Year: 2016

A Writer with Writers: Connecting the Roots of Activism from New York to Baltimore

Posted on by Maryland Humanities

by Karsonya “Kaye” Wise Whitehead, Ph.D.

The goal of the A Writer with Writers blog series is to interview interesting and engaging authors and explore the ways in which they use their pen and paper to think about some of the issues with which our country is struggling. My questions range from defining democracy to defining liberation; from analyzing the strength of community organizing to finding ways to bend our privilege to make substantive changes; from understanding the legacy of the Civil Rights Movement to measuring the ongoing impact of the Black Lives Matter social movement.

This month, in celebration of National Hispanic Heritage Month and in an effort to continue our conversations about protest and community engagement, I sat down with Dr. Darrel Wanzer-Serrano to talk about his latest book, The New York Young Lords and the Struggle for Liberation.

Kaye Whitehead: Your book seems to have some good parallels to Baltimore’s current uprising. How do you see your book connecting to our city?

Darrel Wanzer-Serrano: I think that one of the great lessons of the Young Lords (and they are, by no means, the only group of the era to offer this lesson) is to never underestimate the ability of a group of young people to change things. Young folks are at the cutting edge of new communication practices and technologies, they’re at the forefront of new ideas operating on the ground, and they have their pulse on the communities in which they reside. Another connection is something I write about most explicitly in the intro and conclusion: community control. As in Baltimore today and in other eras, the Young Lords demanded that communities have some level of control over institutions and land, that the people must have a say in the decisions that impact their daily lives. Finally, I think there’s something to the connections between racism, sexism, and capitalism that the Young Lords so aptly diagnosed in their time—something that can be helpful in explaining the conditions that gave rise to the recent Baltimore Rebellion.

KW: Who are some of your greatest writing influences?

DWS: Most, but not all, of my influences come from the other scholars that I read, and that list is constantly shifting. I love the way that my grad school mentor, John Louis Lucaites, writes his endnotes. I’m drawn to the complexity of folks like Chela Sandoval, whose Methodology of the Oppressed is a marvel of decolonial[1] feminist scholarship. I’m drawn to the imaginative interplay between content and form in the work of Gloria Anzaldúa and other decolonial feminist scholars and artists.

KW: What does being a writer mean to you?

DWS: To me, being a writer means that I am enacting a set of commitments to social responsibility with/to various real and imagined audiences. Writing emerges from my own embodiment and geo-political locatedness, which is something that I feel compelled to recognize explicitly in my written work. Being a writer who is a critical rhetorician, I see my task as fundamentally persuasive in the sense that I’m trying to get my readers to understand some aspect(s) of the world differently than they had before.

KW: Are there any subjects that you find it difficult to write about? Why?

DWS: I’ve been having a hard time writing about how to challenge racism(s). (Don’t get me wrong—I think writing about the histories of racism and anti-racist struggle, as complicated and complex as they might be, is relatively straightforward.) When I think about how to get my predominantly white, Midwestern students to commit to anti-racist struggle, I am more prone to draw blanks. This isn’t a writing problem, per se; rather, it’s more of a conceptual problem of how to efficiently and comprehensively (a paradox, to be sure) make the case to young white people who lack a vocabulary for talking about race and racism in public.

KW: In honor of National Hispanic Heritage Month, what are some books that you would recommend that elucidate the Hispanic culture?

DWS: The first is the second edition of Juan Gonzalez’s Harvest of Empire. It’s probably my favorite history of the Latino/a experience in the US. Gonzalez (a former Young Lord) is a wonderful writer and does a marvelous job weaving together Latino/a historiography, primary sources, and oral histories to tell the complex story of how Latino/a people came to be. The second is Raquel Cepeda’s Bird of Paradise, which is a memoir that tells the tale of her troubled childhood and coming-to-be as her own self. She engages complex issues of Latino/a history and anti-blackness, along with her own journey of personal discovery as she traces her ancestral roots.

