The mystery of those 8 caskets is finally solved ... after years of murkiness ... 

There have been a number of posts over several years -- the most recent being within the past month and available in recent archives (enter the words Port Chicago in the search bar above).

An inquiry sent to the Kaiser Permanente Heritage Department in Oakland paid off dramatically -- and it only took about two weeks of  KP's staff delving through old records.  Finally, an email with the leading word, "Eureka!" arrived from Ginny and Lincoln who'd located a couple of newspaper articles that were published on January 10, 1944.  Both the Oakland Tribune and the San Mateo Times had front page columns telling of the tragic dormitory fire that caused the deaths of 8 black shipyard workers and at least 20 more who suffered injuries:

"Trapped in their bedrooms, at least 8 shipyard workers were burned to death today in a fire that broke out explosively, and destroyed the two-story wooden framed Dormitory O located near Kaiser shipyard 3."  It was one of many hastily-constructed to house migrant workers during WWII.

The names of seven of those lost were listed, the eighth was not identifiable at the time of the news release.  One was a 17 year-old boy.  So those caskets are not from the Port Chicago tragedy on July 17 of that year after all, but from an accidental fire that destroyed one of the temporary buildings that had been quickly erected to house the migrant shipyard workers.

A few days ago I drove to the site of the tragedy -- It happened at South 11th Street and Potrero  -- less than a mile from our Visitors Center -- at the historic Nystrom Village WWII worker housing site.  There are no signs of the awful event ever having occurred.   Several small warehouses now stand on the site that lies about 500 feet from the baseball field named in the honor of Dr. King in what is still largely an African American community, and in the middle of what is defined as a part of the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park.

The articles go on to say:

"Shipyard Housing Units branded Firetrap ... when the firemen attempted to access a water supply -- they discovered that the corner fire hydrant was rusted out, so that none was available to fight the flames.  It only took a few minutes for the entire structure to burn to the ground."

The E.F. Joseph Collection has  yielded several photographs of the burial ceremony, with dignitaries from both Kaiser Permanente and the segregated "Jim Crow" Boilermakers Auxiliary-36 in attendance.  The floral wreaths bear the corporate logos of both, but given the times, this represents but 8 of the 37,600 casualties that occurred on the home front in that period.  This was 7500 more than were killed on the battlefront in the time measured.  Remember folks, this was pre-OSHA, but helped to create the will to form the agency to oversee safety in the workplace that has protected American workers since that time.


Those African American workers can now be properly memorialized by having a bronze sculpture standing in that community through which that history can be interpreted.  Finally, a chance to have black men honored -- not as noted athletes, entertainers, but as the faithful laborers who answered their country's call to service on the Home Front, much as they have done since being freed from slavery by the Emancipation Proclamation.  Black men have been essential to the building of this nation throughout history -- and, during WWII were active in the historic productivity that changed the course of the war of that generation.   They could be, symbolically, stand-ins for those thousands of home front casualties who've dropped away into history without proper honor or notice.

In an effort to raise interest in creating a memorial to those men, we will begin to include this history soon in our Center, and will post the new photographs as soon as possible.

I'm both excited and challenged by what lies ahead, but this will happen.  There are several hundred black families who are still residing in the community -- and who have lived silently with this tragedy for over 70 years now.

It's time for black men and boys to be honored for their contributions in that great Arsenal of Democracy as created by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to save the world for a Democracy that was largely theoretical at the time.  

We can do this.

Public attention appears to be racheting up ... 

Call came from NPR this week requesting an interview -- to be conducted at radio station KPFA in Berkeley to be aired later in the week.  I believe the show's title is "Tell me more."  It will be a half-hour conversation -- a lot of air time to fill, but I do that in our theater twice each week, so maybe it's alright.  We'll see.

Only problem is that I really do need faces to look into when I'm speaking.  The few times I've done radio interviews have felt less than satisfactory from my end.

Long ago I was invited to be a panelist on a cultural show of local artists -- the subject of which was "how was your art motivated by your politics?"  I was sitting among about 5 other artists from a variety of disciplines, but none were known to me before we sat in our semi-circle all wired up and ready to go.

The 30-minute show came to an end, and I hadn't spoken a single
word!

I just couldn't figure out how the question applied to my songs -- many of which were surely political -- but since I'd not set out to make a political statement at all, I simply couldn't put my "motivation" into sentences ... the feelings that produced the songs had come from that place inside that describes those feelings profoundly, but they must have come from some emotional place that defied any attempt to analyze them.   Maybe if I'd been able to say those lyrics, I wouldn't have needed to sing them. I might have found a way to participate in the panel, but the conversational form in which that could happen just wasn't this one.

Another time I was serving on a panel with the other 3 panelists in a studio across the bay in San Francisco and I was sitting alone at a telephone in our offices in the East Bay.  I just didn't feel involved in their conversation at all, and was too polite to interrupt.

Yesterday the producer spoke with me from NPR's Washington studio, as a preliminary to next Wednesday's actual taping.  We spoke for about a half hour, and it felt more natural for some reason.  Maybe all that was needed was a kind of rehearsal and producer Kendra provided that.  The interviewer will be coming from a more informed place, with some idea of what questions to ask, and that will provide some security for me.

Maybe I'll invite one of my colleagues to come along and be in the room so that I can have a face to speak to -- and eyes that are alive and engaged.  Then maybe it will work ... .

