On Thursday -- while standing in awe (as always) in that cathedral-like expanse of the Craneway of the venerable historic Ford Building ...

I envisioned an event that's been forming in the recesses of my mind for a very long time now.

The Craneway is such an awesome space; one that invites imaginings of places I've seen only in art books and dreams but have treasured since childhood; places like Chartres, the Sistine Chapel, or the Louvre. I'm at such a late stage in life now that any thought of actually seeing such wonders has slowly evaporated into a void -- well beyond the realm of possibility. But this Albert Kahn-designed magnificent cavernous daylight-filled 400,000 sq. ft. architectural wonder captures that little girl sense of awe and it's all I can do to slow my breathing and keep my jaw from dropping each time I find myself standing in its towering vastness.

Recently there was an announcement by the developer of the recently-restored Ford Assembly Plant that the legendary choreographer, 90 year-old Merce Cunningham, has come out of retirement long enough to create a site-specific piece created to celebrate the public launching of (newly-re-named) Ford Point. It's being co-sponsored by Cal Performances and (learned from a disappointed dance enthusiast) is completely sold out! (And I neglected to order tickets!) The performance is scheduled for early November.

On impulse I dashed off an email to Eddie Orton, the building's developer and a casual friend, with a suggestion I would never in a million years have made before Octogenarianism became my new religion a few short years ago. "Eddie, Merce Cunningham is an inspired choice -- but I'm anxious for you to see the work of choreographer Joanna Haigood of Zaccho Dance Theater for the next big one. Look her up on their website and tell me what you think."

Each time I squint through eyes cast skyward while standing in the Craneway I imagine Joanna and her daring dance company suspended on a web of cables performing their aerial act -- using the full dimension of the emptiness of that huge structure and giving life to the totality of the air space in the beautiful ways that aerial dance inspires. I'm breathless just thinking about it! (Yes, that's Joanna suspended from the face of the old Ferry Building clock in San Francisco - 1995.)

His email response was almost immediate (surprisingly) inviting me to raise the possibility with the Craneway's manager, James Madsen. I couldn't tell whether there was any real interest or whether this was his "don't call us, we'll call you" response. It turned out to be quite real. Had a brief whispered exchange with James yesterday while in the building with a small group to discuss sound requirements for the upcoming Home Front festival, and learned that he'd gone to Joanna's website as suggested and saw the same potential that I see there. He suggested that we get together to talk about possibilities. At the moment Joanna is on a plane bound for New York for a performance in a dance charrette with "Dancing in the Streets" next weekend, but was reachable by email and responded magically within moments with enthusiasm!

Do extraordinary things happen in this crazy casual way at times? I suppose so. Maybe they happen when we get old enough to speak out for the things that matter to us with less of the hesitancy of youth and a sense that -- if we're going to make a contribution -- even when they're purely whimsical -- we'd better do so right away or it may not happen -- ever. Maybe -- if we don't -- the unique gifts that each of us one-of-a-kind people brought with us into the world at birth may be lost for all time.

Besides, people listen now in ways that suggest maybe we've earned the right to be heard.

I do plan to be around to see Joanna and her company defy gravity as if propelled by silken wings through that magnificent space -- in a show that will rock the dance world and fulfill my every childhood fantasy of soaring above the earth! And to do so as if I'm not too terrified of heights to board the elegant outside elevators that look down on the Atrium at the Embarcadero Hyatt Regency!

Might we call that vicariosity? If this isn't a word ... it should be. It's surely as descriptive as Dorian's disastrophe.

... and I've forgotten to tell you that after one reaches the age of 87 a body is entitled to create one's own vocabulary, too.


Photo: Photo from "Main Frame," a recent piece created by Joanna Haigood. To read her statement, click on this image to enlarge. Use the Zaccho link under my photo on the left to reach the website for more information. By way of explanation; I once served briefly as a member of Zaccho Dance Theater's Advisory Board.

One festival completed and one to go ... The Second Annual Rosie the Riveter Home Front Reunion is but days away ... .

This is a photo taken at last year's event, and those are some of the hundreds of Rosies who came from far and wide to celebrate together. They came with children and grandchildren in a grand reunion weekend.

This year our "poster girl" is 93 year-old still performing folk singer, Faith Petric, who worked in the Hoboken shipyards during WWII. She is a legend in the folk music world; a friend and contemporary of Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Ronnie Gilbert, and the late Malvina Reynolds of "Little Boxes" fame -- a friend Faith and I shared. We currently share kinship with my performing son, Bob Reid, an ardent admirer of this amazing woman.

This year's reunion will be a celebration not only of the Rosies, but will bring together the music-makers of the folk music world as well. Faith is one of the founders of the almost half-century old San Francisco Folk Music Club with members scattered throughout Northern California. Members of the club will spend the day with us and they'll bring their voices and instruments with them to the newly-restored and magnificent Ford Building (now called Ford Point) where we will spend the entire day in song.

I will be properly uniformed and hatted along with my ranger colleagues -- with special duties as one of the co-hosts for the stage show. I'll also do impromptu interviews among the members of the audience with my roving mike. Last year those Rosies almost wrestled it away from me -- they were so eager to tell their stories. This year should be the same, but this time I'll be better prepared for their enthusiasm; hopefully. We'll see.

That's the weekend of October 5th here on the beautiful shoreline of Richmond, California. For more information, check out the Home Front Festival website -- or the Richmond Chamber of Commerce has a link to the information as well as a schedule of the weekend of activities. One day I predict that our Homefront Festival will rival the New Orleans Mardi Gras celebrations, or, the Mummer's Parade in Philadelphia. (Jus' you wite, 'enry 'iggins!)

Congressman George Miller (seen here welcoming the crowd at Kaiser Shipyard III) joined the festivities.

All-in-all this has been an extremely busy several weeks. Squeezed in among all the usual and unusual busyness was another birthday. I'm at that stage in life where birthdays now come every six weeks. Funny how that goes ... .

Mostly, it was just another Monday. I'm increasingly grateful for each one of them.

It took a mere 80 years, but I think we've made it, Mr. O'Neill ... .

Unlike your ugly Broadway premiere in 1924 when bomb threats, angry audiences, and outraged theater critics spat upon your play, Black and White theatergoers sat together in a small village theater in a trendy suburban tree-lined public square and experienced your controversial "All God's Chillun Got Wings" without incident. In fact, we shared the evening without being either defensive or confrontational. And it wasn't because we'd cleaned up your dialogue or ducked the hard questions. It was because in our era we've reached a place where the social order has given way to possibilities unheard of ever before in history in this nation that rose from a shameful history of human slavery to the very serious possibility of an African American ascendancy to the presidency of these United States! And it all has happened within the lifetimes of just 3 women in my family, my ggmother, Leontine Breaux Allen; 1846-1948 and enslaved from birth until she was nineteen; my mother, Lottie Allen Charbonnet, 1894-1995; and me, Betty Charbonnet Reid Soskin, 1921-present.

