It is
pretty common for me to be running late on these. Part of it this time is that
I decided to work on my Black history reading along with my troubled teen
reading, and so working on two different lists at once, along with anything
else that happened to come up, definitely slowed things down. It also worked.
I had
written before about thinking it was a good idea to intersperse comics with the
history readings, because sometimes reading about hard topics requires some
breaks. It did not work well then, because I had some pretty heavy comics in
the mix. Here, it is still a lot of heavy material, so the idea of a break does
not really work, but then the books go together in ways I might not expect, so
that works.
It is
messier, and part of that is that many things were unplanned, and changed, and
there ended up being more multimedia, still working together. So, perhaps I am
merely becoming more integrated, and everything is connected.
The first
book was Test Ride on the Sunnyland Bus: A Daughter's Civil Rights Journey,
by Ana Maria Spagna. I had read good reviews a while ago, but I had not
realized the author was white. This led to her feeling like an outsider at
times as she tried to reconstruct her father's experience, but it also allowed
her to see correlations between racism and homophobia, and to consider her own
experiences differently.
The most
important lesson was about the importance of recording memories and sharing
them. Some memories and accounts disagree. You can guess how those tie together
now, and some of the details may be unimportant, but having more written at the
time would have helped. Many of the participants downplayed the significance of
their actions. Maybe they did not realize it at the time, or they were uncomfortable
with treating their actions as important, but it matters to those who come
after.
Next I read
Mirror to America, by John Hope Franklin. Franklin was the quintessential history
teacher; I believe his text From Slavery to Freedom is still the standard
African American History work. At times, reading his autobiography is like
being in a lecture hall, with a sonorous voice that might lull you to sleep,
though it was not boring. There was a lot that was interesting on the history
of the time period, and how levels of acceptance varied, and even on academic
history, because he knew the writers of all of those other standard texts.
Mainly I
was touched by his warmth. He faced more than his fair share of mistreatment,
and his brother's fate is heartbreaking, but there was still such a gratitude
for the people who were in his life, and for the experiences he had. I ended up
with feelings for him similar to those I developed for Ralph Abernathy while
reading And The Walls Came Tumbling Down, though I did not end up
dreaming about the book.
I had
decided to start reading more poetry, so I checked out Selected Poems of
Langston Hughes. I was surprised that some of the poems I knew were not
included, and also at the recurring theme of "a dream deferred", which
comes up in poem after poem. That made more sense after the next book. Mainly I
felt like it gave me a peek into the Harlem of that time, with its rhythms and moods.
That next
book was Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from
the Civil War to World War II, by Douglas A Blackmon, and it was the most
devastating. I had to take breaks from it (show business autobiographies may be
the answer for that). It was information dense, written at a fairly high level,
and emotionally painful. It was like some of the Native American heritage
reading I have done, where you realize it wasn't just sending them away once,
but many times.
People have
the idea that the slaves were freed over the war, and that was plenty of time
to succeed, but it wasn't like that. The ridiculous laws designed to keep them
down not only made economic success next to impossible, but kept slavery alive
and a constant threat, just by another name.
I remember
one of the men who came to the soup kitchen in Fresno. He was usually very quiet, but
kind when he spoke. I was told by others that he had been a slave, and that he
had scars all over his back. I didn't understand how that was possible. Now it
makes more sense.
There was a
documentary by the same name that was well worth watching (and more
digestible), and a short making of film. One of the moments that struck me in
the short was the author being about to meet Green Cottenham. This was a figure
whose life he had used to tie the different pieces together, and yes, it was
just that they had cast an actor, but it gave this feeling of immediacy and
connection to "find" him.
There was
also a lot of emotion in the interviews with descendants of the re-enslaved and
of their abusers. It would have been a hard thing for some of them to face some
really ugly things in their family histories. These people did evil things, but
they still had families that they treated well, and who loved them and were
proud of them, without knowing everything. There is a lot to think about there,
especially about the things we do and believe now.
I was
planning on reading Before the Mayflower by Lerone Bennett Jr., and I
found that I was not up for it. I do still plan to read it, but I was worn
down, and I felt that with its length and some possible concerns about
Bennett's style, I could not manage it now. There was still so much else,
though, because everything related.
With For
colored girls who have considered suicide/When the rainbow is enuf, by
Ntozake Shange, I am not even sure whether that was more for feminism, and for
my troubled teens, or for the African-American experience. It might even be
poetry, a little bit. It transcends.
I had not
specifically planned to watch a three-part series from The American
Experience: The Abolitionists, but I did, and it was valuable. One of the
people they covered was John Brown, and I have always been torn on him, because
of the killing. I am still not sure he did right, but I see so much more
clearly why he would do it.
The Independent Lens series gave me things about Wonder Woman and Native Americans, but also it gave me The House I Live In which goes well with Slavery By Another Name and with The New Jim Crow, and which becomes more disturbing in light of stories like these:
This goes beyond
history, but history is how we got here.
Also, you
just learn about people. For example, we read one book by Michael Oher and one
book by the Tuohy's as add-ons to The Blind Side, and both of them
pointed out some of the same things that were wrong in the movie. You expect
some of that in a movie, but it was interesting how important it was to them to
have certain things understood. That also happened with John Hope Franklin.
Maybe it is more important to know that the press misrepresented a Clinton
program, or that a different administration tried to use Franklin to cover a
faux pas, than it is to know that Oher did not need tutoring on football, but
it is important to people to be heard. Everyone wants to feel understood.
History is
humanity. There's a lot of ugliness there, and I deliberately delve into it,
but I know it's important. I guess ultimately I believe that it will make me
better, and help me to help others make things better. I always find beauty
too.
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