I so much prefer speaking before a live audience.

It was the afternoon of Easter Sunday ... .

... and David called just before noon to invite me to dinner -- my first visit with granddaughter, Alyana, since her trip to interview at Irvine for fall entry into the university -- as the first in her (our) family to do so.  Alyana, our beautiful granddaughter who'd earned a 4.12 GPA after years of studious dedication to fulfilling all of our dreams.  It took generations to get here, but -- finally -- one of us would legitimately walk through the gates of the Academy fully qualified .. and with a full scholarship.   Oh, it's true that I would later "marry" my way into it, but that's another story.

Oh, David would still have to come up with about $10,000/semester, in addition, (with her younger sister, Tamaya, following by only one year), but we'll take it just one day and one daughter at a time and hope for the best and blessings from the college fairy!

Had the country only seen fit to pay those reparations for slavery in the form of free education through graduate school for every qualified young descendant of the enslaved, how different the entire nation may have become as the result.

I've so often wondered just how different my own life would have been had such expectations existed in earlier generations.  For my parents college was only anticipated for girls who were looked upon as having possible difficulty landing a husband, the ultimate formula for female success in our time.  Those of us who were pretty (and their three daughters were surely that, and quite possibly more).

But I digress:

Just before leaving to meet David and Alyana I looked into my jewelry box and found it lying there in a small gold net drawstring bag -- my simple necklace of graduated pearls -- a luxury in those times.  I'd planned to pass it along to Alyana as a graduation gift, but not until I could write its history to go along with the presentation.  Were it to be put off until I was no longer here, one could never tell how meaningful they'd been during my life, or even that they were not merely costume jewelry -- a mere imitation of the real thing.  This is where legacy comes in -- it must be honored.  I didn't need college to be absolutely certain of the truth of this.

The little necklace had been given to me as the "groom's gift to his bride" by Mel on our May 24, 1942 wedding day.  I remember how thrilled I was to receive my first piece of "real" jewels, and they raised the level of that simple homemade cotton wedding dress to full "satin brocade" elegance!

However over the years of struggle in establishing a small business in South Berkeley under terrible odds; after building a house in the suburbs under ever more stressful conditions -- this time fueled by vicious racism; after giving birth to a special needs child with challenges to be faced as the wife of a hard-working, philandering handsome man who was having unshared successes on the "other side of the hills" in the world I'd left behind -- our marriage had hit the skids and we were hopelessly lost in the weeds of life.

It was the summer of 1964 and I'd become fully invested in the Black Revolution at a time when the nation was polarizing around the complicated issues of race.  I would be caught in the impossible chasm between the black and white worlds at a time when I could least afford it.  I'd recently suffered a mental break and several years of recovery.  I had four children who needed at least one functioning parent, and that role fell to me by default. 

It was spring of that year and one of my Unitarian friends, Don Sanford, a widower raising 3
daughters alone -- called to invite me to dinner with a handful of other family friends, that would serve as the goodbye event for his 18 year-old daughter, Susan, a college student who was leaving the university next day to enter Freedom Summer of 1964 as a volunteer teacher in a Canton, Mississippi, school with a secondary responsibility of helping put forward the registration of black southerners who were seeking to vote, and sacrificing life and limb to do so.  Oh, how I wanted it to be me!  But I had a plan:  I'd brought along my little pearl necklace -- all of the meaning was now drained out by life and they'd lain in the bottom of my jewelry box for years, rarely ever being worn.  It is said that pearls die, eventually, if not worn on the body.

I found a moment just before leaving to make my presentation.

"Susan, for reasons that explanations won't satisfy, I want you to wear this under your tee shirts as you work this summer.  Never take them off except to shower.  They'll keep you safe.  Return them to me with a far deeper meaning when you return."

It worked.  Susan was one of the young white SNCC workers who struggled alongside African Americans struggling for equality -- along with those who lost their lives at the hands of the KKK that summer.   Susan experienced at least one near-miss street corner bombing as I remember, but lived to return when that work was over and returned my pearls, deeply imbued with new meaning.  I've not seen her since that time, and often wondered where fate led her after that fateful summer.

While Susan was gone, I wrote a song based upon letters she'd written home, and that her family shared with us.  I performed it all summer, and eventually recorded it.  Its title:  "Voters registration song".   (You can probably enter the title into the search bar and bring up those lyrics.)

Now the little string of pearls belongs to Alyana, complete with its story.

... I wasn't really certain that I could part with it ... but in the end ... it seemed important as a part of my immortality -- the only kind I truly believe in.


... but the most important lesson of Freedom Summer 1964 was the realization that -- though the Sanfords (Susan and Don) were Scottish (I believe) -- and that I,  a polyglot of races, identifying as African American, we were truly bonded by the iron but delicate wires of moral principle, and would have lived that summer no differently than we did regardless of racial identification.  We could have been Swedish or Polynesian or Sicilian Italian; it would have made little difference.  I've not seen them since that time, but we are forever bound by that history in common.  I don't recall ever being in their home except for that one fateful spring evening.

In our Unitarian-Universalist congregation of that time, we'd somehow managed to transcend all that, and that fact is probably at the root of my survival through decades of social tumult and upheaval.  I'm not certain that we were all aware of what we'd accomplished over time, but my own journey has traceable roots and the clarification and direction so crucial to my personal survival started that summer and has been on a continuous journey toward full equality since that time.