Last night's modest small town evening of theater was a triumph; so much more than I'd dared hope for. Admittedly, it was a self-selected audience of those who have an interest in both O'Neill and Robeson so may be atypical of the general suburban population. Nonetheless, in some strange way we were all (those of color and not) witnessing events from the same side of the social barrier and that is new. We are, indeed, living in a new day. We've crossed into unexplored territory and from this place a new world is coming into view.

At the end of the one-act play the cast joined us from the stage to talk about what we'd seen. I was still not comfortable with the content. "Chillun" was not redeemed by moving into dramatic form. It was disturbing to me in the reading and seeing it performed did nothing to make it more accessible. All I could think of was the tragedy of Paul Robeson, a proud black man whom I'd had the honor of meeting close up and personal. In fact, I was a part of a small group of young people who picketed the Paramount theater with him at the opening of Walt Disney's Song of the South which he believed to be unforgivably racist; and I agreed, even as a late teen. He was tall and stately and proudly black! He was a close friend of Matt Crawford, an old friend and a political activist I knew through my involvement with the Berkeley Co-op Movement. That weekend a group of us young people had gathered at Matt's to meet Robeson -- prior to our picketing assignment. We sipped pink lemonade and played "Spin the Bottle" and I received an innocent kiss on the cheek from the great man. Visions of that Sunday afternoon came back while watching the pitifully submissive character of Jim Harris on stage last night.

I wondered how Robeson, that powerful man; that proud black Adonis could have ever crushed himself into the role of a meek and submissive character, ever? I'd had a chance some years later to see him act as the iconic Moor, Othello, against Jose Ferrer's Iago at the Curran theater in San Francisco. That's the way I'll always remember him. That role with its ornate costumes and regal settings was in keeping with the Robeson of my memory. I cannot imagine what it cost him to play the role of Jim Harris for 100 performances ... and how such roles helped to fuel his eventual anger against a system which produced such tortured people.

During the Q&A when the play ended, the cast was wonderful in expressing their feelings about the roles they'd just played. The candor they showed freed the audience to be equally open and honest in their responses. The actor who'd played Jim opened by telling us how much he hated Jim in the beginning, but of how much he'd gained in the process of learning to understand and accept this cowering man of little pride. The rest of the cast was equally as candid and I felt a deep and abiding sense of gratitude that the O'Neill Foundation had trusted us all enough to bring all this together and with enough blind faith that we could handle it. I'm ashamed that I lacked that kind of faith. I was prepared, last night, for anything other than what we found -- a readiness to have those long lost conversations ... finally.

The National Park Service, the O'Neill Festival Committee, and director, Eric Hayes, are to be congratulated for taking on this bold experiment in theater and bringing together the human elements that gave it the social and political significance that it deserved.

You may rest easy now, Mr. O'Neill. And you, Mr. Robeson, your uncompromising courage and painful sacrifices may have gone a long way toward producing our new political reality.

Sleep well... .

Tonight's the night ... and I'm so-oo-o on edge ... .

Eugene'O'Neill's "All God's Chillun Got Wings" will be staged at a premiere with reception this evening. I'm sitting here pretending that I'm not concerned. Not true.

It feels as if all that I could have done was achieved, but my fear is that it will be another missed opportunity to engage the Danville community in a meaningful dialogue that may bring the understanding that the great playwright and his star, Paul Robeson, were seeking.

The subtleties are easily missed. I'm not at all sure that I was able to adequately raise the awareness necessary for this to be anything more than either a polite exchange of niceties, or, a surface conversation that won't bring us (me!) past the "n word" utterances. I so want to see myself as sophisticated. Knowing. Erudite. Beyond hurt feelings over mere words. Down deep I'm not at all sure that's true. And if it isn't...what does one do?

Read a brilliant article today written by Tim Wise. It was carried in AlterNet; the subject being White Privilege. It was penetrating in its simplicity, and easy to toss off as something meant for those others. I'm sure that most of tonight's audience would deny the concept as applying to their lives in any way.

I may easily be one of a very few persons of color in tonight's audience.

By the end of the evening -- I will probably be firmly in the camp of "other."

Maybe that's what is so disturbing ... .

Tomorrow I'll let you know how we fared.

Photo: Eugene O'Neill in his study in Tao House where he wrote his most penetrating prize-winning plays. This is now a National Park site and one of the four parks within our management orbit.

It was Friday morning ... last ... when my office phone rang ...

It was program director, Sanjit Sethi, from the Richmond Arts Center asking if I would be willing to participate in a program involving teens; what did I recall about the first time I voted; would I be willing to be interviewed on camera, "... no more than 20-25 minutes." Did a quick mental calculation of just what commitments lay ahead for the rest of the day -- and, "yes" it was, of course.

The interview was scheduled for five o'clock. Never mind that it was the end of the day at the end of a long week and that energy was running on empty ... but I do love youngsters and a refusal just wasn't an option.

Arrived at the Art Center just as the program director was getting out of his car. My young interviewer was nowhere in sight, but arrived soon thereafter. It was Rodrigo -- and such a soft-spoken gentle soul he was. He was wearing an Amnesty International tee shirt and a jaunty leather hat. He appeared a little shy but open and direct with an earnestness that invited respect and suggested the seriousness of the experience. Fatigue magically dropped away and we were soon at work. We sat in straight-backed metal chairs with cameras aimed at each of us -- under intense lighting that served to blur the presence of the others in the room. They soon dissolved into the darkened background and then there was only Rodrigo ... and me.

Rodrigo's first question was "when did you first vote?" and I was surprised that I couldn't recall just which president that was. I stumbled and stuttered for a minute and came up with something. I remember now that my first vote had to be for Franklin Delano Roosevelt, surely. I was 21 and it was mid-WWII. It had to be. But I answered pretty tentatively. Since I have never ever in life missed an election, they've become not much of an event -- just what one does as a citizen. After all these cycles it is a non-event in my life despite the excitement experienced with each election.