[1] Decolonial: relating to the act of getting rid of colonization, or freeing a country from being dependent on another country

 

About the Author: Darrel Wanzer-Serrano, Ph.D., is Associate Professor of Rhetoric and Public Advocacy in the Department of Communication Studies, and founding member of the Latino/a Studies Minor Advisory Board, at The University of Iowa. He is a critical rhetorical historian whose research is focused on the intersections of race, ethnicity, and public discourse, particularly as they relate to formations of coloniality and decoloniality in the United States and within Latino/a contexts. Follow Dr. Wanzer-Serrano on Twitter or Facebook.

About the Interviewer: Karsonya “Kaye” Wise Whitehead, Ph.D. is Associate Professor, Department of Communication at Loyola University Maryland and the Founding Executive Director at The Emilie Frances Davis Center for Education, Research, and Culture. She is creator of the #SayHerName Syllabus. Her new anthology, RaceBrave, was published in March 2016.

 

“O How I Want to Be in That Number!” A Visit to the National Museum of African American History and Culture

Posted on by Lou Williams
G.A.R. Post, Civil War Veterans, 1935, by Addison N. Scurlock, Silver gelatin on paper, Scurlock Studio Records, ca. 1905-1994, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Call No.: 0618.229581.
G.A.R. Post, Civil War Veterans, 1935, by Addison N. Scurlock, Silver gelatin on paper, Scurlock Studio Records, ca. 1905-1994, Archives Center, National Museum of American History, Call No.: 0618.229581.

In 1915 on the fiftieth anniversary of a parade of Union soldiers that marched down Pennsylvania Avenue at the end of the war, a group of Black Civil War veterans of the Grand Army of the Republic, a Civil War veterans’ organization, formed a “Committee of Colored Citizens.” Their cause was the collection of funds to accommodate Black veterans visiting Washington, DC for the anniversary. The Committee later took on a new cause – advocating for a “Negro Memorial” and a national museum.

One year later, U.S. Representative Leonidas C. Dyer, a Republican from Missouri, introduced HR 18721, a bill that called for a commission to “secure plans and designs for a monument or memorial to the memory of the negro soldiers and sailors who fought in the wars of our country.” Throughout the twentieth century, there were numerous attempts to establish a memorial to Black Americans in Washington, DC. It wasn’t until 2001, when President George W. Bush signed Public Law 107-106, forming a Presidential Commission to develop an implementation plan for the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), that the process got underway.

Black television, film, and music stars
Black television, film, and music stars

The NMAAHC opened the weekend of September 24 and I managed to score two timed-entry passes to one of the hottest events in DC (If you don’t believe me, take a look at how many timed-entry passes are for sale on Stub Hub). I was accompanied by my mother as we huddled on the lawn next to the beautiful museum building designed by David Adjaye. We desperately clutched our passes for 12:15pm as we moved with the huddled masses into the building. Once inside, we decided to start at the top of the museum and work our way down. The museum is meant to be viewed from the bottom-up, starting with the founding of our country and the enslaved labor it was built upon. As you move up through the museum, the narrative of the Black experience in America is fleshed out: Civil War, Reconstruction, the long Civil Rights Movement, and the election of the first Black president. But the museum does so much more than that. It is a celebration of all the contributions that Black people have made to America, whether it was in sports, medicine, food, music, or television.

While the museum and its vast collection is impressive by itself, the most lasting impression that I felt that day was left by the other visitors. Having visited and worked in museums, it was a unique experience to watch so many people be visibly moved by the museum. People reminiscing about the good ol’ days as they looked at television clips from Good Times or danced to the music of Stevie Wonder.  The hushed tones that hung over the room as people walked by the casket of Emmett Till or stared into the eyes of a Ku Klux Klan hood. This place is a pilgrimage site that I hope everyone gets an opportunity to visit.

Timed-entry passes are sold out through March 2017. While you wait, you should take advantage of the many local Black museums that have been serving their communities for decades. We have the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument in Dorchester and Caroline Counties; National Great Blacks in Wax Museum, the Frederick Douglass-Isaac Myers Maritime Park, and the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African-American History and Culture in Baltimore; the Banneker-Douglass Museum in Annapolis; the Prince George’s African American Museum and Cultural Center in North Brentwood; the Diggs-Johnson Museum in Woodstock; and the Charles H. Chipman Center in Salisbury. These local institutions should be celebrated, as they are the foundations upon which the NMAAHC was built.