Beautiful day, beautiful site ... !

Parchester Village resident and local environmentalist Whitney Dotson, (moi on mike), Mayor Gayle McLaughlin, and Contra Costa County Supervisor John Gioia participating in the ribbon-cutting grand re-opening of scenic Point Molate on the long-neglected northern shoreline of Richmond.

It was a glorious day that was almost windless -- and the city showing off its seemingly endless natural shoreline for all to appreciate.

Many who attended had worked tirelessly toward this day, and the smiles were expansive and frequent.

I'd been invited to "say a few words" along with others, and -- since I'd not been completely faithful to the dream of discouraging development as the really dedicated local environmentalists may have wished -- I'd not known in advance just what those "few words" would consist of.


Only when handed the mike did I have any idea what would spill out -- but in those few seconds I opted to use the limited time to promote my personal vision of a national park that may exist only in my mind; a national park that -- though owning no lands or structures -- will serve to loosely connect the related sites that define the existence of Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park much as the string from which precious jewels are suspended.  In my vision, MY Rosie the Riveter Park will extend from the emerging new industrial campus of the Lawrence Laboratories that will soon rise on the old University of California Field Station land on the south end of the city's 32 mile shoreline to this, historic Point Molate, with its picturesque old castle-like Winehaven winery; the WWII Naval Re-fueling station with its still-standing long abandoned buildings that carry 70 year-old "Air Raid Shelter" signs, still, on their siding.

My 2-3 minute speech was shamelessly aimed at attempting to stir the imaginations of other dreamers in that outdoor audience, and to stretch the vision beyond current limits.

I heard myself say, "I expect that someday this national park will rival Golden Gate Park in San Francisco, or, Central Park in New York."  It is a grand experiment in urban national parks, and, in my wilder moments -- that's precisely as I anticipate it's development.

Now all I need to do is convince my superintendent, Tom Leatherman, that I haven't lost my mind!

... but maybe such grand ideas will shake loose some of the recalcitrant small thinking that is so evident in those council chambers every week.

We'll see ... .

March in support of the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act

Insight ... .

Every now and then I sense a breakthrough and that I'm on a different plane of thought somehow ... and this weekend was another of those rare times.

Though our park has experienced a rising though inconsistent flurry of visitation by people of color, it still has not "caught on" with the local black community.  Not really.  Those who happen in for whatever reasons, leave touched and grateful for the work that we're doing here, but -- for the most part -- our penetration in the community is pretty shallow.  I have to keep reminding myself that - if the population of Richmond was only 23,000 in 1941, this city is 20 years younger than I am!  That figure rose during the war to 130,000 and is only 105,000 today.  That's a lot of strangers coming together to merge lives under tumultuous circumstances.  It's still a community sorting itself out and finding its identity.

I find myself watching the current stormy and often outrageous city council sessions on the public access channel, hoping for some indication that there is a growing consciousness of the National Park System's presence in the community, and of an indication that we're making a difference.  I know that we are, despite the absence of any mention week after week, but it's hard to see through the wild encounters that occur each week.

Then came that flash of insight over the past few days ...

Why on earth would anyone of color want to remember those years of continuing and persistent painful rejection of the African American Home Front experience?  I certainly didn't clamor to find my place in that narrative.  It found me, but only after a dogged determination on my part to connect with it.

That the National Park Service came to town to unearth that heroic history of Rosie the Riveter, "women's emancipation into the non-traditional work force;" the "Henry J. Kaiser, the Bunyan-esque shipbuilder industrialist" saga; and the genesis of groundbreaking social progress made at the time -- it's bereft of stories of the involvement of blacks except in a negative context.  Why on earth would anyone want to be reminded of those struggles that would last for at least two more decades? And then, only after many lives would be sacrificed in the struggle for equality.

I suspect that this work has only barely begun, and that other stronger black voices will be needed before the gains made can be incorporated into our continuing strides toward full equality.  Recognizing the advances made through our work-- supported by the mission of the National Park Service -- may be the most we can achieve.  By so doing we may continue to serve as a model for the rest of the nation that still lags behind in the social progress set in motion here over 70 years ago, and that still radiates out into the rest of the country from the Greater Bay Area.

Maybe that's what I need to hold in mind in order to continue the work without suffering disillusionment and burnout.

Every now and then I see a light go on behind the eyes of some young African American in the audience, and feel the warm glow of success.

... Just need to continue to look for that, I guess.

What on earth is there about Minstrel Shows these days ...

... and why are they hounding me so?

But my adventure as guest speaker at the Blackhawk Guild's monthly meeting in Danville turned out incredibly well, with enough goodwill to spare.  In fact, I'd say that some line was crossed yesterday that probably de-toxified the entire matter of Minstrel shows for all time

Maybe this is what young rappers are saying; something that I've failed to hear, about their ability to move past the "N" word by owning it and by using it deliberately thereby stripping it of its power.  We elders continue to be so traumatized by it and continue to cringe each time it gets used in our presence -- even when that use is couched in some arts or cultural context.

It happened to me yesterday at the Blackhawk Auto Museum -- a most magnificent edifice housing the collection of the most luxurious automobiles on the planet!  What a dream it was just to be there under that dramatic lighting -- with so few descriptive words to draw from that could possibly express the splendor of the Museum or the two floors of glamorous million dollar vehicles that had been once owned by Hollywood celebrities and other Titans of the World in their opulent lives of Eras past.