In a few minutes the conversation began to flow as if rehearsed. The questions were real because his face told me that my answers were important to him. We talked with two cameras recording our conversation for almost a half-hour. The time flew by. The passion that underlies my civic life kicked in at some point and we connected, my young interviewer and me. I wanted him to know how much the electoral process meant to me and it was clear that he was interested in knowing. Would that it were always so easy to span time and generations. It comes rarely, but I felt it in those moments. I've certainly experienced times when the spark refused to ignite and words held little life. Not this time. This time the words met in mid-air ... .


I learned from the director as we were leaving that this was a community arts project that involves pairing adults and adolescents in these unedited conversations around the issues of the electoral process and that sometime in October -- prior to the November general elections -- under the sponsorship of the Richmond Main Street Initiative those interviews will be blown up and projected against the walls of adjacent buildings in the old downtown in a gigantic multimedia public art display.

I had no idea.

It was an memorable experience for me -- and maybe for Rodrigo as well -- an experience well worth sharing with the community.

More 1972 Democratic Convention images ...

How little we knew ... We believed that world peace was still attainable because we'd finally made the world safe for democracy, hadn't we? How painfully naive was our generation. How fortunate for us that we'd lacked the ability to see into the immediate future so had no idea what awfulness lay ahead for the nation and the world.


It was August of the following year. Dorian had been enrolled in a fine boarding school in Santa Barbara (St. Vincents) and Bill and I were in the Queen Charlotte Islands on a two-month visit to a Haida archaeological excavation. Those beautiful islands belong to British Columbia, and make up an archipelago about a hundred miles out into the Pacific off the southwestern edge of Alaska. They're called, "the Misty Isles." They sit in the warm Japanese current -- fog-bound much of the year so are carpeted in a lush green giant form of velvet moss that covers everything and seems to muffle sound. I remember being told by someone that on occasion one of those large green glass balls used in Japan to weight fishing nets mysteriously washes up on the shores... .

It was from here that we watched President Richard Nixon boarding the helicopter in his farewell to the presidency and public life. We were quietly sipping coffee in a diner near a small field hospital. We were gathered around a television set with a small group of physicians and nurses on a break ... not far from the Zellerbach paper and giant timber mills. We all watched in silent disbelief. I can remember the feeling of deep embarrassment for my country as the shameful drama unfolded on the small screen there before these stone-faced strangers.

Perhaps, for the first time that I can recall, I was feeling American -- not hyphenated. Perhaps this was true because it was my first experience of being outside our nation's borders and into the world where hyphens were of little meaning. And, oddly enough, under these circumstances, it wasn't a good feeling. And, why on earth would I have been feeling ... what? Guilty? Of what awful crime? I was clearly a participant in whatever shame we were seeing before us; strange and puzzling. I'm not sure that I ever worked that through. But it's clearly related to the feelings I get when newscasters announce "collateral damage," or, "friendly fire, and maybe its simply the price of citizenship; of being a part of the whole. A reminder of the responsibility of being a member of 'community.' Maybe its what drags me out of bed each day - still - to try to "... promote the general welfare in order to form a more perfect union."

The euphoria of Miami felt so far away by then -- but I remembered wondering how different it all might have been ... but it was a part of that kaleidoscopic life that makes up my existence. All of the heady experiences of the convention and its aftermath that had been so hard to crush back into the ordinariness of daily life was by then distant -- unreal -- as if it had never happened at all. Subsequent events tended to erase even the most indelible of memories.

...until these past two weeks as it all came rushing back as though from yesterday ... and the tears ... and troubled sleep.

Are we any closer now than before?

Will this new generation of hope and noble aspirations catch the brass ring? Will my progeny get to exist in a world at peace? Will they know that I was one of those who -- in microscopic increments -- helped to move my grain of sand toward the illusive goal of peace in their time?

If I didn't believe in the marrow of my bones that humankind is evolving toward eventual unification I'm not sure I could go on living. But by now I'm too much of a realist to try to envision a world existing in relative peace within my lifetime.


Top left: Presidential Nominee, Senator George McGovern receiving a bouquet from delegate, Betty, for a photo op.
Bottom: Arriving with other delegates at the airport. The California delegation was bused to the Doral Country Club in Miami Beach for the duration of the Convention.

Reminders of days gone past ...

This past week of back-to-back political conventions were reminders of one of the greatest of adventures as lived in summer of 1972. I was one of those relatively few citizens lucky enough to have been chosen by my congressional district to represent them as a McGovern delegate to the Democratic Convention at Miami Beach.

Lay awake last night remembering and thinking silently in the dark that -- on the day of my birth -- I may have been granted more life to live than almost anyone I know.



Reading back through these entries accumulated over many years -- re-visiting the archives though only rarely -- it's hard to escape that notion ... and to not feel more than a little guilty at the embarrassment of riches even after factoring in a fair share of hard places and emotional down times that had to be lived through along the way ... .



Photo: top right is a photo with Alaska's Senator Mike Gravell (yes, one of this year's presidential candidates) who figured with Daniel Ellsberg and the Beacon Press in the release of the Pentagon Papers -- but that would come sometime later.
Lower photo: photographed sitting in the California delegation during one of the floor sessions.

Met today with the "Uppity Ladies" of the International Red Hat Society. What a hoot!

They arrived in full regalia (meaning purple-garbed and red-hatted) ready for an official Betty-led walking tour of the Rosie the Riveter Memorial in Marina Bay Park. I loved it!

There were three veteran "Rosie's" among them, plus one very interested young man who happened by and joined the party. There were also two women I've known for many years from Seniornet, an online AOL cyberspace community each had wandered into years ago. For Liz and Dee and me it was particularly meaningful. I knew them far better as virtual friends -- and by their user-names, but this was so much better. Learned today that Liz had worked for the Key System rail lines during the war. They'd both materialized into live bodies when we joined others from nearby communities for lunch from time to time, but we've not been in touch for a very long time.

90 year-old Julia had worked for 30 years in the defense industry in a sub-contracting firm in Stockton, California. Her work had to do with electrical wiring of the vessels that were later brought to Richmond's Kaiser Permanente shipyards for assembly. She told her story proudly about having worked on 100 PT boats, one of which carried President John F. Kennedy into battle. She was a delight and was as animated in the telling of her stories as anyone could have been at half her age. She's in this photo in the grandest red hat of them all (seen here at the far left). Her little stories enlivened the walking tour considerably.

The most exciting aspect of these experiences at the Memorial is when an invisible light turns on behind aging faces and frail and halting "Rosies" remember and are young again and re-living those days when the world needed them and when they'd responded and proven their worth as workers. Young again for just this single moment in time ... They'd "done it!" And someone has finally remembered ... .

