Wondering about so many things ...

not the least of which is the nagging suspicion that my feelings about black identity need upgrading in light of a changing nation and world.

I mentioned after returning from the trip to Atlanta and Tuskegee in August, whether I didn't need to reconsider something that had begun to creep into my theater presentations of late; the feeling that African Americans may be settling for less than we should when we actively promote Black history over encouraging the inclusion of our story into mainstream American history.

The trip south weakened my resolve upon the re-discovery of the richness of Black History while visiting the beautiful red brick campus at Tuskegee University; walking through the George Washington Carver exhibits; through Booker T. Washington's gracious home; riding through the magnificent greenery of the historic 54 mile drive from Montgomery to Selma; standing on Pettus Bridge; etc.  It was so much more powerful than I'd ever imagined.  On returning home I began to wonder just how much power might be lost if our collective truth were to be de-emphasized in any way.

I'm no closer to an answer, but something came up in the course of the tumultuous political campaigns in our city -- of the two candidates in the mayoral race one is white, and the other black.  The white candidate is loosely associated with the Progressive wing of the community, and the black candidate is running a brutal campaign with unlimited corporate financial backing.  The black candidate expresses conservative views on just about anything that comes before the city council, of which both are currently members.  The white candidate might best be described as a political moderate with a good and years-long record of public service. The rough and tumble shape of the election cycle is predictable with few surprises.

However, none of this is the issue that's giving me cause for concern; it's this:

The base out of which the Black candidate emerges is an organization called B.A.P.A.C (Black Americans Political Action Committee).  One day last week as I held a scathing flyer distributed  online by that group in an attempt to detract from the white candidate's reputation,  I found myself wondering what might happen should the white candidate have a base called " W.A.P.A.C. (White Americans Political Action Committee")?

Setting the obvious aside for a moment, I need to say that not that long ago 40% of Richmond's population was African American.  At this point however, according to the last census, 40% of this city is now Latino, with African American families having moved on deeper into the small towns of the upper San Joaquin Valley and Solano County.  The black demographic has been reduced dramatically. There was a time when there would have been a  significant black constituency to try to attract in order to garner political power, but now -- in a non-majority State -- where no one holds the edge, "Black" labeling may be fast-becoming outdated, and will soon no longer be viable as a magnetic force for change.


Were I a member of the large European,  Laotian, East Indian, Asian/American, or Latino subgroups who share this community I'm not certain that I would be quick to align myself with a group so labeled.  It may not be through any sense of disrespect, but given the label Black American Political Action Committee, I just might wonder if its concerns would be broad enough; that its membership would have the capacity to care about my culturally-specific issues.

In a nation on the verge of becoming a non-majority society, coalition-building must become the rule of the day, right?  This is uncharted territory, and I'm only beginning to see the implications through this election cycle. My brain is engaged in some editing, upgrading, changing, and the concept that involves including black history into mainstream American history may be a natural progression, but at this point it's unclear. I may not have time on the planet to see this through to its conclusion, but meanwhile I'll keep gnawing at it.

... maybe that's why I'm attracted to the Richmond Progressive Alliance wing of local politics at this point; an organization less "moderate" than I, surely, but that reflects the wish of what used to be called "Liberals" to act together on those things upon which they can agree (across racial lines) as they cast aside for further discussion those things seen differently; and all in mutual respect. 

I suggest that B.A.P.A.C may want to come into the 21st Century and begin to build anew its political base -- this time with inclusion. The organization may want to re-design its mission, re-think its direction toward something that better reflects the multiracial, multicultural society we're evolving into as a city and as a Nation, instead they appear to be rebuilding the racial barrier earlier generations gave up so much to overcome. This is hardly worthy of their well-meaning organization. The only thing being accomplished by current attitudes (which excludes all others except for black males), brings divisiveness into the unity some have struggled to gain over time.

... and make no mistakes, I see continuing need for African Americans to come together socially and culturally in order to strengthen the ties that bind us as a people. What I'm beginning to wonder about is just how far we can take the Black designation into politics and prevail in a time when it will become more and more necessary to coalesce with others for mutual gain. Maybe we can't stand alone any longer in a fast-changing nation without losing something very precious to the continuing development of the Democracy that we are all trying so hard to bring about.

New thoughts.

Old doubts ... .

Photo by Shirley Butt

Balancing my career self (with the limitations imposed by the Hatch Act ) ... .

... and my very political private citizen self has been challenging over past weeks.

This election cycle has been so volatile in my city (Richmond, California) since the passage of the Supreme Court ruling in the case of Citizens United which grants corporations unlimited opportunities to participate in -- not only national and state -- but in city elections as well with obscene amounts of money.  Here in our city corporate largesse is overwhelming our local candidates.  We're reeling from the effects of that ruling, and I've been diligent in respecting those limitations, but adamant in expressing my rights to participate in the electoral process as a private citizen.

I've agreed not to ever appear at a political event in uniform (a requirement), and to try to avoid ever being identified in my official role as an employee of the federal government.   The local press has been very cooperative and I've been able to enjoy relative freedom to express myself and my political interests with the consent of those to whom I'm responsible.

All that being said, I'd say that I've done pretty well, all things are considered, and -- being photographed with the dynamic Senator Bernie Sanders and two of this year's candidates was accomplished without identifying me at all.  Senator Sanders is a brilliant man, and a great speaker.  His strident advocacy for our shared goals is heartening.

I suspect that I'm firmly enough identified by the amazing amount of public exposure I've had over the past months so that labels would not serve any purpose anyway.

It's a wild ride to November 4th!

 

(welders tool is embedded within)

Just every now and then I begin to feel overwhelmed by an increasing amount of public attention ... .

... the past several weeks have been just such a time.  Everything seems larger than life as I'm been living it over the past decades, and waaaaaay beyond the edges that used to hold that life.

I tend to withdraw a bit, do some reassessment of the landscape, and (if possible) gradually move back into the foreground.

A few months ago I received word by a phone call that the Central Labor Council of the AFL-CIO was holding their annual banquet in the Craneway Pavilion -- a vast cathedral-like venue in the Ford Assembly Plant which abuts our Visitors Education Center here in Richmond.  The reason for the call was to get me to hold the date of September 19th since I would  be one of this year's 3 honorees that evening.  Rep. George Miller would receive the Life Achievement Award, and the Legacy Award would be given to me.

The evening arrived and every standing or sitting public official from State, County, City, and from the Labor Movement itself was present in that cavernous room.  Every declared candidate for any political office in this election cycle was also present and accounted for.  It was a grand evening!

The drama of the evening, for me, was not the "Who's who" in that grand space, but that this handmade crystal 15 inch (lighted from within!) beautiful one-of-a-kind trophy was presented by a group of of today's Boilermakers Unionists who stood with me on the platform to make the presentation.