I'd been invited by the Museum Guild to make a presentation before their membership in a

monthly meeting.  Never having visited this wondrous place, this venture into the world of privilege  turned out to be beyond my wildest dreams.

The audience was beyond respectful, but was really warmly welcoming to both my granddaughter, Rosie, and her Ranger grandmother, and at the conclusion of my talk stood on their feet in an enthusiastic standing ovation!

The highlight of the day, and the greatest triumph, however, was not that moment, but a bit earlier when I stood beside the legendary stage and screen star, Al Jolson's, grand convertible to have a photo taken (Aha!  The Minstrel!).   I found a gaggle of giggles rising in my throat that threatened to take over my entire body in a grand guffaw that would surely have embarrassed Rosie!  But the setting; the event; my role in it; the historic WWII period that my talk deals with, and that comes so alive in the present -- all combined to suddenly illustrate how hopelessly ridiculous it all is!

I am by now so far past any semblance of that negative history that it has lost its power to inflict pain.

The irony in considering how a white man (a Jew in this instance) could be catapulted into such stardom by blackening himself to parody a person of color -- a creature who at that time was barely considered human -- and to do it so successfully that he would be able to live such  a  life of luxury speaks to something I'll never hope to fully understand.  I can still hear him singing, "Mam-my, how I luvya, how I luvya, my dear old Mammy," and I now remember that the child I was at that time liked his act!" 

Like most of the public, my family, too, enjoyed Al Jolson, at a time when childhood innocence made me oblivious to any darker meanings of his performances.  But then I can remember my family gathering around the radio to listen and laugh at the antics of Amos 'n Andy, Lightnin' and 'da' Kingfish (Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll, two white men in black face), not ever considering that these characters were being seen by the nation as representing all black people, and that  life and death national policy was being made based on those images of our being sneaky, lazy, untrustworthy, and -- most of all -- hopelessly stupid.   In my world colored people were laughing and enjoying them, too, but as comic characters in a play.  In the old radio show, The Goldbergs, Molly surely was beloved by everyone without anyone assuming that she was the Jewish community personified.  In another generation and at a somewhat higher level of culture, artists like Elvis Presley and Mick Jagger et al would just skip the burnt cork and continue to expropriate black culture in their successful bids for fame and fortune.


... but I really suspect that, yesterday, the ambiance, the obvious positive energy expressed by really good people who were open to my words -- expelled whatever doubts that may have existed in that grand space.

Love wins another one, as unlikely as that may seem ... .

I'm looking forward to the Guild's visit to my world, in late spring.   

It's not easy bein'  green (with envy, that is) ... .


I've been wondering just why Phyllis Gould -- whose persistence with successive presidential administrations over many years sent her pleas for recognition to the White Houses of Presidents Bill Clinton (twice), and George Bush (twice), but in the Obama years, only through the highest ranking white person in the administration, Vice-President Joe Biden?  Is it really possible to "dis" the Leader of the Free World and have it go unnoticed?  Apparently so.  I suspect racism rising from the entitlement that goes with white privilege, but it was just a fleeting glance of an idea -- and I suspect it rose from envy.  But why Joe Biden and not the President whose grandmother had served as a "Rosie" at Douglas Aircraft during WWII?  What other explanation could there possibly be?

Then I remembered that I'd written a post on April 23, 2004, when invited to Washington as a member of the delegation seeking congressional support for our park.  Our superintendent was Judy Hart at the time, and I was acting as a consultant to the park under development.  We were to testify before Congress, I believe, and I was to be the guest of Rep. George Miller.  It would have been my chance to visit the White House, right?

Has there ever been a more awkward embrace?

I refused to participate explaining that I did not accept George Bush as my president, and therefore would not attend.   It was shortly after the Supremes selected him to be our president after the debacle of the Florida challenges. Of course, it wasn't racism, but was it any more justified than the suspicions I'm laying on Phyllis?  Could it be simply that I was uncomfortable with there being only white women in this delegation, and no women of color -- for whatever reason?  The National Park Service would surely have preferred this were not so, but it was a private adventure, so there was no choice in who those representatives would be.  But this delegation surely was an accurate representation of life as it was lived in the WWII era.  Being historically correct is painful, even when that is not what was intended. These things are really complex, and often tainted by hidden factors.

It may be enlightening to check the archives for that post of 2004 (see the archives for post of April 23rd).

I don't know the answer, but the fact that I've made such a big thing of rejecting the label of "Rosie the Riveter," declaring that this was a white woman's story and not mine, may be a contributing element in this twisted tale.  I would have only agreed to go as a ranger, and even now -- would surely not have attended as a Rosie had I been invited.

There, I've said it.   Feels better to not have to carry such feelings around in coming weeks.  I like these women, and am genuinely happy for their good fortune.  It must have been a glorious week for them!


And -- tomorrow two huge Semi's will arrive from the East Coast.  They'll pull up to unload the permanent exhibits -- and we'll be opening another chapter in the development of Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park.

The Blues, the Envy, Climate Change and Rising Sea Levels will all be forgotten as we embark on the next round of park development!

I can hardly wait!

 
  

The Rosies took the White House by storm ... and I'm envious as hell!