Re-living those years with my contemporaries carries a special pleasure, and though I'm doing far less interpreting now than before, I thoroughly enjoy doing so when someone makes the request for me as guide. I'm far more involved these days in public speaking and field work, with occasional writing and committee work, but these human contacts with the women of my era are the most rewarding.

My favorite moment in today's experience was when a 4 year-old "pink hatter," who came along with her grandmother and who'd hung in as much as she could during the more formal parts of the guided tour. (She was far more interested in the countless geese who own those greens.) As we gathered at one of the picnic tables after walking the time-line -- for a short summary lecture, she stood by very quietly. I'd forgotten that Emily was there, actually. As we ended the question and answer period she came up beside me and said quietly and very seriously, "...you sure tell a good story."

Not sure anything can top that, folks!

So many loose ends to tie up ... so little time ... .

If you've been left wondering what in the world happened to the Eugene O'Neill/Paul Robeson issues; most of that has been accomplished and accounted for:

Managed to get Jesse Douglas Allen-Taylor of the Berkeley Daily Planet to write a great prologue to be read from the stage before the opening of the curtain for act one (hopefully) and also inserted into the program for the audience to have and to hold. Would copy it here, but have a feeling that the content should be held until after the performances. I'm totally satisfied with the way it all came out. As planned, there will be a facilitated Q&A at the end of each of the 3 performances that will allow audiences to debrief and exhale before leaving the theater. In that way, O'Neill's work will have accomplished what it was meant to accomplish -- a deeper understanding of a troubled time in the not too distant past. It will also offer a chance to measure social change between the way life has evolved since 1924 when "Chillun" was premiered on Broadway to threats of violence, and life today as lived in Danville, California.

How I'd love to be able to post here a brief but critical email exchange between the play's director and the author of the prologue described above. It struck straight at the heart of the debate when the director questioned the writer about his comment about this being a "flawed script" as compared with merely a troubling play. The director expressed a deeply sincere interest in their expressed differences. What followed was priceless and struck at the heart of those questions about racial intermarriage that have escaped expression except when approached through the arts where troubling truths can become accessible. When I can get their permission to do so, I'll post it here. I suspect that we're somewhere in the middle of this conversation, but it probably can't be hurried for the sake of coherence. Life unfolds as it will and there remains much to tell in this story.

The intention was always to use this controversial play of "All God's Chillun Got Wings" as a way into conversations on race that I'm increasingly convinced we're ready for. That was not merely my concern but was the shared goal of the committee, the director, the cast, and me. I feel affirmed in that belief.

My work with the O'Neill committee is now complete, I believe, and today I'm back to leading a Saturday morning tour for the Uppity Ladies from the Red Hatters Society at the Rosie the Riveter Memorial in Marina Bay Park.


Since my last entry -- and at their invitation -- I've met with the Koshland Fellows of Hunters Point in San Francisco to talk about their plans to create the Hunter's Point Wayside Walkway that will begin the telling of the story of Hunter's Point shipyard's role in World War II. What an evening it was! This group of remarkable young woman leaders were excited about bringing their history into the growing story of the great mobilization of those times and are using the model provided by what we've done in Richmond in our Bayside Trail markers documenting that history. I brought along a copy of "Lost Conversations" which was well received, and presented the Betty version of the story of the home front to an appreciative audience of activist women.

Richmond's scattered park sites are providing the national story in microcosm, and the rest of the Bay Area is now taking note and adding their voices. Bechtel Corporation's MarinShip from across the Bay is participating in the 2nd Annual Home Front Festival the weekend of October 5th in Richmond. April Harris, Ph.D. of Santa Rosa Community College has begun the work of documenting that history with a group of excited residents of that community and other educators. Those untold stories will now get an airing and what has until now simply been "the past" will be moving into a revered place as "history" as this park and a relatively young city slowly but surely comes to life.


Photos: 3 of the 9 Bayside Trail markers that ring the shoreline in Richmond from Ford Point to Shimada Park. Together they tell the story of the homefront. It was a project of the Richmond Redevelopment Agency and was the result of over a yearlong study led by historian, Donna Graves, that created the concept and saw it through to completion. I served on that advisory committee and am pictured here with Antonio Medrano, with one of the 18' markers. We're currently in the process of doing a similar installation for the "under redevelopment" Macdonald Avenue -- the "old main street' of the city.

The Audacity of Faith ... .

Photo: Click to enlarge.

I didn't know them well, but, I did attend an Alpha Phi Alpha fraternity dance at UC Berkeley's International House with Jackie Robinson after one of the football games between the Bears and the Bruins ... .

such a warm, wonderful, and truly handsome young man. But that was several years before either of us had married and -- I was young and pretty -- probably not a day over 18 -- and it was just a Saturday evening date with an out-of-town high-profile football hero(click to enlarge).

I remember his speaking of Rachel, the young nursing student he'd met while attending UCLA and later married in 1946. My very own halfback (whom I later married), Mel Reid, at the time was engaged to someone else, though we'd been friends since I was fourteen.

Truly exceptional women married to famous men tend to get lost in history. This beautiful young bride, Rachel Isum Robinson, is such a women. I wonder if anyone ever has given thought to what those awful years were like for her when her young husband was being literally spat upon and publicly humiliated? I've often wondered how Rachel managed to hold onto her sanity.

Before their marriage (during WWII in 1942) Rachel studied nursing during the day while working as a riveter in an aircraft factory at night, though if one were to ask, I would guess that Rachel didn't think of herself as "Rosie the Riveter" any more than I did at the time. Rosie was symbolic of white women in the home front work force.

Jackie spent the earlier years of his baseball career barnstorming with the Kansas City Monarchs of the Negro American League. At the time of their married in 1946, Jackie was playing with the Montreal Royals farm club in preparation for the move up -- a move planned and executed by Branch Rickey. Jackie joined the Brooklyn Dodgers as the first black athlete allowed to enter the major leagues in 1947, only a year after their wedding.

Those thoughts rose again for me when Careth handed me the 8"x 10" age-yellowed envelope from the Joseph collection. There were a dozen or so photos of Jackie and Rachel's wedding in the envelope. They were so young. So vulnerable. They were so traditionally American -- two youngsters who chose to be the sacrificial lambs in a baseball world that showed few signs of being civilized or even properly socialized. I can't imagine what that would have been like for her. It was his choice, but it would be her life as well. And she was the support he desperately needed in order to survive in that unbelievably mean world of professional sports.

