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

and I'm bummed out!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

What do you suppose happened to the euphoria of yesterday?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Photo by Toni Frissell - 1945

Meanwhile ... 

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

Just thinking about it knocks off decades!

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

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

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

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

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

... not to worry.

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

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

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

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

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

... and it's a serious problem.

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

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

It is this:

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

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

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

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

Lena Horne, Jimmy Lyons, Thelma Carpenter, Frank Sinatra 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But then, what were the alternatives?

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

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

one of the features of the interactive exhibits

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

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

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

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

Life is good.

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

 

Oldest National Park Ranger Shares "What Gets Remembered"

"As 92-year-old Betty Reid Soskin helped hash out plans for a new national park 13 years ago, this is what stuck in her mind: 'What gets remembered is a function of who's in the room doing the remembering.'"

You can read the article and then hear my recent interview on NPR here.

The 1944 tragic Dormitory O fire story has not yet been incorporated into my presentations ... 

... but it continues to fill my quiet moments.

I've been successful in getting the attention of someone who can move this forward and, hopefully, things will begin to happen soon and my mind can be turned to less troubling things.

Find myself wondering why only the Kaiser Permanente corporate heads and spouses, and those of the Boilermakers Union Auxiliary 36 are in the church for this burial service?  Where are the families?  But of course these were men new to the area, having migrated for defense work while their families were left behind to wait until they'd gotten themselves settled.  This is precisely why they were living in dorms.  But then -- given that everyone was furiously building ships on a 24-hour schedule -- it is hardly likely that there would have been a pause for funeral services for total strangers. 

Secretary Mahlon Roles of Boilermakers A-36 delivering eulogy

Such a lonely way to leave this life ...

Yet it is just such stories as this -- of other peoples from other lands over the centuries that formed
this nation, isn't it?  First the men followed by wives and children -- if things went well.

Is there a more American story than this?

I'm so hoping we can bring this story to closure by honoring all those lost over all the years -- men who helped to build our nation, and who gave their lives in the ultimate sacrifice, and in these years are only remembered by this long-lost photograph of 8 caskets.  

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 ...