You've all read about the five Rosie the Riveters who (through the hard work of Phyllis Gould, one of the group) had wrangled an invitation to the White House through Vice President Joe Biden.  It turned out to be a once in a lifetime grand adventure for 5 deserving elders who served their country well by answering the call when needed in the wartime workforce during WWII.

Phyllis is one of the Rosies who are still serving as volunteers at our Visitors Education Center in Richmond.  They're on site from ten until two o'clock every Friday to interact with the public and share their history as the first women hired into non-traditional roles during WWII.  She has been working on getting invited to the White House and national recognition since the Clinton Administration -- through two Bush terms -- and now into the present.  Vice President Biden finally responded positively, but the invitation didn't cover travel expenses so several agencies stepped up to sponsor their adventure, including Virgin Airlines who booked only female pilots to fly them -- first class -- to Washington where they enjoyed a week of festivities!

And, folks, I do truly appreciate your concern that I was not included in what was a private party, but I've had more than my share of notoriety over past years, which included an invitation to witness the Inauguration of President Barack Obama, and though I've had my recent moments of envy -- I'm not the only crayon in the box, and this one was not meant for me.

I'm taking comfort in the fact that so many of you were outraged at what they believed to have been an oversight of the White House.  Not so.  

Congratulations to Phyllis on her persistence in finally gaining the recognition she's been seeking for so many years!

Feeling depressed -- and far beyond the ordinary late winter blue periods that have dogged the dark days all my life ... .

This one seems different somehow ... deeper and less focussed ... .

It started one dead of night when I woke suddenly in a sweat -- though the room was cold.  Maybe it was related to something from the National Public Radio program that penetrated my consciousness as I slept.  I'd fallen asleep in the middle of listening ... but the words had risen from some place within me.  It was not something I'd heard someone say.  I knew that.  It was a primary original truth.

The words are still ringing in my brain, "... I will not believe that the world is serious about climate change and rising sea levels until some agency has published the carbon footprint of War.  That was it.

Those few words thundered with authenticity in my brain.  They stayed with me all day, and all the days since. 

At one point -- in an attempt at ridding myself of the hopelessness they've triggered -- I posted the sentence on Facebook.  Then to Twitter.

... and still they echo through all else.

Peace, be still ...

This post will require some experimenting ...

You'll need to go into the little white search bar (left side, above the banner and my photo) and enter the words, Minstrel Show.  That will bring up a post of January 1, 2004 that shows a picture of my son, Rick, in his early years.


To show that this history is still being lived and that revelations still crop up from time to time, this is noteworthy.

Only last week -- after my talk in the theater -- a young University of California graduate student lingered behind as the audience was leaving.  She asked if she could have a few minutes with me during which she mentioned that she was working on the dissertation for her doctorate -- the subject of which is Minstrel Shows of the Fifties.  That was enough to cause me to invite her into our staff break room for a brief conversation.

It was then that I learned, for the first time, that my experience was but one instance in what had been a program being distributed at the time by a national company that specialized in producing kits (costumes, scripts, instruction manuals) to schools all over the country for Parent Teacher Associations (PTAs) to use as fundraisers. 

She told me that in her research she'd found a number of letters from African American parents who were deeply offended and were attempting to get the NAACP to provide some defense against a practice that was fanning the flames of racism, and doing grave harm to their children.

After having run across this 5 year-old account on my blog during her research, she told me that mine was the only example she'd found of someone facing -- head on -- this horribly destructive program.

Until that very moment I'd assumed that the nightmare was a purely local phenomenon -- my hostile neighbors  expressing their abject ignorance.

Would I have faced into that storm had I known that this was a Goliath, a local version of an evil national industry so much larger than could be seen at the time?  Was I protected by my innocence so that it wasn't the courageous act she may have believed it to have been?  I truly don't know ... . 

She's agreed to bring a copy of her dissertation when completed.  It should shed light on a shameful though fascinating period in our history -- in this seemingly never-ending struggle toward full equality.

... and why the tears?  It was so long ago, and surely I've now grown far beyond their reach ... .

Then so has Rick, though it's only because he died far too young in a thinly-veiled suicide after a self-destructive life probably contributed to by those early years of sadness and rejection, as have so many of our children. 

Betty goes international!

Received a package several days ago from Japan, which stirred much interest among staff -- and some amusement by at least one staff member -- me!

It's written in Japanese and was sent by a young professor who visited our park about two years ago when she was on a tour of "Small Museums on the West Coast of California."  I do remember her well.  She was present when I gave my talk in our little theater.  This charming young author and her husband were traveling together, and quite obviously shared her interest in the subject they were gathering information for.

The 5-page article is about Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park, and includes several photographs (one of the Rosie Memorial, another of the Visitors Center, and this one of Ranger Betty.

Haven't the foggiest notion of the content since this "reading-from-back-to-front" book as is done in the Far East --  and written in Japanese -- it is beyond comprehension for this ranger -- but tomorrow I'll hand it off to Flora Ninomiyo who will surely be able to get the article translated for me through one of our mutual friends in the Japanese Americans Citizen's League (JACL) and the suspense will have ended.

Meanwhile ... . 

Lost in the crowd ... a strange turn in a still-evolving historical record ...

Traveled to Monterey on an assignment as a presenter at the National Conference of Public Historians, with mixed feelings.