Corporate leader, activist, professor, nurse, wife, and mother, Rachel Isum Robinson is a woman of enormous accomplishments, her own and those achieved jointly with her husband, Jackie Robinson who broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball in 1947 when he played with the Brooklyn Dodgers. Together the couple supported numerous causes, but particularly civil rights in and out of the sports sphere. Since her husband's premature death at age 54, Ms. Robinson has used her ability and his legacy to further the causes they so ardently supported.

A career nurse, Ms. Robinson earned her masters degree in psychiatric nursing worked as a researcher at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine's Department of Social and Community Psychiatry, which she held for five years. Ms. Robinson then became Director of Nursing for the Connecticut Mental Health Center and an Assistant Professor of Nursing at Yale University.

Following the death of her husband in 1972, Robinson incorporated the Jackie Robinson Development Corporation, which had been founded to build housing for people of moderate and low incomes. A year later, Ms. Robinson created the Jackie Robinson Foundation, a nonprofit organization whose mission is to provide scholarships and leadership training.

After years at the head of the Foundation's board, Ms. Robinson stepped down as chairwoman in 1996. That same year, she authored "Jackie Robinson An Intimate Portrait" published by Abrams Publishing Company. Robinson has received numerous awards including the Candace Award for Distinguished Service from the National Coalition of 100 Black Women, the Equitable Life Black achiever's Award and the Associated Black Charities Black History Makers Award. In addition, St. John's University, Springfield College, MacAlester College, Boston College, Suffolk University, New York University, Connecticut College and the University of Massachusetts have conferred upon her honorary doctorates.

Ms. Robinson has two children and ten grandchildren.

Can you imagine a more illustrious background than this word picture gives us of Rachel Robinson? Can you imagine the waste in human potential we've endured over the years as women like this were dependent for recognition upon the reflected glow from their famous husband's public image? Or to be asked to share his shame and humiliation by virtue of sharing his name?

We've had a lifetime to view the Jackie Robinson story through his eyes -- but in looking at these historic photos -- can we begin to see those awesomely cruel years through hers?

Still excited about our most recent discoveries from the E.F. Joseph photo collection ...

Remembering what a huge crush I (and every other young female jazz fan in the Bay Area) had on Jimmy Lyons of Monterey Jazz Festival fame. He hosted the late night (all night?) radio jazz show from San Francisco, and set the bar for all the disc jockey's who followed. It was therefore no surprise to find him photographed as Sgt. Jimmy Lyons, producer of "Jubilee" for US Armed Forces Radio during WWII.

Jimmy died more years ago than I can recall, and his passing was mourned across the music world. Remembering him brings back to consciousness all the others who reigned supreme during those years; San Francisco bassist Vernon Alley, tenor saxman Jerome Richardson, Nat and Duke and Hamp and Ella and Sarah and Dinah and Carmen and Shirley Horn and the singer who inspired them all, Billie Holiday. All of those now existing only in memory are given a tiny spark of life again as I view their images here. But they've left a huge legacy in recordings and film for us to enjoy and to learn from.

Those were the days when black artists set the pace and created the sounds that defined jazz. It's hard these days to hear white voices defining our music while our kids -- almost totally bereft of music programs in inner-city schools have had the tools of their culture eliminated from curricula -- leaving them with little more than their mouths and a beat. With that they've continued to create the world phenomenon of Rap and an exciting Hip Hop culture.

I've become quite expert at being able to discern whether an artist is black or white by their sound. It's a game I play while driving ... and I'm rarely wrong. It's also true that black voices are now few and far between. We've all but disappeared into obscurity -- one of the unanticipated outcomes of integration. The transitioning stage was obvious during recent years when we became the back-up singers for white performers -- then slowly -- we began to disappear. Think Paul Simon, Sting, Eric Clapton, etc., the trend moved slowly, but in the end jazz disappeared into "the American Musical Melting Pot," and the best of truly innovative black jazz artists returned to the choir loft with a few exceptional young black players archived into the conservatories. Our best music has since remained there in the black church with few exceptions. Think Take Six, Kirk Franklin, the late great Thomas Whitfield, one of the greatest gospel/jazz pianists and composers of them all.

I shed tears of real grief recently while viewing the prize-winning film, Faubourg Tremé; watching a young black trombonist turned drug addict arrested for parading on the streets of New Orleans without a permit! This, in the place where jazz was born a couple of centuries ago -- created by young self-taught musicians parading on those same streets in my father's and his father's times in the Tremé. When jazz no longer comes up from the streets and alleys; from late night rent parties and wakes for the dearly departed; from the back rooms of saloons; when there are no longer any raw edges to explore and survive -- that's when we will hear only white musicians still playing the Charlie Parker/Count Basie/Duke Ellington charts of the Forties and Fifties. It is then that Jazz -- the most dynamic form of American music will have passed into oblivion.

But what is there left of the Jimmy Lyons legend? I don't recall that he was a musician yet his life was devoted entirely to being the translator, the agent, the recorder, the historian, and the producer of those jazz greats whom we remember best. It was Jimmy Lyons and his Monterey Jazz Festival that catapulted jazz to unanticipated heights -- out of the clubs and onto the world stage. Montreaux and Newport and all the others followed, but Monterey was the first and the greatest festival of them all. And Monterey was the brainchild of Jimmy Lyons.

These still photos from Jubilee are so wonderful to see after all the years ... I'd almost forgotten ... .

And bless the late and most prolific Emmanuel Joseph for capturing our times in this precious collection of his life's work - and bless Careth Bomar Reid for rescuing this priceless legacy of the images that chronicle our lives and times so vividly.

It might easily have all passed unnoticed ... .



Photo: at the group's far right an unidentified performer, Eddie "Rochester" Anderson, heavyweight boxing champion Joe Louis, Jimmy Lyons, Nat "King" Cole.
Second photo; a very young Lena Horne, Jimmy Lyons, singer Thelma Carpenter, and Frank Sinatra.

Historic script turns up in the stunning Careth Bomar Reid/E.F. Joseph photo collection ... .

This 17-page original script for the US Armed Forces Radio show, "Jubilee" was suddenly there in my hot little hands on Saturday. In this photo Lena Horne is holding it in her hand as she works with Eddie "Rochester" Anderson from the famous Jack Benny Show on mike. Not only the script, but in the same yellowing manila envelope were still photos from the same studio session; multiple pictures of the producer, Sgt. Jimmy Lyons (noted deejay and creator of the Monterey Jazz Festival); a very young Frank Sinatra, Slim Gaillard, the Nat "King" Cole Trio, the Jimmy Mundy band, singer Thelma Carpenter, Lionel Hampton, child prodigy pianist Sugar Child Robinson, composer (and not related) Earl Robinson -- (writing partner of Yip Harburg of "Over the Rainbow" and "Strange Fruit" fame), and Harry "The Hipster" Gibson. These were the "rock stars" of the entertainment industry during the early years of WWII.