2016 One Maryland One Book Author Tour: FAQs

Posted on by Maryland Humanities

We hope you were able to join us on the 2016 One Maryland One Book Author Tour! “All American Boys” authors Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely toured Maryland from September 25-28 with stops at Baltimore Book Festival, Boonsboro High School, Abingdon Library in Harford County, Salisbury University, St. Charles High School, and Oxon Hill Library in Prince George’s County.

If you saw the authors speak, you know the power of their candor, hope, and friendship with one another. Enthusiastic crowds loved the Question & Answer session at the end of every tour stop, when audience members would take turns adding to the honest and important conversation.

If you missed it, here are a few of our favorite questions that Jason and Brendan answered on tour:

Question: How did you two meet?

Jason Reynolds: We had written other books separately and our publisher booked us for a tour together. It just so happened that this tour started after Trayvon Martin died. And when George Zimmerman got off for murdering Trayvon, my mom was calling me crying. She’s on the line saying “When is it gonna end? When does this all stop?” and here I am with this guy who doesn’t share my culture, doesn’t share my experience, and doesn’t know me at all. But, eventually, we got to talking. It turned out he was just as angry as I was. It was a different anger, but he was right there with me. He created a safe space for me.

Brendan Kiely: No one ever told me when I was growing up that I was white. It wasn’t a conversation we had. And it’s my responsibility to stand up, every time I do this, every time we talk, to say that black lives matter. I have to stand up. I cannot excuse myself. I think there are a lot of people who would like to talk and have never had the opportunity. I have to say “let’s talk about this.”

Q: How long did it take you to write the book?

JR: We wrote the book in six months. Really quick. But we had talked about it all the time for 6 months. We wrote back and forth. I wrote Rashad, he wrote Quinn, and it was amazing how we were on the same page.

BK: I had to write fast to keep up with Jason. I’ve got a sign next to my desk that says “what would Jason do?”. I’m not kidding! He’s my hero. Jason taught me so much about writing.

JR: Thanks, homie. I’ll give you your money later.

What was the hardest part to write?

BK: When Quinn is trying to figure out the word “racist.” It’s easy for me to call the KKK [Ku Klux Klan] racist. Quinn has to grapple with racism in a deeper way. I wanna go on tour and have a superman cape behind me, to be all good, all right, but it’s not that easy.

JR: For me it was writing about Rashad’s dad. It was difficult to be honest that this problem isn’t all white cops killing black people. It’s black cops, too. It hurt to write that knowing it’s the truth.

Q: What happens next? Where’s the sequel?

JR: You know I can’t answer that! And I’ll tell you why. There is no sequel. There is no epilogue. And that’s because this book is about what’s next. And after reading this book, that’s up to you. What we always say is you can write the end. You can write it down, or you can write it in what you do. We are responsible for the next part of this book. What happens next? That’s up to you.

BK: It’s like when Prospero waves his wand at the end of “The Tempest.” The end of the book is your call back to reality. You read the story, you know the people, now you take what you felt, what you know and go forth, back into reality.

 

The 2016 One Maryland One Book Author Tour may be over, but “All American Boys” programming continues across the state through October and beyond! Visit our Events page for the full calendar.

Next year’s One Maryland One Book theme will be announced soon. Follow Maryland Center for the Book on Facebook for announcements and make sure to submit your favorite title for next year’s pick.

Old History, New Initiatives: The Baltimore Arabbers

Posted on by Lou Williams

by Sydney Jenkins

“Watermelon, Watermelon, red to the rind!” “Grapes and Peaches Feeling Ripe!”

When I mention to Maryland natives that I am involved with the Arabbers Preservation Society, folks first tell me about the Arabber hollers they remember echoing down the streets when they were kids. They will have a fruit or vegetable holler that best reminds them of these Baltimore City produce hucksters.  When I explain that I spend weekends hanging out at the Arabber yard, helping them to clean up the stables and supporting their efforts to sell vegetables via horse drawn cart and that today’s Arabbers are out of the streets every day promoting their unique methods of produce sales, the typical response is: “Wait, they’re still around?”