Rep. George Miller and me

The bronze plaque gives, after many decades, status to the little Jim Crow segregated Union, Boilermakers Auxiliary #36, created under the flawed social system of the early forties -- the time of the greatest mobilization of workers since the building of the pyramids or the Great Wall of China. 
By their action (through me) that powerful Union legitimized our participation by closing the circle (finally) with all of us enclosed within.  Rev. Willie B. Smith, Secretary Mahlon Roles and his wife Marguerite, Spencer Jordan, Zola Adams, Christine White, Martha Ford Montgomery, plus thousands of black shipyard workers who gave their all without fairness of opportunity or recognition, and I,  are now counted  as legitimate contributors to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Great Arsenal of Democracy after more than 70 years.  The little temporary office building that held us was unceremoniously torn down immediately at the end of the war, so that past has been obliterated as most or all of those other lives passed into eternity over time.  I believe that I may well be the last one standing ... .

This tribute may have come in my name, but it is really a tribute to today's International Brotherhood of Boilermakers who went back into their past to own that blighted history; to forgive themselves; and then continue to open the way to greater unity.  I'm told that today's Boilermakers is the most racially diverse division among all of today's Unions.

The plaque reads:

MMXIV

    Betty Reid Soskin

         Boilermakers Auxiliary Local #36

in honor of your Home Front service
and your dedication to preserving
a transformative chapter in U.S. history
for women and people of color

(signed by the international president of

the Brotherhood of Boilermakers Iron Shipbuilders

Blacksmith Forgers and Helpers)

In all of our names, I am so grateful for this recognition.

Busy back at work so haven't followed up on my report on the trip to Atlanta and Tuskegee ... .

Photo taken at Tuskegee Airfield after Women's Equality Day Address

... but I was trying to wait for my colleague to provide her photos so that I could share them, but she is also back at her desk and hasn't gotten around to making the CD yet.  I brought along my camera but, unfortunately, I simply forget to take photos even when it's right there in my hand.  I guess I just don't want anything to stand between me and an experience.  We'll just have to wait for Sue's pics.

It occurred to me that the one thing I haven't yet reported on is the event that brought us to Tuskegee in the first place, the address for Women's Equality Day at the Airfield.  The truth is that I was so deeply moved by all that surrounded it, that I'm not sure that I could tell you what I said in that speech.  It faded into the background as the other experiences took over every cell in my body.

Moten Airfield is a scant 4 miles from the university campus, and is also a National Park System site, one that has been faithfully restored with impressive exhibits, both of the ghost buildings and those that could be restored. Those no longer standing are represented by skeletal metal footprints in the exact measurements of those now missing.  I've never seen that done before, and it does the job quite well.

In addition, the hangars have been restored and are rich with blow-ups of the Airmen, including everyone who served in any capacity (pilots, mechanics, instructors, etc.) now being considered "Tuskegee Airmen."   This was no surprise since our park considers anyone working on the Home
Front in any capacity as a "Rosie."  I was told that one woman who is seen in one of the giant photos huddling under the wing of a plane with pilots -- a mechanic -- is still living in the area but was too frail to attend the event.

The audience was made up of NPS staff, volunteers, and at least two elected officials, one who with his spouse, had driven all the way from Mobile (a 3-hour drive) to attend.

We visited the historic hangars, followed by a sumptuous lunch in the Sky Club where young  officers had gathered for recreation -- with a jukebox of the times playing music of that era.  We would then take off for the drive along the historic Selma to Montgomery Trail and Pettus Bridge where another stunning NPS visitor center has been established in a rehabilitated bank building.  What had escaped notice by virtue of the tragic and dramatic events of Bloody Sunday was the serene beauty of the Alabama river that meanders lazily below in silent testimony to those long ago horrific scenes.  The nation responded with shock and shame, and those images on our television sets changed the fate of what had been a seemingly failed social revolution up to that point.

The town of Selma appears to have changed little over the years; and could be well-used as a movie set of that painful era.  One would hope that the same would not be said of those still living there.


... and I just noticed that the report on my talk has gotten itself buried again.  Maybe I'll just have to let it all simmer until it's ready.  Maybe by the time Sue gets back to work from her backpacking trip at Yosemite and can transfer the photos from her camera to a CD.  Maybe then I can recapture the part  that I played in last week's journey ... maybe.  But when put in context, my contribution was probably the least important aspect of a memorable trip back in time.

Home for a few days of extended vacation before returning to work ...  

and still feeling the effects of having plunged back into a past of so much pain -- but with a sense of victory as well.

I believe that I will find new power in the words to "We shall overcome" after having experienced the Montgomery to Selma Historic Trail with Superintendent Christine Biggers of the Tuskegee Airfield site.  Seeing it all through her eyes so enriched the adventure and brought such vibrancy to our day together.

To see Berkeley's Tuskegee Airman Wendell Lipscomb's photograph among the trainers of pilots was a strong reminder of how closely-lived was my world to that history.  I knew Wendell, and was aware that he'd served his country in that way, but more because he returned to the University of California afterwards where he became a noted psychiatrist specializing in the development of programs to combat and control alcoholism.  To see his huge image exhibited on the wall of Hanger #1 made it all surreal.  Our Armed Forces chose the best and the brightest, obviously, men who didn't disappoint, but served their country with honor and distinction as the "Red Tails".

When I slipped into my handsome red Tuskegee Airmen's jacket (a gift from Christine upon our departure), it was in honor of Wendell, Kenneth "Bunny" Hernandez, Francis "Frank" Collier, and Les Williams (of San Mateo) -- all airmen I'd known at the time, and dated before the US Army Air Force discovered them and accepted them for service.  I must have been all of 17 and 18, in my last year of high school and eager to enter adulthood.  On May 24 of 1942 -- months after war was declared -- I married Melvin Reid whose friends were already enlisted and serving.

It appears that the Air Force and I had similar tastes in men!


Now to spend some time processing those unforgettable days of last week, and sorting out just how to incorporate the new learnings into my presentations.  I'm no longer inclined to downplay Black history in favor of blending it into American history "since it was something we all lived."  Not sure how to do that -- but my talks will surely have to be edited in some way to include some new thinking.  The issue is far more complex than before these new experiences.

After all, I've been saying all along that when we give up our complexity, we sacrifice much of our truth.

This is where those words get tested.

On Tuesday we started the day by visiting the National Park Service Visitor Education Center to see the George Washington Carver exhibits ... the founder of Tuskegee University ... .