Firstly, I'm surely not an historian, but simply a survivor of the era of 1941-1945 memorialized by the Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park -- a primary source sharing personal history.  That's an odd role to fill since audiences have no idea what to expect of me -- and I have no idea about the "Rules of Engagement," and that makes a considerable difference. 

There were probably 1000 conferees, all in meeting rooms scattered throughout the Monterey Convention Center, and all "of a world" that is alien to me, but reminiscent of the years of my marriage to Bill Soskin.  I don't think that I ever made my peace with the world of the Academy, so there was some dissonance present in the mix.

The day before leaving for Monterey I'd received an answer to a mystery that I've been living with for some years, and it colored my experience considerably.

If you'll check that little search bar at the top left side of the screen above the banner, enter the words Port Chicago, and you'll bring up (among other posts) this photo of a burial ceremony which shows 8 caskets with mourners standing around looking appropriately grim.  I'd never understood why those caskets weren't flag-draped as all such rites would demand in Armed Forces burials.  I've made a real poser of the question, and was frustrated over several years when no answers were ever forthcoming.  I'd (wrongly) assumed that this may have been ultimate proof that those "mutineers" could not have ever had a fair trial since the Navy did not accord them the honor even in death.  I'd suspected that they were buried as dockworkers, and not as Navy men at all.  The social climate of the times in which we were living supported such speculations.

Last week there came in the mails from my friend, Careth Bomar Reid, and the owner of the E.F. Joseph photo collection, a packet containing several photos -- among them a copy of the (long assumed) Port Chicago burial rites, but the packet was dated January 21, 1944, 7 months before the tragic explosion at Port Chicago and the 320 lost lives.   The Port Chicago explosion occurred at 10:47 pm on the evening of July 17, of that same year. There were no flags on these caskets because the graveside ceremony was not Armed Forces, but civilian!  Those caskets held the remains of 8 African Americans who'd met death in some awful industrial accident in Kaiser Shipyard #3, or, perhaps in some kind of racial unrest ...

The mystery has deepened.

How do we know those remains were from blacks?  Because the identifying marks are that the floral wreathes have inscribed across them, "Kaiser Permanente Shipyard 3," and, "Boilermakers A-36" -- the name of the African American segregated Jim Crow Labor Union that had been my employer in those days.  The Union officials pictured were those for whom I'd worked in 1942-43.

Also, the Port Chicago remains were gathered into 22 caskets and buried as Unknowns in the Colored Section of the federal cemetery at San Bruno, according to recorded history of the times.  I'd always assumed that the 8 showing were only a portion of that larger number which were off-scene.

This is a second tragedy, long forgotten among the untold stories of WWII.

I'm attempting to re-connect with an AFL-CIO Union archivist and historian with whom I've exchanged information in the past, in the hope of learning more.

More to come ...

What's in a name?  

Everything, I suppose, though I had no idea that the question held any meaning for me.  It does.

Having been christened under my centuries-old surname of Charbonnet, I'd married Melvin Reid in 1942 and became Betty Reid.  After having been married to Mel for over 35 years, we divorced and I met and married  Dr. William F. Soskin (actually changed from Sosinski when Bill entered the University of Michigan at the insistence of two older sisters who had done so earlier).

Since I'd spent at least two decades as Betty Reid while living in the world of Northern California Suburbia, I was clearly identified in that world under Mel's last name.

When we divorced and (having reared our 4 children to adulthood by now) I returned to Berkeley to take up life as a faculty wife in a totally new social setting where I was now known as Bill Soskin's, Betty Soskin.  I insisted upon carrying both my married names during our 10-year marriage due to the fact that my kids were all Reids, and in order to remain connected to my family it felt important.

I'd by this time developed two separate identities, one as the wife of a well-known African American business man; who was a stay-at-home suburban mother while also a political activist with significant "street cred" under her belt, and a growing reputation as a poet/singer; and now the new identity as a faculty wife of a brilliant professor who was doing groundbreaking research for the University of California at Berkeley.  Few in the university years had any knowledge of the former Betty Reid who had been unceremoniously left in the (all-white) suburbs behind the East Bay hills.

Together, Bill and I served on boards and commissions, hosted faculty parties,  conducted workshops associated with his work; traveled to far away places where I tested my new identity on the world, but always in the support and the shadow of an eminent man.

But both these men died in 1987 within a 3-month period, and, since I'd allowed myself to be defined in relation to each, in turn, for several months I wasn't sure just who I was now that they were gone.

For a number of years I'd tried on the role of Merchant when Mel's health failed and I returned to run the business.  Bill had introduced me to an upscale international world but had left no models for me to step into easily.  Besides, I'd found the highly-competitive world of Academia disappointing, and had no wish to remain within it.  I then re-entered the African American world as a black activist/merchant and political organizer with much pain but some successes made possible by the years spent in Bill's world and the resulting rise in my level of sophistication and with contacts forged that would enable these new adventures.  I'd become by now a seasoned political activist with many more choices and a growing sense of how to use them.

with Chief of Interpretation Kelly English and Superintendent Tom Leatherman

For years now I suppose that I've been attempting to forge those identities into some kind of wholeness and with a certain amount of success.  I've taken back the poet/singer, at least long enough to satisfy those memories, and -- every now and then someone from my campus life happens by and I'm reminded of what seems now to have been only a borrowed life; my sons and daughter continue to define my "real" personhood.