James Chase “fruit,” manager of the Arabber Yard. Photo credit: Holden Warren
James Chase “fruit,” manager of the Arabber Yard. Photo credit: Holden Warren

Arabbers have existed in Baltimore since the formation of the city in 1729. At their earliest inception they were called hucksters or street peddlers.  In fact, street peddling as an occupation was common at one time in most American cities.  New immigrants and other marginalized individuals with few opportunities to earn a living were able to quickly establish themselves as street peddlers.

By the 19th century Baltimore’s street peddling scene was unique from other cities for a geographic reason: Baltimore is a port city in a border state.  Baltimore had the largest free African American population and was home to the second largest immigrant port on the East Coast, thus Baltimore’s band of street peddlers were numerous. However, Baltimore street peddlers’ uniqueness doesn’t stop there.  Around the turn of the 20th century, The Baltimore Sun began referring to Baltimore street peddlers as “arabbers,” a term used in 19th century England to describe folks who lived or worked on the street.  None of the other cities adopted this term for its street sellers and having a special name for this group of workers helped to make them stand out as special.

The Arabbers as a historical topic is not easy to research. Arabbing as a job is somewhat transient in nature.  For much of their existence they have been relegated to the back alleys of Baltimore. And while the 20th century brought challenges for the Arabbers, including technology, urban planning initiatives, political power changes, competition with Baltimore’s many public markets, and animal rights activists, here we are today, in 2016, and Arabbers are still on the streets.

In the city of Baltimore this story of woe isn’t a sad one because here and ONLY here, the Arabbers are not only still existing, but they are thriving.  Recently, there has been a surge of new interest in preserving the Arabber way of doing business. With the support of the Arabber Preservation Society, the Arabbers themselves have been focusing efforts to promote and define what it means to be an Arabber.  They are interested in expanding what they do and one of the ways they hope will help is to increase their community engagement in Baltimore.  They want their unique work to become more publicly recognized.

 

Volunteer cleanup day at the Arabber Yard. Left to right: Holden Warren (VP of the Arabber Preservation Society) Sydney Jenkins (secretary of APS), Jame Chase (Arabber and President of APS), Seth Wheeler (resident carpenter and fix-it guy), and Deloise Nobel-Strong (Treasurer of APS). Photo Credit: Deloise Nobel-Strong
Volunteer cleanup day at the Arabber Yard. Left to right: Holden Warren (VP of the Arabber Preservation Society) Sydney Jenkins (secretary of APS), Jame Chase (Arabber and President of APS), Seth Wheeler (resident carpenter and fix-it guy), and Deloise Nobel-Strong (Treasurer of APS). Photo Credit: Deloise Nobel-Strong

The first step is to improve their stable area or “Arabber Yard,” and get the yard state certified as Maryland’s 36th Horse Discovery Center.   The “Yard” is located on N. Fremont Avenue and the current plan is to turn it into a heritage and community center.  In addition to serving the Arabbers themselves, and running an Arabber training program, they will host adult and children’s programming focused on animal husbandry, food, and African American history.

Of course, this first project is just a start and there are other Arabber-related projects in the works: A documentary of Arabber history, a mural project, and a horse turnout that could be utilized by the community.

If you are interested in learning more about the Baltimore Arabbers and the Arabber Preservation Society, check out their Facebook page or attend the next event at the yard.  Visitors are also welcome at the Arabber Preservation Society meeting on October 18th at 6:30p (location TBD).

My Dungeon Shook: From Baldwin to Ward, a Reflection on “All American Boys”

Posted on by Maryland Humanities

by Courtney C. Hobson

“The country is celebrating one hundred years of freedom one hundred years too soon.” With this statement, James Baldwin concludes his essay, “My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation.” This essay is one half of The Fire Next Time, a book that was published in 1963. For readers who don’t know, James Baldwin is a renowned son of Harlem.  He was a revered member of the pantheon of Black literary figures of the twentieth century. His company includes Zora Neale Hurston, Langston Hughes, Toni Morrison, and Ralph Ellison to name a few, and his work remains influential today.