... a most beautiful campus of all red brick structures -- bricks made of native materials and by Tuskegee students over the years.  It is not only a magnificent campus, but every brick stands for independence, morality, steadfastness, and pride -- and from the verdant grounds to the stately trees -- everywhere one looks is living history.

Over the years since former slave Dr. Carver founded this historically black college, it has stood as one of the most highly respected institutions of higher learning in the nation.   The Dr. Booker T.

Louis Charbonnet

Washington home on that campus was a revelation for me.  It suggested a more gracious and elegant lifestyle was lived by black leaders of the day than I was aware of.  I learned more about these two men than I'd ever known before.  I recalled that my paternal grandfather, Louis Charbonnet,  a noted engineer and millwright of New Orleans had studied his crafts through correspondence courses from this very institution.  Over the next few weeks I plan to check through the Tuskegee archives for those records.  This experience added to my sense of being the link twixt then and now.

It occurred to me while lying awake that first night (with every nerve-ending vibrating!), that the National Park Service might best serve the cause of racial unity by insistence that young rangers of European descent -- where possible -- spend at least 6 months on such historically black college campuses -- on detail -- where they can have the experience of being in the minority in order to learn about white privilege.  Yes.  White privilege probably can be best learned experiencially in a context where there is no question about social, intellectual, and educational equality.  Since the National Parks have created these visitors centers on such sites, putting them to such use could be life-changing for rangers-in-training in ways that cannot be taught otherwise.  What an opportunity for learning such experiences could provide.

It is impossible to not feel that -- for the past hundred years we, as a nation, have been trying to fix black folks.  It's quite possible that it's not black folks who need fixin'.  Thinking back over the past half-century it seems that black folks have shown more compassion, respect for human rights, fearlessness in the face of indescribable cruelty in many cases, and have done so while insisting upon the right to lives of peace and productivity in a country in which they firmly believed, but which has never seen fit to fully accept their participation in the process of full citizenship. 

Maybe it's time to start fixin' white folks.

Tuesday's 4-mile trip to the Tuskegee Airmen's field from the campus; the 54 mile drive to Selma to stand on Pettus Bridge; visiting the heart-wrenching exhibits of the heroic marchers of 50 years ago; the drive back to the Capitol at Montgomery with Jefferson Davis's statue guarding the entrance; the old Confederate White House just a block away with Morris Dees' Poverty Law Center another half block from that; with Dr. Martin Luther King's Dexter Chapel just across the street from the Capitol; stopping at St. Jude's where the church and convent hosted the marchers and a concert featuring Joan Baez and Harry Belafonte at the time.  The marchers had been allowed to pitch their tents on the expansive lawns of St. Jude's while preparing for the historic March for Freedom.

The proximity of all of these historic sites of opposing forces was something I was not prepared for, and the realization of it -- when it is full-blown in one's consciousness -- was an emotional experience not ever to be forgotten.

On the drive along that stretch of highway I was reminded that -- what is now a divided highway with 2 lanes in each direction with a grassy neutral ground running full-length down the center -- it was at that time a narrow 2 lane country road with no shoulders to retreat to, and with the marchers competing with hostile motorists along the way ... for 54 miles which they covered in 4 days, only to be confronted by Sheriff Jim Clarke and his fire hoses and police dogs ... .


It all became more real than is comfortable in the telling ... .

Where to begin?

Landing at the Atlanta airport is an adventure of great significance -- and had it not been for the fact that I was escorted by Sue Fritzke, deputy superintendent of our 4 parks --  I may have had to spend the rest of my life riding up and down on the most amazing set of escalators on Planet Earth!  Wiser heads had prevailed, and the decision to not allow me to descend on Atlanta alone was fortunately made by caring staff.

We arrived early Sunday evening and spent the first of several sleepless nights of anticipation of the most spectacular set of experiences one might ever expect to live through.  It was an emotional roller-coaster that threatened to overwhelm me at almost every turn.   I was on the verge of tears much of the time, and before full recovery could take place -- another heart-stopping moment would occur!

I'm not sure that anything could have prepared me for the 3 days of unimaginable heart-rending vignettes that I will be re-living for a very long time.

Ranger Judy Forte, Superintendent of the NPS King site was a gracious host who set everything aside to provide personal guidance to a far larger King campus than I'd ever imagined existed.  She was joined by Ranger Tim.  There was the National Park Service site (shown above); the Martin Luther King, Jr. family site that adjoins it; the Birth Home -- with more than hints of the gracious lifestyle of the elder King family.  The  lovely home has been faithfully restored and lovingly preserved.  We visited the fire station with its fire engine of the times; the original Ebenezer Baptist Church where the elder Pastor Martin Luther King, Sr., had held forth, but that now rings with the familiar recorded voice of his illustrious son; the tragic hero of our times.

The rangers who escorted us were unstintingly generous with their time and well-versed in the stories, large and small.

The King campus is so much grander and the stories so much more comprehensive than I'd had any reason to expect.  There were undiscovered aspects to stories that I thought I'd known before.   The previously mythical has now become real.  I've now stood in the places where those lives were lived; and things will never be quite the same.

I am so proud and grateful to be associated with the National Park Service in these years when Civil Rights history is being given its due after being marginalized for decades.  But I'm re-thinking my recently-proclaimed statements to the effect that "history should not be ghetto-ized, but that black history needs to be blended into American history."  Such a statement may be more glib than reliable.  Not so sure about this any more, but more about that later.

Got to meet the only person I could claim to know in Atlanta (one I'd only met online).  Lisa took time from her job (only 5 blocks away from the King Center) to meet me.  We'd connected some years ago when engaged in a genealogy adventure.  Again, that feeling of the magic of technology that brought the virtual together with the actual -- and I could feel the friendship of long-standing in the embrace -- feelings that transcend the "real" and moves it onto another plane of existence -- one that I may not live long enough to ever fully understand.

A link to a recent interview with Farai Chideya of Public Radio International: Living History, Exploring Nature


... and by the magic of technology despite the distance between, (Farai in New York and I in Richmond),  it turned out to be a real conversation.  She is a great interviewer, and probably equally as good an editor.  I've listened to Farai on and off for years and have followed her career with great interest, never dreaming that one day I might become a subject of one of her programs.  We've never met, but she plans to visit the Bay Area in October and I'm looking forward to that happening quite soon.

Not posting?  Didn't have the heart to in light of Ferguson ...

... another unarmed black youngster senselessly cut down, and just as he is about to begin life.

Today I met with a filmmaker at Lucretia Edwards little shoreline park to do a 45-minute interview that may (or may not) be edited into a full length documentary he is creating about Rosie the  Riveter -- for whom our park is named.

It seems that he had completed most of his work of a couple of years, but began to feel some discomfort -- having taken one of my bus tours in the recent past, and learned some alternative views on the conventional stories that ordinarily spill forth when Rosie is being researched.