Now I'm about to be cast in bronze, and there arises in me a wish to return to my original self -- the girl who bore the name Charbonnet but lost it to custom.  My parents gave birth to 3 daughters, of whom I'm the only survivor. There were no sons to carry the name into the future.  With me our historic name dies.  A name that traces back to the 14th century in Europe and in this country to about 1768.  My two men both died decades ago, leaving me to fend for myself in an often unsympathetic world, but also returning the me of me to myself to do with as I wish, right?


The Betty Charbonnet who survived into the present has lived to an undreamed of period of fulfillment.  I find myself wishing that I'd had the foresight to have given my surname as a middle name to each of my children at birth.

I know that Betty didn't get lost along the way after all, but has lived a life of meaning and is continuing to do so.

... but I'm not sure that -- when the National Park Service granted me permanent status that this is precisely what they had in mind!   

The days now, are filled to overflowing ... 

... and last Saturday's schedule is the case in point.

Started out being picked up by a driver to travel to Moraga, about a 40-minute drive from Richmond, to the Soda Center on the St. Marys College campus to keynote their International Women's Day celebration which would last all day.  My talk was to take up the first hour, and I would show our Home Front Heroes short video followed by my talk -- ending with a Q&A -- much as it happens every Tuesday and Saturday afternoons in our Visitors Center.

Met some wonderful students and instructors, and -- as I was leaving -- Oscar Grant's mother and uncle were walking across the courtyard, ready to take over the lectern.  I'd seen them both numerous times on news shows, but had never met them before (Oscar Grant being the young black teenager killed by the BART policeman about 5 years ago).  They were both warm and gracious beings, and I'd love to have remained to hear their presentation.

However, I was on my way to the car to be driven back to the Visitors Education Center to prepare for the usual two o'clock presentation in the theater, but today would be special since both before and after my talk the full-length film Rosie the Riveter was being shown with the filmmaker and editor in the house for a discussion immediately following.  Again. I felt like an interruption in the proceedings, and would love to have stayed to hear them.

But, alas, at the end of my event I was scheduled to immediately leave for the drive up to Napa to the studio of noted sculptor, Mario Chiodo, who is working on the preliminary concept for a major work that will become the signature of Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park.

At this point it is in draft form -- meaning multiple clay figures, "sketches," that are probably merely placeholders for the final work, but even at this point it is truly exciting to see.

The artist, Chiodo, created the massive 30' bronze tribute to the "Champions of Humanity," called "Remember Them" that was installed at 19th Street and Telegraph Avenue in downtown Oakland in the recent past.  He is one of the most charismatic human beings I've ever encountered.  Mario truly lights up any room he steps into, and Saturday was no exception.  It was a kind of reception that we'd been invited to where he introduced  his supporters, funders, and interested patrons of the arts, to this new work.

Upon completion it will tell the story of the Great Mobilization as a part of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Arsenal of Democracy --- that occurred in Richmond -- through many life-sized anonymous bronze figures in various groupings combined with cascading water-walls and mistings, meandering paths between clusters of those extraordinary ordinary people who made history.  It will be magnificent with dramatic night-lighting that will greet those who drive to the end of Harbour Way or arrive by Ferry from the across the Bay from landings north and south of Richmond.

Why was I invited to this glitzy groundbreaking reception?  Well you might ask ...

Among those anonymous bronze figures will be one Betty Charbonnet (Reid Soskin) at age 20 from a photograph taken on April 12, 1942, in a florist's shop in Oakland as she was choosing flowers for her wedding that would take place on May 24, 1942.  She would enter that work force in Richmond as a clerk in the segregated, Blacks-only, Boilermaker's Auxiliary-36 in the fall of that year.

(It seems important to add that the Grand Opening of the park is planned for May 24, 2014, exactly 72 years since my wedding day.}

Can you imagine ... ?

Note:  For those interested, my dress is cotton (lace-trimmed organdy) while my Matron of Honor, my older sister Marjorie's dress is crisp cotton piqué, as is the lovely little flower girl's gown.   Marjorie designed and made all of our dresses.  Never felt more beautiful!

As a footnote:  We Charbonnets do have this thing about timing ... beautiful Marjorie died after a long illness on the morning of the day that President Kennedy was assassinated.  Her death got lost in the numbing confusion that followed.  I've never felt that she was properly mourned. Maybe I'll find a way to do that one day ... it saddens me, still.

 

So-oo-o beautiful!

Ceanothus (California Lilac) is blooming profusely along Hilltop Drive this morning.  After a much- needed early light rain shower and the resulting heavy scent of Spring in the air, I couldn't resist the urge to do an encore drive up the 2-block display before picking Dorian up at the BART station in El Cerrito.  Such splendor doth Nature bring!

I so look forward to the spring blooming of wildflowers along the medians throughout much of the city each year.  Poppies, daffodils, golden wild mustard, lupin, baby blues eyes, buttercups, and those that I cannot name but that are so reminiscent of my childhood, and coming upon an occasional pure rare white trillium in some shaded bower in the Oakland hills of my youth.

Yesterday was another special day among special days that have become more numerous in these late years than ever before.  Maybe it only seems that way now that time is so precious ... .  maybe.

At the Visitors Center we launched Women's History Month with a visit from Ms. Elinor Otto, the celebrated 94 year-old still-working riveter from Douglas Aircraft in Southern California. 