The Fire Next Time is a work that seeks to make sense of a country that has yet to fulfill its promise to be of the people, for the people and by the people—to borrow the words of the Great Emancipator, Abraham Lincoln. In this essay, Baldwin argues that love—not violence—is the answer. He argues that anger leads to self-destruction. But the love  Baldwin suggests is not passive; it is an active love that seeks to challenge the status quo:

“They [white people] are…still trapped in a history which they do not understand; and until they understand it, they cannot be released from it…if the word integration means anything, this is what it means: that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it.”

This year’s One Maryland One Book selection, All American Boys by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely, is a literary example of what happens when one challenges the status quo. After Quinn witnesses the attack on Rashad by Officer Paul Galluzzo, he makes the conscious decision to embrace the reality of race in America and he fights for change, despite the personal ramifications. The fictional Quinn would likely agree with Baldwin’s sentiment that, “We cannot be free until they are free.”

My reading of All American Boys unfortunately coincided with a very tumultuous summer: the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, the deaths of Alton Sterling and Philando Castile, and the deaths of police officers in Dallas, Texas and Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I woke up every day for weeks with the feeling of a heavy weight on my chest. I turned to books in search of comfort that I was not able to find in the real world.

After reading Baldwin, I turned to The Fire This Time: A New Generation Speaks about Race. I gravitated to this book because like me, the editor of this work, Jesmyn Ward, turned to Baldwin for comfort. While the narrative voice of the work is a bit disjointed at times, the authors seem to be all in agreement that our “post-racial society” is a myth. This sentiment is best expressed in Isabel Wilkerson’s The Fire This Time essay “Where Do We Go From Here?” Wilkerson describes the Nadir that Black Americans experienced post-Reconstruction—a time in which the development of Black schools and businesses were met with Jim Crow laws.

Some progress was made in the twentieth century with the Civil Rights Movement, but as Wilkerson suggests, “the past few months have forced us to confront our place in a country where we were enslaved for far longer than we have been free.” Like Baldwin four decades ago, the response to this confrontation, according to Wilkerson, should be love. Love for ourselves; love for our history. Which is what I see when I witness Black Lives Matter protests or, most recently, NFL player Colin Kaepernick’s stand (for lack of a better word) regarding  the National Anthem. This is an active love to see our country live up to its promise; a love that is on display. While some may decry the method, a friend of poet, playwright, and professor Claudia Rankine bluntly stated that “the condition of black life is one of mourning.” We do our mourning (and our loving) in public, whether we are marching or with a simple hashtag: #BlackLivesMatter; #SayHerName; or #RashadWasAbsentAgainToday.

Extra, Extra! Read All About It! – Newspapers as Primary Sources

Posted on by Lou Williams

Daily and weekly newspapers published in communities all across Maryland and the nation are important historical resources for investigating earlier times.  Since the colonial era, these serials have brought matters of local and national significance to readers.  On the day they were published, especially for an earlier generation, the pages of newsprint conveyed fresh accounts of just about everything to the reader, from disasters, revolutions, politics, and wars to everyday social happenings in our communities.

St. Mary's Gazette., October 01, 1863.
St. Mary’s Gazette., October 01, 1863.

There was a time  when in order to use these valuable resources you had to travel to a library or historical society that held a collection of the aging broadsheets or an institution that had filmed images, preserving the sources while also making the microfilm more broadly available.  Of course, utilizing the film required staring at the aging, cranky old readers while strained eyes searched the pages scrolling slowly along.

Now that we are in the second decade of the 21st century, all of that is changing and this transformation is happening quickly.  Online providers (public and commercial) are rushing to open up access to these papers, providing us with accessible traces to the past.  With just a few key strokes data is often available that might have taken us days to find, if it could be located.

The e-document array is exploding exponentially now as for-profit online publishers and open source providers rush to make valuable research content available to a broader user base.  In Maryland, several of our nonprofit or public institutions have created strong groups of online historical newspapers.

The Catoctin Clarion, November 14, 1918.
The Catoctin Clarion, November 14, 1918.