I don't think that he was aware of what he was looking for today.  He'd driven up from Los Angeles -- calling ahead for an appointment -- but he came unscripted, I suppose hoping I would provide a lead so that some new angle might surface ... .

His first question had to do with the Michael Brown killing in Ferguson, and just how did I feel about it?  It appeared to me to reveal a certain level of insensitivity, and I found myself going off on a tangent ... reluctant to share the pain of reopened wounds until I'd had a chance to worry myself through still another such tragedy.   This latest is only a few days old, and still raw; unprocessed. Having raised 3 sons in the previously all-white suburbs (prior to our arrival) with fear and trepidation over many years, the thing that comes up for me now are the lyrics of one of the earliest songs I ever wrote on the occasion of one of those sons, as a very small boy, being stoned as he rode home on his bike from Slo Sam's grocery store that lay at the crossroads of Saranap, the unincorporated rural area where we lived.  It happened not 500 feet from our home.  I kissed his forehead, wiped away his tears of small-boy outrage (tilting his face downward to avoid the unanswerable why in his eyes), and sent him off to some distraction before breaking into tears of utter helplessness that blurred with my cup of lukewarm tea:

Where is my brown-skinned heart to hurry?
Where will I find my song?
Why must my mind be just for worry:
To whom does my dream belong?

What are my hands to hold this morning?
Where is my place in the sun?
With what shall I fill these days of yearning?
Whose will shall be done?

The fruit of my labor will tumble in soon
in search of my love and my lead.
Gave all I had when they left this morning ...
Do they not know that little souls bleed?

Where is my brown-skinned heart to hurry?
To whom does my dream belong?
Why must my mind be just for worry?
Who will hear my song?

That song comes to the front of my mind each time another young black man is lost to the ignorance of the Times.  It's curious to note that -- what is expressed holds less bitterness than one might expect, but continuing sadness and that profound sense of helplessness.  I suspect that at some point and in some cases this is transformed into the rage that we're witnessing on the streets of Ferguson tonight.  Maybe, when enough of us reach that level of outrage across all of the lines of separation, change may begin to occur -- but at what cost?

...  and how long must we wait?


I came home to an email from PRI commentator, Farai Chideya, announcing that the interview that we did together some months ago was now up on the website.  I listened with an intensity borne of today's interview with filmmaker Ken Stewart -- and -- for just a moment there, wondered how I will feel tomorrow giving my hopeful message from the front of our little theater?

I loved her piece, and found myself lifted by being reminded of that evening in 1965 at Grace Cathedral listening to Duke Ellington's magnificent jazz mass and Come Sunday and closing my eyes and
imagining Bunny Briggs dancing across the nave like a  delicate black butterfly -- in that great marble edifice with its stately columns upthrusted to the heavens --  and was able to still the trauma for at least another day ...

... and remember, this was 1965 just months after Freedom Summer of '64, and in the throes of the Civil Rights revolution of the Sixties.  This memorable concert was central to the healing, and gave hope to the struggles that lay ahead -- and into the unknown Now.

"Lord, dear lord above, God Almighty, God of Love -- 
please look down and see my people through"

                                                (words from Come Sunday.")

The hopelessness lies dormant, again, at least 'til tomorrow ...

... wondering just how many more of our children must die violently at the hands of the ignorant before ....

Just don't know ... . 

Duke Ellington from A Concert of SACRED MUSIC at Graece Cathedral (1965)

Learned through an email exchange that plans for my proposed trip to the Tuskegee Airmen's site in Alabama is proceeding on schedule ... .

... and that I'll be flying out on Sunday, August 24th to arrive a full day ahead of my presentation for Women's Equality Day.  The trip will also include visits to Selma and the King Center in Atlanta before returning to the Bay Area.   Never in my wildest dreams did I ever anticipate such an adventure!

Ironically, a week or so ago an invitation arrived from noted author and environmentalist, Audrey Peterman, announcing that along with a stellar list of outdoorsmen and women of color, I was being invited to attend an event on August 25th at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C., to which the "Prince of Rangers," Yosemite's Shelton Johnson, and I would be honored guests.  To have my name linked with Shelton's -- in the same sentence -- is beyond imagination. Would you believe that the two events were only 15 hours apart and that there was no way for me to do both?  Frustration of frustrations!

For months now I've been silently carrying around just a smidgen of resentment since the 5 "Rosies" from our park visited my president in the White House and I was not included in their grand week-long adventure of being celebrated throughout the Capitol.  Okay, so I wouldn't have gone anyway (I really don't identify as a "Rosie), but to not have been asked is still irksome -- though no longer actively so.  I only seem to parade it out when I need a reason to deal with inexplicable ill feelings that need something to piggyback on.

... but before this administration's term of office ends, it would be such a thrill ... .

Maybe there will be another opportunity at some point -- before I hang up my flat hat for the last time  ...

Let us pray ... . 

After several weeks of continuing public exposure ...

... after all, I'm been under scrutiny since late October at the time of the government Shut Down -- and after 10 months -- it continues still.  I finally was able to find a few days off to escape to scenic and serenely quiet Mendocino.  I'd forgotten how much that two-and-a-half hour's drive to the northern seashore is rejuvenating.  So beautiful!   Why on earth I don't do this more frequently is a mystery.

Over past days Lu, my colleague, and I paired in a StoryCorp 40-minute interview for the National Archives; I'd done a 30-minute phone interview for Geico Corporation out of Toronto (and, no, I'm not replacing the gecco); and a few days ago completed another for VIA, the magazine produced by California AAA to be published as a Q&A in the November/December issue.

I'm guessing that -- with so many Boomers approaching their golden years -- there is a growing demand for stories on those of us who've survived into our eighties and nineties.  Maybe we're becoming the lodestars -- guides into the future for those who will soon replace us on the planet.

I arrived in Mendocino on the first day of the annual writers conference which brings together writers, agents, poets, etc., from throughout the country for a 3-day gathering.  The last thing I expected to do was to attend a public event of any sort, but since this one means a great deal to my friend, Tom, it was easy to simply say "yes," get into the one change of dress I'd brought along, and into his tiny but strangely elegant red Duchevot (sp?) for the short trip to a lovely private home where the opening reception was being held.  There we met friends, writer Norma Watkins and her husband the noted artist woodworker, Les.   We missed a new exhibit of his work only by days.  I'm in the middle of reading Norma's memoir, The Last Resort, and only regret that the audio book has not yet been published.  I have to imagine the sound of the words in sweet Mississippi-talk -- and that's a pity.   

