that day, along with bunches of his officers.  They were doing crowd control for the rallying New Black Panther Party members who were cheering the removal of the Confederate Battle Flag and shortly afterward the rallying Klansmen and National Socialists on the other side of the building protesting the Battle Flag's removal.

Just another 100 degree July day in the trenches of our continuing racial divide.

But, some of the neo-Nazi's, apparently weren't used to Palmetto State summers.  Master race, perhaps, but taken down by the heat.

Dan Barry in the Times.

Bike-rack barricades had been arrayed to separate the white-supremacist demonstrators from a swelling crowd of people, some fresh from the black-empowerment rally on the north side. “You could kind of feel the tension in the air,” Mr. Smith recalled.
Soon the demonstrators, a few dozen, came marching from the west, flanked by Mr. Smith’s “advance civil emergency response team.” Many wore the black shirts of the National Socialist Movement, a neo-Nazi organization that, according to its website, believes: “Only those of pure White blood, whatever their creed, may be members of the nation. Noncitizens may live in America only as guests and must be subject to laws for aliens. Accordingly, no Jew or homosexual may be a member of the nation.”

Just another 100 degree July day in the trenches of our continuing racial divide.

But, some of the neo-Nazi's, apparently weren't used to Palmetto State summers.  Master race, perhaps, but taken down by the heat.

Seanna Adcox for AP:

Smith said that's when a protester approached, saying someone needed medical help. Smith and Columbia Fire Chief Aubrey Jenkins, who also is black, responded to a demonstrator overcome by the heat.
The first white demonstrator they helped climb the steps and enter the air-conditioned Statehouse could walk on his own. The second clearly could not, Smith said.
"He was struggling, fatigued, appeared to be lethargic. I knew there was no way he could make it up the steps on his own," Smith said. So Smith coached him up the steps, putting his right hand on his arm and his left arm around his body.

Smith helped him up the stairs, encouraging him, took him into the capital where it was air conditioned.  Sat him down to recover.

Rob Godfrey, the Governor's Deputy Chief of Staff, took the picture and sent it off by twit.  Where it went viral.

There's something about that photo: The black cop helping the ailing white supremacist.  Dan Barry again.

Asked why he thinks the photo has had such resonance, he gave a simple answer: Love.
“I think that’s the greatest thing in the world — love,” said the burly, soft-spoken trooper, who is just shy of 50. “And that’s why so many people were moved by it.”

Those of you who hang around these posts know that I believe deeply in, and marvel at, mercy and grace and the mysteries of the human heart.

Leroy Smith talks of the power of love.  

I suspect if you really pinned him down he'd say he was just helping someone in need because, well, that's his job.  And it's just the basic thing you do.

Except, of course, that mostly we don't.

Here's the picture again.