The script is fascinating as it is written in the "jive" idiom of the day and is generously sprinkled with words and phrases that defined the world of jazz at that time. Every word brings memories of seeing the Nat Cole Trio for the first time sitting in the dimly-lit tiny but chic 365 Club in Hollywood; the place to be seen. He'd just started to be noticed having recently recorded "Straighten up and fly right" and "Sweet Lorraine". I remember it well and felt 18 again for just a few minutes there; holding that crumbling script in hand and noticing in one of the group shots the back of Nat Cole's patent-leather shiny "conked" hair (a story for another time). Oh how young we all were! The emancipating introduction of natural hair styles for African Americans was still 20 years into the future though common in European countries. We were still torturing our hair to try to emulate white straightness and "good" hair as opposed to "bad". I'd almost forgotten ... . Oh how far we've come -- to a day when Oprah can talk on camera of hair textures as style choices rather than indications of political attitudes.

At this "Jubilee" airing for the armed forces Lena sang "Lover Man", Frank Sinatra performed "The House I Live In" with the composer, Earl Robinson, interviewed as well.

There are so many memories to be re-lived and cherished ...

Were we ever so young? And, yes ...

where did the time go?



Photos: 1) Script, 2) Eddie "Rochester" Anderson with Lena Horne, bottom left, Lena Horne, Frank Sinatra, bandleader Jimmy Mundy. These and many more from this Jubilee show are among those referred to in this precious studio script. They are the property of Ms. Careth Bomar Reid by whom all rights are reserved.

Today the Road of Life was full, hard to navigate, and with a few more potholes than usual ...

Patience has been wearing thin and I'm not all that sure it isn't due to a combination of aging and one too many times around the block. The landscape is by now so familiar that I'm less willing to slow my pace and wait for the laggards to catch up. Sound familiar and creepily old?

Of course, one has to assume that what goes along with such an attitude is a kind of glazing over of the eye and a know-it-all toss of the head -- something to be avoided at all costs but nonetheless real and not in keeping with team-playing. I guess I don't do "team" very well these days. That's unfortunate since those with whom I spend my days are of necessity dependent upon collaborative efforts and consensus. Guess I'm not doing "collaborative" very well, either. In fact there are times when the new words and re-phrasing for old ideas and concepts just don't work for me. It means that I have to slow down long enough to interpret from the last time I heard them and what they may or may have not meant in that decade. They are constant reminders of just how little is really new.

It may be that I've simply taken on more than is possible without something having to give. There's an emotional component to my work with the Eugene O'Neill piece that may be costly to the psyche. Re-visiting issues of racism at a time when I'm being called upon to contribute as an objective consultant may be more than a body can manage without some minor slippage.

In the midst of all this comes next weekend's Reid family reunion -- the coming together of (mostly) the young. Each such occasion is moving me closer and closer to the edge, or so it seems. I'm now among the oldest (can't remember anyone older in the entire bunch) and that's disconcerting. I'm beginning to subconsciously respond to the very alive memories of those who are missing ... so many now ... more than those who will be present for the festivities - and all the busyness in the world can't push away the march toward those end days.

Maybe that's what's behind the recent rise in my "annoyance" levels. I'm becoming withdrawn -- working diligently in my cubicle -- putting together the string of words requested for a meeting with some Oakland contacts that are needed in the long range development of our parks. We'll need 3 things (a)"Betty, send us a comprehensive paper on your understanding of what is needed; (b) then a list of people or groups we'll need to bring together in order achieve your objectives; and (c) then a list of the steps we'll need to get us there." Sure. Easy. Time consuming. Necessary.

Accomplished the first paper (5 pages, single-spaced) in preparation for our one o'clock meeting tomorrow afternoon and today will work on the rest.

But first I need to deal with the right-in-front-of-my-face issue of details of the programming for the October 5th Home Front Festival and my mind is elsewhere ... .

I know that the need is great to expand a constituency for our parks that will outlast the changing political structures of the surrounding Bay Area cities. But then I remember that even thinking about such things may be way beyond the expectations of my lowly position. I'm not always sure that "community outreach" means reaching this far out. This is "superintendency" stuff, or at least "chief" of something-or-other in park-speak, right? But my long and deep experience in working with the political process in a former life as a state assembly field representative taught me that without educating the public to the importance of historic preservation (or any other issue needing addressing) through which to give these projects life -- we're at the mercy of constantly shifting mayors and city council members. Elected officials are often reluctant to adopt projects that will take longer to complete than their current terms of office since they don't enhance the resumé one iota -- and if it doesn't fit on a bumper sticker... well! Besides, long-lived people tend to have long-ranged views of the world and I'm no exception. I know that without an aware and engaged constituency few urban parks could be created or survive. As in most of our political lives, the initiation point may be Washington, but without the support of the local community, much of our representative's best works might well wither and die before coming to fruition. Tomorrow's meeting is in the interest of long range planning.

But now it's time to shut down my computer and get to the office so that I can deal with things I'd rather not do ... like figuring out whether I can get my co-workers to agree to extending our October 5th 2nd Annual Home Front Festival program an hour at the far end and eliminating the first hour so that all of the performers we're engaging will have time to get their mikes situated for the best effect and amps set properly ... and, and, and.

Argggghhh!!!!!

(... wishing my cubicle had a door!)

Save the dates for the Eugene O'Neill Festival - September 19th, 20th and 21st in Danville, California!

Attended the second meeting of the planning group for this year's event, and, despite earlier misgivings -- find myself really excited about being involved in working this through. I'm more convinced than ever that -- by working sensitively with all of the elements -- we can use "All God's Chillun Got Wings" to extend the intent of the great Mr. Eugene O'Neill to bring deeper understanding to the questions the play raises.

I am also firmly convinced that the American public is ready for these conversations and that I want to be in the vanguard of the next series of social changes that lie ahead. My work with the National Park Service has placed me front row and center as we continue to write history, this time through the arts.

It will be a challenge, but one that is manageable, I think. Last night's meeting reinforced my positive feelings about the intent of the director and a growing trust in his ability to match the courage shown by both O'Neill and Robeson. Haven't met any of the cast, but by extending the trust to those chosen by this director -- and the well-intentioned planning group -- I'm ready to watch our play unfold over the next several weeks as we wend our way through what could well be a thorny list of questions and challenges. If we're to grow, that may be an essential part of the process.