The re-discovery that changing worlds can be surprisingly restful was a revelation.  Here I had no responsibilities, and could just coast and soar for a few hours out of context and into one where no one expected or wanted anything of me.  Being a mere observer was an almost forgotten pleasure.

"The Timbers"

On the short drive home to the Timbers, I was aware that here in this place the fog presents the world in single dramatic snapshots instead of panoramic view -- and was far more manageable than the world I'd left only hours before in my escape from the busy urban center where my life is being lived so publicly these days ... .


The lull lasted only two nights and I was back driving through magnificent redwood forests from Fort Bragg through to Willits and Highway 101 heading south for home early on Friday morning, and reporting to the Visitor Education Center on Saturday morning for a theater presentation before 35 eager freshmen from Mills College in Oakland at eleven o'clock.

... and it may not surprise you one whit to learn that this was precisely the place I needed and intended to be on a windy noisy urban shoreline in the thick of life once more!

Photo by Shirley Butt

Independence Day celebration at the Craneway Pavilion ... 

I love this priceless image of my Dorian's face as she listens to the themes from House of Cards by Oakland composer, James Beale, as played by Conductor Michael Morgan and the Oakland Symphony.   We were there with over 4000 members of the community last night for the 7th annual celebration of July 4th.

Sousa's grand marches were played as the ".. bombs burst-ed in air."  But the traditional 4000-voice family rendition of the music from the Sound of Music was the high point, and Dorian knew every word of the score despite a struggle with some of the notes -- but her enthusiasm made up for the dissonance.  She was loudly out of tune at times, but who cared?  No one, apparently.

... and what an exciting fireworks display there was at the end of the evening to the delight of the many children in the audience!

This is the face of my child-woman enraptured with music which needs no intellectual support but goes straight through the emotions -- to the heart.

Happy Fourth of July, everyone!

Depression was, fortunately, merely a temporary state of affairs ... .

... and after two days of recovery, I'm back in the saddle and 'rarin' to go.

Small wonder that neither of my husbands were ever able to figure out the rhythm of my life -- and I'm sure that my co-workers are as much at sea as they were.

Oh, the anger is still bubblin' under the surface, but it can no longer sneak up on me with such explosive force, and I'm again "in charge."

That I may need to take some time off is obvious, and I plan to factor that in within the next few weeks.  I'd set a pace that was unsustainable, and every cell was/is vibrating!  Memories of Freedom Summer '64 could not have brought me to such a dramatic halt -- as if hitting the proverbial wall -- had I not been running on empty for weeks.  Lesson learned.

I did make a call to my old boss, Attorney Don Jelinek (now retired), then emailed an order in to Amazon for a copy of his book, Attica Justice, for reading on my vacation (one that I'll arrange just as soon as my calendar clears enough to chose some dates).

Need to look up our mutual friend, Dr. Hardy Frye.  I now recall that the last time we met was at the graduation ceremony for black students at the University a few years ago.  As I remember, he was having some health issues ... . why do we allow such friends to drift out of our lives?  It was at that time that I was honored by the graduating class with the Fanny Lou Hamer Award, and Hardy had served on the selection committee, and was in the procession walking beside me soberly 
black-robed and somber as his role demanded.  To be honored by a graduation class of students who were total strangers was one thing -- impressive enough -- but to know that Hardy, a SNCC veteran of Freedom Summer '64, had participated in the class's choice ... was almost overwhelming.

All of that figured in to my temporary meltdown, of course, with that award and the experience of the graduation remembered against the images of Ms. Hamer's heroic plea for the seating of her delegation -- all played into the drama being relived over the past weekend.

Small wonder things would all come crashing down!

Maybe it's time to remind myself of one of the songs I wrote during that period ...

Fanny Lou Hamer at the Democratic Convention

It was in the creation and performing of those original songs that became my way of processing and making sense of the terrifying history that we were living through at that time.  And, no, I didn't publish anything that I wrote; but all of those songs are still alive and ready to be called up at a moment's notice.   The voice?  Not so much. The intensity of that process remains as if lived only yesterday.

The song was based on letters 18 year-old college student Susan Sanford wrote home to her family, and that were shared with me occasionally.

She'd traveled to the deep South from her comfortable suburban home in California to participate in Freedom Summer by attempting to register voters and to teach in a Freedom School in Canton, Mississippi.  She was living with one of the host black families who'd risked life and limb to enable change to occur.   Being reminded of Susan and the fact that she was wearing my pearls under her tee shirts allowed me to feel a part of that change; at times it simply increased my sense of helplessness:

Song (written in the voice of the woman who shared her home with SNCC students):

Monday mornin'  ... streets are bare ...
seems as how dey don' want me nowhere
since ah went to the Courthouse and sign mah name to freedom.

                    daughta say, "mustn't run ...
                     sound the trumpets .. the Kingdom's come!
                     Mamma go to the Courthouse
                     'n sign yo name for Freedom".

Fields afire -- cotton flamin' 'neath the summa skies
Shrouds 'o White ...  no name namin'.
Dey don' know 'dis dream cain't die

Churches burned -- deacon dead
still ah know it's like daughta said
ain't no turnin' back now --
Got to sign mah name to freedom.

second bridge:

Young folks heah a'roun' mah table talkin' through the night
faces heah ah cain't label -- brown ones blendin' wid da white ...

Sunday mornin' ... church ain't there
bombed it Wednesday but ah cain't care
God was down at the Courthouse day ah sign mah name to freedom
Ma Lawd was down at the Courthouse -- day ah sign mah name.

Note:  During that period 37 black churches in Mississippi were destroyed by fire.  

Yesterday -- for the first time I fell into tears before an audience ...  

... it was devastating!

The evening before I'd crawled into bed early to watch the PBS Special that had aired earlier in the week, "Freedom Summer 1964."  I'd waited until then since I knew it would be archived on the website and available through streaming.  I'd felt no urgent need to view it before then since I knew that history so well that it would be simply a review of the past and little else; or so I thought.

At the end of the hour I was bunched up in a foetal position under the blankets sobbing until there was nothing left to feel.  Over the years I'd screened out so much -- I suppose for the protection of my own psyche.   The rage that I'd been touting in my talks -- that which I'd "outlived without losing my passion" had only been suppressed, and burst through the walls of protection so carefully built over those decades, until I'd convinced myself that the storm was over.  Not so.  The explosion of re-awakened feelings of utter fury and fear left me limp and unable to sleep until nearly dawn.

Those powerful feelings had enabled me to come through the Sixties civil rights revolution relatively unscathed -- though I did suffer a mental break at one point .  It now exploded back to life again.  I'd clearly forgotten the duplicitous role played by Lyndon Johnson in the attempted seating of the Mississippi Freedom Party; the sheer eloquence of Fanny Lou Hamer -- and all I'd remembered until watching the footage was that Johnson had ushered in the Voters Registration legislation and the War on Poverty, and all else was forgiven.