By way of giving a sense of how far we've come, Elinor started out at 65 cents/hr in the WWII workforce and is now receiving $42/hr while working as the only woman with an all-male crew! Elinor still rises at four o'clock each morning to prepare for her five o'clock shift.

I'm a modest 5'3" weighing in at 118 pounds, but stand significantly taller than this tiny Rosie who
is less than 5' tall and weighs under 100 pounds.  Amazing!  Together, we total about 186 years and 218 pounds!  I think that we will have left an impact upon our times that far outweighs our physicality (says moi, immodestly).

The most touching moment in the day occurred while standing together at the Rosie Memorial with the beautiful floral wreath -- while the bugler played Taps in memory of the Rosies who are no longer with us ...

... maybe the encore drive along the brilliant royal blue ceanothus today was an attempt at re-capturing the poignancy of that moment -- holding those feelings just a bit longer ... .

May our sisters of the Great Arsenal of Democracy rest in peace.  
   

Let Freedom Ring!

This photo was taken at one of my favorite places in the City of Richmond; the Greenway -- the meandering park created by the community to follow the route of the railroad tracks that form one of the boundaries of the Iron Triangle -- a neighborhood under renewal led by a coalition of community groups which includes Urban Tilth, the Richmond Community Foundation and the National Park Service.  The railroad tracks were removed long ago, leaving an elongated space suitable for development into public gardens and orchards open to anyone wanting to participate.   By agreement with businesses and industrial properties that lie along this several-miles-long "park", the fences, backs of buildings, now bear dynamic, colorful, imaginative murals that feed the soul and nourish those who plant, cultivate, and reap the harvest of gardens planted and maintained by the community throughout the year. 

Among the youth contingent, led by NPS Ranger, Matt Holmes, are local high school students working alongside and sharing life with the elders of the community while working the soil, designing and painting the murals, adorning the trashcans, irrigating the gardens, and planting the trees.

... another sign of the renewal of the life process through the spirit of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., whose dedication to the concept of love has been remembered well enough to have carried us through these early decades of the 21st Century.

Richmond is well into its renaissance!

This photo was taken during this year's Day of Service, observed in memory of Dr. King.  

If David inherited his father's talent for promoting events and a dedication to hard work ... 

our eldest son, Bob's, legacy appears to have been the artist's side of his mother's.  His passion for expressing himself through music and teaching have been with him since childhood.  Fortunately, he has been able to pursue his love of the arts throughout life by a dogged determination to define life on his own terms, and along the way was able to meet and work with his idol, Pete Seeger, who modeled that same lifestyle magnificently.  Bob had the opportunity to participate in the Clearwater Hudson River Cruises on several occasions.  To have known the Seegers over the years on numerous visits, provided  a grounding in his youth that probably could not have happened any other way, and helped to shape the wonderful way he moves in the world. 



Pete's life will be memorialized by a Bob Reid solo concert at the Kuumbwa Jazz  Center in Santa Cruz, 320-2 Cedar Street, and I wouldn't miss it for the world.


My sons have grown up to be men whom I greatly admire.  In these later years each has grown to be friends I cannot imagine not having had in my life.


If you're not busy, let's meet in Santa Cruz and pay homage to the universally-loved Pete Seeger with his greatest fan, my Bob.

Sunday, March 9th, at Kuumbwa Jazz Center,  at three (doors open at 2:30). $10 in advance, http://brownpapertickets.com/events

This article appeared in the East Bay Express in 1988 ...

It provides some background to the history of Reids Records.

You'll need to double click on it to enlarge print, or use the Zoom feature from the menu.  

Some years ago our youngest son, David, stepped up and assumed ownership of the dream that his Dad and I worked so hard to sustain against overwhelming odds ...

Mel lived until 1987, and passed on after a valiant battle with diabetes, but in sequence, I, then David continued the little business into the present after some unbelievable hardships at times.  David has doggedly pursued the brass ring through years of child-rearing as a single parent of four children while refusing to give in to changes in the economics of the day; the flight of our customer base caused by gentrification of South Berkeley; and a radically changing marketplace.  It's been touch-and-go for decades, and I'd love to free him from the need to carry on, but I think any attempt at shutting the shop down at this point would be futile.


I'm caught between seeing the challenge as hopeless and the continuing hope that those years of relative financial success that allowed Mel and me to build that dream home in the suburbs in which to raise him and his siblings for many years can be repeated in his time.  I find myself wishing to free him to pursue some other avenue to personal success.

After watching this video below created by filmmaker Pam Uzzell, and hearing the passion in his quiet voice, I suspect that the dream has taken firm root and will have to die of natural causes.  Whatever comes next may be determined by just how successfully he is able to make the dream his own.  His older brother, Bob, and I share great pride in his refusal to give in to short term setbacks and persistence in the face of some pretty tough sledding along the way.

What comes next will grow out of that passion which he surely comes by honestly.

Maybe it's our version of the American Dream -- albeit a modest one.

Fortunately, I've been able to hold onto personal ownership of the building which provides a foundation upon which to build.  How that property is used will be determined over the next few years by David's continuing effort to sustain the business through continued sacrifice and dedication to the preservation of Black culture.

Maybe that's the way it has always been, and the foundation upon which this nation was built.

The Dream that is America dies hard, and the Reids may be living proof of that.
 

Reid's Records