Today I meet with another planning group, this time with those working on the Reunion program for the 2nd Annual Home Front Festival here in Richmond. It will be a celebration of the life of folk singer, Faith Petric, who is this year's poster girl. She's a 92 year-old Rosie who helped to build the ships in the Hoboken shipyards during WWII. She is still performing! This year's Festival will not only be a celebration of the women of WWII and the homefront workers, but will also be a bringing together of the folk music world to pay honor to this venerable woman who was a friend and contemporary of Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, Josh White, et al, and a chance to bring together as many as possible of those whom she hasn't outlived for a day of remembrance.

We're working with the members of her 42 year-old San Francisco Folk Music Club, members of the Labor Chorus, individual performers with whom Faith has sung over the many years -- for the sole purpose of adding to her already illustrious career by this added recognition of her gifts.

These will be several weeks of intense involvement in the arts; with many lessons I hope to be capable of absorbing -- without too much stress on those around me.

But there are real signs that I'm willing to let go and move on:

Yesterday -- on an impulse -- I walked to the desk of a young aspiring singer who works within earshot of my desk. She's a member of the staff of the Redevelopment Agency (we share space in city hall). She is African American, both beautiful and talented.

At my desk I'd been listening on my I-POD to some of the music that my son, Bob, had added to my list of possibilities for the Home Front festival scheduled for the weekend of October 5th. Preceding those written and performed for Faith at her 90th birthday party were 7 songs of mine that were written long ago. I heard my own songs in a new way. This young woman with the thin voice was good. but the songs were better. I'd taken out copyrights on all of them; had performed them on occasion; but had never gotten around to publishing.

At one point I could hear Jacqueline at her desk as I walked toward the conference room. On a whim -- returned to my desk and picked up my I-POD and took it to her. "These are lovely songs. They're not being sung and should be." The words spilled out easily. "Would you like to add them to your songbook?" I watched as she listened. She was obviously stunned. She wiped her eyes at one point. I realized that in that moment she'd forgotten that this was the voice and the music of 40 years ago. "You should be singing them yourself, Betty!" Obviously not. That voice was stilled long ago by competing interests and an unwillingness to enter a more public life. Those callouses that one works to develop for playing the guitar had disappeared eons ago during some other lifetime. But even more importantly, that Betty had grown into yet another and the music now -- though abandoned in time -- may now have a life of its own.

So saying, I finally gave the songs away to move out into the world -- separate from their creator.

Jacqueline will use them well -- and I'll watch from the wings as I move on into yet another life no longer encumbered by the myths of what might have been... .


Photo: Top photo taken at last year's Eugene O'Neill Festival. Lower photo was taken by a news photographer during performance at a concert in Cleveland, Ohio, sometime in the late Sixties.

My very own home-grown observation of the 60th Anniversary of the Desegregation of the Armed Forces in July of 1948 ...

Jason Allen is a 21 year-old Floridian and a member of our large Allen clan. We've never actually met except through the magic of the Internet. He stumbled upon our website and in so doing connected with his ggrandfather's descendants (his ggfather, Louis Allen, was the youngest brother to my maternal grandfather, George Allen, Jr.). Can you imagine his surprise and delight?

When read alongside the entry below which describes the WWII wartime experiences of Fred Reid and my husband, Mel, it is possible to track social progress since desegregation took place in the Armed Forces to a snapshot of today's young fighting men and women. This is a dynamic time line that we are now beginning to revisit and honor.

26 July, 2008

Cousin Betty,

Hey cousin, Betty!! How have you been doing? I hope your health is well. It's been a while since I last wrote, I know. I've just been tied up a lot (not literally) here in tech school. I'm still here in Gulfport, Mississippi. I'll be graduating in about 5 1/2 weeks -- on September 5th to be exact. That's when I will be a level 3 civil engineer! You gain higher levels by being in a particular field for a certain period of time. There's level 5, 7, and I think 9. Anyway, I enjoy doing what we do here. It's a little different because I'm on a Navy installation instead of an Air Force one. We work with both the Army and the Navy. So far we have done floor framing, wall and roof framing, exterior finishes, concrete work, stair construction. Right now we're doing some welding. We actually just finished our first welding project. First we drew layouts of an A/C duct system then we fabricated the sheet metal to assemble what we drew. After all that, we installed the mini duct system. I won't be stationed to Travis AFB like I wanted to. Instead I will be outside of Abilene, Texas, at Dress (sp?) AFB. I hope all is well with you and your side of the family. P.S.- I found out more info on the family history. I'll let you know what I have.

Jason.


Now here's a proud young man who has found his calling in serving his country. What a contrast with the stories of the soldiers of 60 years ago.

He's a really handsome young cousin and I'm anxious to meet him one day. We had been hoping that he'd be stationed on the West Coast at some point, but that is not to be. Meanwhile, we all wish him well and hold him in our hearts for a good life and a safe return.


Photo: The photo of a reproduction of the 1964 Ebony magazine cover featuring Josephine Baker. This is of the cover of his little 4"x6" card.

I seem to have worked it through ... the initial response was one of confusion -- but we've grown past that now ...

Once beyond the visceral response to the reading of the script of "All God's Chillun," and a long conversation with Cousin Doug (columnist for the Berkeley Daily Planet), I was off and running. Never one to turn my back on controversy without reason, the challenge of the material soon outweighed any discomfort I found with either Eugene O'Neill's writings or with the new acquaintances with whom I'll be working over the next few weeks. All it took was some applied logic to move into what will be a fascinating new chapter.

This play is important and it is timely. There must be sensitivity and care taken to "do the work" required to make it accessible to today's audiences, but that can be accomplished, we're certain. The project is in good hands with this director, and the material -- though challenging -- provides a backdrop for the kind of dialog that needs to occur in these changing times if we're to grow beyond present limitations; and there are many still.

In the wake of the controversial New Yorker "Obama" cover -- the most constructive critics suggested that the satire would have been obvious had the editors taken the time to bring their readers along by adding a small statement that brought them in on the joke; something that indicated that we were all on the same side. Without that caveat, those of us who were regular readers (while "getting" the joke) still felt fearful that others would see the work as supporting the very things that were being satirized. There was nothing to do after the fact other than to become defensive; as did the New Yorker staff.