Yesterday I was scheduled to give my two o'clock ranger presentation twice, once at eleven o'clock for Rosie Daughters, an organization from the Women's Center in San Francisco, and then again for my usual two o'clock ranger talk.  I got through the first without incident, before an appreciative audience of mostly women who brought with them an openness that was almost palpable.  When those audiences turn up -- the talk-- though repetitive -- becomes a "first time" experience for me  as well as for those before me.  It's a strange thing.

When my two o'clock program rolled around I walked down the stairs to the little theater fully prepared to give my all and with positive feelings that gave no warning of what was to come.

It may have been because it was later in the day and -- under the surface fatigue was setting in -- but for whatever reason, when I began to utter those familiar words, "over the past decade, I've found that I've outlived my rage without losing my passion", I fell apart.  I've said those words many times before, since they're an essential part of my truth.  But at that point the anger and pain of the night before rose to the surface and I began to feel my throat tighten as if to shut off air to my lungs -- and the tears brimmed!  That had never happened to me.  I wanted to run out of the theater!  I'd been hurtled back through time and it was 1964 again, and the pain and feelings of helplessness were overwhelming.  All I could do was abruptly walk to the side wall of the theater with an apology to my audience, quickly try to control my emotions by clinging to the handrail, then return to conclude my talk.  This time it was with the admission that those words were no longer true for me, and that my anger had merely been smothered into submission in order for life to go on at a time when insanity reigned.

Within about 30 minutes of returning upstairs to the galleries -- the tension that had been building under the surface all morning had subsided and I was back in my body.

If you haven't yet viewed this PBS American Experience  on this, the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer 1964, you really must.

Meanwhile, I'll either plan to take a break from work soon -- maybe a week or two -- just to reduce the possibility of a complete cave-in.  Though I suspect that something fundamental has occurred, and that some lesson that is still unexpressed will surface within a day or so; maybe sooner.  But I'm aware of the depth of rage that still lingers, and of the cost of continuing to suppress it.  Somehow I'm aware that it has enabled me to continue the work; to deliver the message to others who might carry it on; but I don't think that I've appreciated what it was costing to my own well-being.

Note:  the caption on the photo above should read, "... we were all in this auditorium when we were told that 3 students were missing.  We all boarded the bus and headed for Mississippi anyway."  These are the words of Alabama-born Hardy Frye, who would come to U.C. Berkeley to complete his doctorate and become a professor of Black Studies.  This, while serving as Berkeley Mayor Gus Newport's Chief of Staff through two terms of office.

I was the Aide to City Councilman Don Jelinek at that time.  Don had been a successful Wall Street corporate attorney -- clearly on the track for a partnership in his Law firm -- who went to do volunteer work in Mississippi for the ACLU for 3 weeks in 1965, and stayed for 3 years defending SNCC workers and blacks needing help.  He was a part of Dr. King's legal team until the assassination at which time he came to Berkeley to practice family law and was elected to serve on Berkeley's City Council.  Hardy, Don,  Nancy Skinner,  and I, (among others) were together on the fifth floor of City Hall for several years.  Don would later return to New York with noted attorney, William Kuntsler to successfully defend the Attica prison rioters (his book, Attica Justice, is available on Amazon).  In 1969, for a period of 6 months he lived with the Native Americans who occupied Alcatraz in an unsuccessful attempt to reclaim the island from the federal government.

It's my day off work, and I'm vegetatin' at home with socks going unmatched and the vacuum cleaner standing idle in the middle of the living room rug ...

and I'm bummed out!

Handling leisure is becoming a complete waste of time -- I need to work.  The passage of time without an agenda is a luxury that is no longer affordable in these final years, at least not for me.  How on earth does Congress have the nerve to idle away the time day after day without doing the People's work?  Many of those currently serving are not that much younger than I am, so the sense of urgency that now accompanies  the passage of time is surely weighing heavily on at least some of our elected officials.  How on earth do they deal with it? 

Since I'm a CSPAN junkie, that means one thing -- sitting at my computer watching the proceedings going (or, sadly, not going) on in the Capitol.

Caught the new Republican leader of the Senate, California's Kevin McCarthy, addressing those gathered at one of Washington's grand hotels before the conservatives of the Far Right.  Karl Rove's bunch?   

In his really good and warmly-received brief speech McCarthy waxed eloquently about his two heroes, presidents Lincoln and Reagan.  In it I heard him utter words that are growing chillingly familiar.  I'm not sure why, except that -- given my history and that of so many citizens of color or differing ethnicities and orientations -- it may come as no surprise that my skin begins to crawl at their utterance.

Why does "American exceptionalism" suggest the concept of a "Master Race" as it was called in the WWII period that my everyday work has memorialized so well,  a concept boasted menacingly by our enemies?

Why do I find Herman Cain speaking for black Americans in that context so disturbing? 

Combined with recent rulings by SCOTUS that legitimize blatant voter suppression;  raising the status of corporations to equal the rights of individual citizens; continuing to smooth the way toward rolling back women's ability to control their own health and bodies, and the dismantling of the nation's Labor Movement, it all seems designed to extend white privilege and arrogance on a national scale, and to reinforce the perceived dwindling power of the long-suffering white males in the population. 

Maybe the sight of the Radical Right's Ralph Reed, now rehabilitated and back in the saddle of leadership of the Tea Party Wing of the party has triggered alarm, and I need to shut MAC down and push the starter button on the vacuum cleaner before gloom and doom begin to totally rule the day!

What do you suppose happened to the euphoria of yesterday?

Our crowds might have doubled since the re-dedication of the Visitor Education Center one month ago ...

... and the parade of folks coming from everywhere to re-discover the history of the WWII home front story is having an impact on the times.

It is a wonder when one realizes that this history is so recent that many who lived it are still around and  available. And  because those of us charged with the interpretation of those times will be looked to as a major source -- that's huge.

Most of it is far too new to have yet found its way into curricula in our educational institutions.  Only over the past several years have the masters theses and doctoral studies begun to be published, so those of us who serve as primary sources have risen in value to the subject, and that fact fuels the growth of my audiences that have grown significantly.  The responsibility is felt heavily by those of us charged with the responsibility  of authenticating that which we pass along to this generation.

At times it seems a positive thing and I feel empowered by the rapt attention in that little theater.  I'm as awed by the magic that regularly happens there as anyone else.  At other times it is puzzling,  and I grow wary at finding myself caught in the spotlight of history just for having been alive at the time.  After all, my role was surely not pivotal, and certainly not memorable in any way.  In retrospect, that 20 year-old file clerk working in a Jim Crow union hall in 1942 could not have predicted the sharp turn history would have to take in order to justify my current status in the world.  It's insane!

Yesterday a group of about 35 historians from the area made the pilgrimage to our Center .  They'd requested my regular two o'clock presentation.  During the Q&A at the end of my brief talk, a  man from the audience who identified himself as a retired Stanford professor asked if my talks had ever been filmed.  I answered, "... many times in bits and pieces, and that the Bancroft Library at U.C. Berkeley had collected about ten hours of my oral history ...."  But he seemed dissatisfied with this, saying, "... but everyone needs to hear what you're saying.  I've been a critic in this field for many years, and you're among the best."

It's at this point that I tend to feel overpowered by the attention, and begin to look for a potted plant to hide behind, and failing that make haste for a way to get out of the spotlight by disappearing up the stairway, out the door, and into my car.   But that's how my two o'clock program closes since my work day ends at three and escape is immediate.  This presentation was happening at ten o'clock in the morning. These were the first arrivals of the day -- so the usual manner of escape was not a choice.  I still had several hours to go, and another talk to give later in the day.

I suppose I'm just going to have to come to terms with just who I am -- that 20 year-old naive African American file clerk, or, the sophisticated multi-ethnic elder with at least 70 years of social development behind her -- with the accumulated wisdom of a self-aware person who has become  an original thinker with the ability to do so contextually.   With aging has come the ability to speak with conviction and always in declarative sentences.   That's quite an amazing gift, wouldn't you say?

I may not live long enough to get this straightened out, and will probably continue to vary between identities through the rest of time, but I'd love to learn how to graciously accept the attention without feeling so unworthy.

... makes one wonder if that feeling of unworthiness is etched into the DNA -- carried along genetically from slavery.

Maybe this is the cost of the slave experience compounded by time  

Photo by Toni Frissell - 1945

Meanwhile ... 

I've received an invitation to travel to Tuskegee Airfield to help to celebrate Women's Equality Day with the National Park Service team there on August 26th, and have accepted the honor.  I've never been to Alabama, nor to Atlanta for that matter, and the chance to see the King Center and to stand in the space where the fighting 99th trained to serve so valiantly is just too good to pass up.

Just thinking about it knocks off decades!

The invitation grew out of recent stories run in the media, and the interview featured on National Public Radio (NPR), which brought attention to my work here, and does not relate to the fact that I can boast of having dated at least 3 Tuskegee Airmen in my time, though that's the only thing that I can attribute it to at this point.   And that happened in the years before any of them entered the Air Force and before my marriage to Mel Reid.  I was about 18 at the time, and Kenneth "Bunny" Hernandez, Francis Collier, and Les Williams were eligible young bachelors who were natural choices for the heroic roles they were destined to play in the skies of WWII.  It looks like the Air Force and I had similar tastes in men.

... but I don't suppose anyone will expect me to speak about that from the lectern, right? 

I'm hoping to have a few days in Atlanta before returning to the Bay Area, but the only person I know there is a nephew who plans to be in the Bay Area for a family reunion that occurs that same week.

If anyone would like to do a meet-up while I'm there, I'd love it!   

You might be wondering whatever became of my latest project -- that of interesting others in creating that memorial to black men ... .

... not to worry.

I was able to interest others in taking on this worthy effort but, unfortunately, it seems to have gotten caught up in the upcoming election cycle -- which promises to be even more chaotic than ever before -- and people are jostling for position on the ballot and all else is fading into the background.

If only some candidate for the top of the local ticket would see this as a way to change the conversation and frame the debate ... but that seems a long shot, and instead we'll talk the usual
potholes and jobs, jobs, jobs ... .

My guess is that there is little chance of anything happening until the seats in local government are occupied by the new team, and we can turn our thoughts to other things.

Jackie and Rachel Robinson's wedding by E.F. Joseph

After more than ten years of blogging, I'm suffering my first prolonged case of writer's block ... .

... and it's a serious problem.

There has never been a more eventful time of life for me; so much to write about, but this weekend I'm beginning to face the fact that there is a profoundly important background story that has been many months in the making, and it has now become so dominant over everything else that I can't move beyond it.

Maybe if I can share it -- even in its sheer enormity ...

It is this:

Several years ago, running concurrently with all else that's happened in my life, I learned of the story that now dominates all else.  It was when my long time friend, Careth Bomar Reid learned -- quite accidentally -- that the Carribean-born African American photographer, Emmanuel F. Joseph's, widow was in the Bay Area from New York to settle his estate.  In the process she'd come to his Oakland studio to dispose of a lifetime accumulation of negatives and other photographic paraphernalia collected over many decades.

As background, Joseph had lived in the Bay Area since the Twenties and into the Seventies when he'd migrated to the East Coast after the death of his first wife and very able assistant, Alice Joseph.    They had been known throughout the area and the state where he had contributed to the national black press over many years, and where we all considered them close family friends.  Anything that happened in the Greater Bay Area and beyond has been photographed by the Josephs.  Because Joseph had War Department clearance to photograph in defense prohibitive zones, he left a fairly comprehensive record of the WWII Home Front years for posterity.

The upshot of all that was that when the second Mrs. Joseph came to Oakland to dispose of his assets after his death, in many huge trash bags in that studio neatly recorded in now brown-age-stained manila envelopes were at least 7 generations of life in the black community.  The negatives had been collected by his widow to be sold for their silver nitrate content -- and Careth had learned of the impending sale and dared to intervene to save them.  Her offer of $1200 was accepted, and those precious negatives were removed for storage and eventual cataloging.

If you can imagine that there are upwards of 10,000 negatives of weddings, funerals, christenings and baptisms, head shots of women, men, children, public events of all kinds, fraternal dances, family reunions, corporate conventions, church doings of every denomination, the opening of the United Nations at the San Francisco Opera House as viewed through the lens of a photographer of color; the launching of ships at the 4 Richmond shipyards in Richmond; sorority and fraternity social dances, USO parties during WWII; picketings for civil and human rights and labor disputes;  NAACP activities over decades, sports events featuring black athletes,  etc., every aspect of black life as it happened for all those years had been recorded.

Lena Horne, Jimmy Lyons, Thelma Carpenter, Frank Sinatra 

E.F. Joseph was no Annie Liebowitz or Richard Avedon, and his repetitive poses and boring group shots with everyone lined up in neat rows looking into the camera are certainly not exciting when so much more is possible as we look through the lenses of our point-and-shoot hand held cameras, but for content -- as we've worked with those negatives -- I'm now struck by the importance of this work.