Doug and I agreed that the addition of a unifying 8-10 minute prologue from the stage that provides context for the times (1924); that talked about the courage shown by bringing this play to an audience that had never before seen black actors on stage in roles that were normally played by white actors in black-face (think D.W. Griffith's "Birth of a Nation"); to an audience that would find any relationship between a black man and a white woman totally unacceptable; and to an audience in a nation where marriage between such couples was illegal in most states. There must be some device that allows us to view the play from a place of common ground. Without preparation, oft-repeated words like "nigger" would distract to the point where some members of the audience would be unable to receive the important messages that O'Neill intended to convey. I'm not at all sure that I wouldn't be among them. The emotional power of the word is a spoiler that I've not yet -- and may never -- move beyond.

Doug is a brilliant journalist and a sensitive writer on the subject of race. He's lived both on the west coast and in the deep south so brings a level of understanding to the subject that I may lack. He's agreed to create such a prologue for me to present as a draft to the committee for consideration. I trust his judgment and also theirs. I believe that we're all on the same side in wanting to make this work. We all share deep respect for both O'Neill and Robeson and a sincere wish to be worthy of their efforts enough to want to bring this important work from their turbulent past into our still troubled times. If we can add a Q&A to the end of each performance in order to allow us all to exhale before leaving -- we'll have accomplished what we've needed to.

Maybe my job here is to be the conduit through which we can face into the winds of change by my being open and clear with my feelings in order to encourage the same from those with whom I'll be working over the next few weeks. This may be the place from which we all grow just a little.

Now I need to think about how we can broaden the experience so that our audiences will reflect our changing times, demographically; a state in which the art world in far ahead of the general public.

We're still a work in progress ...

But we're trying, Mr. O'Neill.

The actor and the playwright ... two icons out of the context of their times ...

I learned some months ago that the Eugene O'Neill Foundation associated with the National Park Service historic site in Danville, California, was considering the staging of "All God's Chillun Got Wings," a play the brooding playwright wrote and produced in 1924. It will be the centerpiece of this year's Eugene O'Neill Fall Festival. The play featured legendary singer/actor Paul Robeson. At the time Robeson was a 26 year-old Pullman porter with advance degrees and dreams of greatness, plus a following in the art world as the result of his growing reputation as a dramatic baritone.

Robeson was one of five children born to a runaway slave father and a mother from a Quaker family that worked for the abolition of slavery in Princeton, New Jersey. His father graduated from Lincoln University; a major accomplishment for those times. Robeson, himself, graduated from Rutgers University on a 4-year scholarship where his athletic prowess on the gridiron was equaled by his law degree and later world acclaim on the concert stage.

The two artists came together in the creation and production of "All God's Chillun" which brought Robeson to the Broadway stage in one of the earliest of O'Neill's most controversial plays. Though O'Neill received mixed reviews for his script which brought hate mail and bomb threats, Robeson seems to have fared relatively well in the role of Jim Harris. "Chillun" would be the first of 3 plays O'Neill would cast him in; "Emperor Jones," and "The Hairy Ape" would follow despite negative public reaction. Robeson is reported as having been troubled by the role of Jim Harris, a submissive black husband to an abusive white wife -- and tried to influence the way the role was played. There are indications in reading news clippings of reviews that it was at times an uneasy alliance.

The role of Jim was viewed as stereotypically demeaning and (by today's standards) hopelessly naive. Nonetheless, I was excited at the prospect of the Foundation's courageously taking on this staging at a time and in a place where it would be least expected. That being so, I asked to be assigned as liaison to the Foundation's planning committee since the Eugene O'Neill park site belongs to our 4-park consortium. Great, right?

Since accepting the assignment I've had a chance to read a synopsis of the play and to meet with the committee. The planning group and the artistic director were wonderful. It was easy to fall into their rhythm and to defer any concerns I'd had early-on about the play itself. Having never read it, but having recently viewed a repeat of PBS's "American Experience" documentary on the life of "America's greatest playwright", Eugene O'Neill, I had a sense of excitement about what may lie ahead. This would be new ground for me in my work -- and in an artistic field where I've great interest but little experience; a new and welcomed challenge.

The play was a hard read for me. Even with the allowances I was making for the times it represents and the social climate in which it was created and produced in the early Twenties -- the dialog was even more repugnant than I imagined. The lens through which the famed playwright viewed African American males was so distorted -- so naive -- that I wondered how on earth it could ever be staged without resulting in the same kind of public response suffered by the (I believe) well-intentioned New Yorker satiric "Obama" cover that brought such negative reactions from even the most liberal and sophisticated of readers.

I'm firmly convinced that there's a way to do this. I've no doubt that the director and the cast and the committee are approaching this production in the spirit of joining the new and long-deferred national conversation on race that we're so in need of. How these words and concepts will play before ethnically-diverse audiences is an unknown. Will the generous use of the "n" word be unforgivably offensive in mixed company? Any altering of the script would be unthinkable, of course, but with little collective memory of the period -- can we dare to evoke those unresolved emotions? Will the 70 minutes that "Chillun" takes to play out be supplemented by enough after-the-show Q&A to defuse feelings of embarrassment and not reinforce those same stereotypes O'Neill may have intended to expose through his work? Have we yet reached the point where -- in an otherwise "white" community -- we can retain enough compassion and generosity of spirit to get us through such an evening without increasing the distance between our worlds? Will these be risks worth taking?

The answers to those questions are illusive in this moment, but I think it's precisely at these edges that the country and the world can now explore new possibilities in human and race relations. O'Neill and Robeson and the O'Neill Foundation and hard-working producers and directors in the theater world may be leading us through these earlier works -- helping us to forge new attitudes through presenting old images of lives that illustrate so painfully where we've been. Maybe it's our role now to ferret out the new directions through revisiting a past that we've yet to process -- and that may indicate how compassion and understanding might move us toward a more enlightened future.


The casting (all Equity players) is in progress and the play will be performed as a part of the Eugene O'Neill Festival where there will be the awarding, posthumously, of honors to the late great and legendary Paul Robeson. His son, Paul Robeson, Jr., and his wife will be arriving from New York to receive the honor. They will be guests of the Foundation and the City of Danville for the 3-day weekend of performances of "All God's Chillun Got Wings" and other related activities. There's much to be excited about -- despite the quiet concerns that I'm sure are shared by the committee though -- with only one meeting under my belt -- those fears have yet to be voiced. I only know one other member of the group and I'm the only person of color in the room at this point. It will take at least another meeting to break through to candor, I suppose. But given my ever constant sense of urgency -- that state we'll move through ever so quickly, I'm sure. This is that place where age kicks in and ceremony gets booted to the curb because time is a luxury that I can no longer afford.

How we work our way through the anticipated difficulties that may be associated with this project will be interesting if troubling at times. I'm looking forward to the experience. It's another opportunity for learning, and I've never ducked out on occasions that present such lively reminders that I'm alive!