With permission of my superintendent who trusts my judgment, I've been devoting one day each week to helping my friend (who is 89) laboriously process those negatives by helping to identify as many as we can, and putting them into whatever subject  order as she deems appropriate and by now -- though we've been working as time allows for a long time, we're not nearly halfway into the process.   Neither of us will live to see completion of this work.   We know that.  Each envelope has been identified as to names and dates; as often as not by the subject, but often by the name of the person who ordered the prints -- so it isn't a slam-dunk even with some pretty meticulously-kept records.  The negatives are in fairly good shape despite their age and conditions under which they've been held, and some are hopelessly stuck-together and impossible to save, but we've done a pretty good job with at least one developed photo attached to each packet of negatives with whatever info was given by the photographer.  One wall of her home now holds many 10"x18" plastic containers on bookshelves (floor-to-ceiling), each jam-packed with packets that have been processed and cataloged as well as we can manage with limited human resources.

My blog has been peppered over time with many of those recovered Joseph photos, and they've made

Launching of the SS Robert S. Abbott, 1943, Kaiser Shipyards, Richmond, CA.

possible our being able to depict black history in connection with the WWII Home Front history.  We've tried to set aside those dated 1941-1945 as we go.

... however, what is becoming overwhelmingly clear after much work and re-discovery that there is at our fingertips a fairly complete picture of the cost of racial integration to our world as we knew it.  Yes.  That's quite a statement.  I know.  It's the enormity of that possibility that is beginning to crowd out my ability to even think about what's here ... .

At a time in history when -- it is believed broadly -- that there are fewer and fewer young blacks entering higher education, without being halfway through this huge collection -- there are already four separate tightly-packed packets of Greek fraternities and sororities with each packet containing group photos of social events.  At a time when Boalt Hall at the University of California had but one black student enrolled the last I heard, the past history of our academic aspirations are quite evident.  In those packets I would guess that -- with each plastic container holding perhaps 200-250 packets of many individuals in large groups -- what would you say the number might be?   These fraternities and sororities probably represent only Bay Area colleges and universities, but probably hold some members from historically black institutions, but our social lives were dominated by this social world when I was in my senior year of high school and my husband-to-be was in his senior year at the University of San Francisco.  In the Bay Area, higher education was the norm and was inspired by those who'd come here from a segregated South and historically-black colleges where black culture was proudly passed along through generations of caring black educators.  Many of those educators were left behind as the result of the integration successes -- not being felt properly educated for mainstream institutions to employ.

This complex life with all aspects of social and economic development represented ...  what do you suppose we gave up to gain entrance into the mainstream of American society?  What did we walk away from in societal gains for that admittance?  Because we were prohibited  by racism from being served by white institutions -- we had to create our own -- so every major black community had black pharmacists, doctors, dentists, attorneys, morticians and undertakers, insurance companies, restaurants, entertainers, schools for cosmetology,  realtors, media promotion,  independent businesses of every kind, etc., and when those doors were forced open by the efforts to integrate racially, all that black professional and commercial life was abandoned to white institutions that had many decades of advanced development and with which our fledgling institutions simply could not compete.  And at that point we began (and continue to) blame ourselves for not supporting our inadequate black businesses and institutions, adding to our senses of guilt and disloyalty.  The separation between our upper and middle classes from those still struggling to exist in Black America began to grow as the top level achievers were siphoned off into the mainstream economy with others left behind with dwindling resources in an underground economy often fueled only by the drug trade. 

The enormity of that cost screams out at me every Friday as Careth and I open each fragile packet that contains the record of our lives through to the Seventies.  We've both seen so much change, and we view it through the lens of two women who lived almost our entire lives under an integration mandate -- one that we both fought hard to bring about for the generations to follow.

Black scholars far smarter than I will use this collection to establish the truth of what is suddenly becoming obvious to me -- that here in this historic Joseph Collection is the possibility of getting some sense of the cost of having sacrificed the integrity of our black community for what now seems a paltry sum, and not nearly as valuable to us as to the humanizing of those in power over the past century.  Remember, guys, this is a nation that went to war to save democracy with a segregated armed forces; a war in which 54.8 million lives were sacrificed worldwide -- while deliberately ignoring the obvious contradictions.  African Americans were not seen as the saviors of the democracy this nation claimed to believe in enough to fight and die for, but by which it stubbornly refused to live; yet that is the truth of it.

The turbulent Sixties was the attempt to change all that, but at what cost? 

Maybe it's a developmental thing, and necessary for the sustaining of a Democracy bent upon replicating itself around a world looking for salvation and redemption.  As an American, that may be a worthy thing to have participated in, but as an African American -- I'm beginning to question the wisdom of the choices we've made over time that cost us solidarity and collective progress that has -- in many cases -- cut us off from ourselves.

But then, what were the alternatives?

There have been days when life threatens to be wildly spinning out of control ...

... but I always catch the edge of a mythical branch just before the abyss!!!

one of the features of the interactive exhibits

Our permanent exhibits are installed and the Visitor Education Center properly re-dedicated as of last Saturday when 946 visitors joined with us in celebration.  The exhibits exceed by far my personal expectations, and were it not for my own enthusiasm that prevented learning what anyone else thought of them -- I'd say that impression was universal.  Everyone was blown away by what ten years of planning and execution by four noted historians (Donna Graves and Prof. Shirley Ann Moore being two), a crack design team under the leadership of Dave Seibert, and the able fabrication in the hands of Glenn Zook of ColorAd, we're properly launched as another proud National Park System full-fledged park with American history to share and interpret.

I'm willing to admit now that I was feeling intimidated by the changes that were pending for years, and wondering whether my work would remain relevant and timely.  Thought maybe I'd not measure up to the important groundwork so carefully laid by the scholars over the years of preparation.  But I needn't have feared.  Everything added by the professionals was supportive of my living memory, and powerfully reinforced my unique contributions to the narrative.

Tomorrow I'm scheduled to give an hour-long interview for Public Radio International (PRI) to run on NPR (National Public Radio) hosted by Farai Chideya who will be with me from New York.  A technician is scheduled to show up here in Richmond tomorrow morning at 10:15 to supervise the conversation.

... and ... an invitation was extended by the Tuskegee Airmen's site in Alabama where I'll be a guest on August 26th!  Of course in the back of my mind is Betty the Worrier taking up space to keep me aware of the fact that we've entered hurricane season -- but it's only a quiet fear to keep in check for now, lest I collapse into my 6 year-old self who still holds that chilling life-changing flood of 1927 in active memory.

Life is good.

I know no one in Atlanta, but this will provide the chance to visit the King Center -- and I'm sure someone will make that possible.  It would be a pity to be so close and not have the experience of connecting with all that history to enrich my work.