The Historic Maryland Newspaper Project at the University of Maryland has been leading the way by digitizing Maryland newspapers, and “making them accessible for free on the Library of Congress’ Chronicling America website.” Since the University was first awarded a National Digital Newspaper Program grant in 2012, this partnership has digitized over 107,000 pages and they will be adding another 100,000 soon.  The initiative is a partnership with the University, the Library of Congress, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.  To examine the titles currently available at the Library of Congress, click here.

The Maryland State Archives has a strong collection of online PDFs of Maryland serials available.  These periodicals are not text searchable, but if you have an approximate date, the renderings will be of great assistance as they are clear and easy to read and the images can be manipulated.  Here is the link to the online digitized collection at the Maryland Archives.

The Google Archives also has a collection of newspapers, with titles such as the Afro American from 1902 to 1922 in its virtual repository.  Others titles available from Google include the Baltimore American, the American & Commercial Advertiser and much more.  To check out a current index click here.

Carroll County Times Archive, 1933 – 2012

There are others.  For example, the Carroll County Times (1911-2014), provided by the Carroll County Library, is available online.  Preserving Somerset, from the Somerset County Library, has holdings for Crisfield and Princess Anne.   The Edward H. Nabb Research Center for Delmarva History and Culture at Salisbury University has an inventory of Eastern Shore newspapers spanning the years 1745 through 1922.  Click here to examine this collection.

In addition to these free sites, many subscription services, including www.genealogybank.com, www.ancestry.com, and www.newspapers.com, have growing resources.  Some Maryland libraries provide access to these sites for library cardholders.  Since this is an area that is rapidly changing, here is a helpful guide from the Enoch Pratt Free Library, Finding Historic Maryland Newspapers Online.

And don’t forget to check your local library as some are licensed to provide patrons with remote access.  In Baltimore, the Enoch Pratt Free Library provides cardholders with access to an outstanding inventory of national newspapers.  These include the Baltimore Sun (1837 – 1991), the Wall Street Journal (1889 – 1999), the Washington Post (1877 – 1999), Chicago Tribune (1849 – 1992), the Christian Science Monitor (1908-2002), and more, all from the convenience of your school or home.

These are great virtual resources as you formulate your research question for your Maryland History Day project, conduct research, and cull insights and interpretations from fascinating primary sources.

Mike Dixon is an award-winning historian, public speaker and author. A resident of Cecil County, Maryland, Dixon’s research features mid-Atlantic’s regional and local history. He travels widely for research and to conduct lectures encouraging public interest and participation in the preservation of the area’s past. He stresses an importance of understanding the relationship between the past and the present.

Considering the Unconsidered at the Library: “All American Boys”

Posted on by Maryland Humanities

by Bill Peak

After church each Sunday, there’s always a long line of cars working its way out of our parking lot.  Ours is a big congregation—five different sub-lots feed the single lane that leads off parish property.  And of course, as we’ve all just been to church, we’re all feeling charitable toward our neighbors, and, consequently, those of us already in line tend to slow as we approach each sub-lot to let one of the cars waiting there enter ahead of us.  In this way, eventually, the entire parking lot empties in a more or less fair and orderly fashion.

It was a beastly hot day and I had already made it past the last of the sub-lots, righteously fulfilling my obligation at each junction to permit one (and only one!) car in ahead of me, when, absently, my brain registered the fact that there was a maid walking home from work down the blacktop beside us.  Then, noticing her outfit (gauzy black blouse, bright red skirt, high-heeled sandals slapping against the bottoms of her feet), my mindless reverie evaporated and I snapped into full alert and functioning mode.  This was no maid.  Or, if it was a maid, she certainly wasn’t on her way home from work; she was on her way home from the Mass she had just attended with the lot of us creeping along beside her in our air-conditioned cars.

Shamefacedly, I braked, lowered my window and asked the lady if she’d like a lift.  She nodded gratefully, ran around to the passenger side of my car and got in.  As it turned out, she spoke almost no English, but with my limited library Spanish I was able to work out that she lived somewhere up off Aurora.  What you have to remember here is that Ss. Peter & Paul Church sits at the far end of a vast soybean field that sits at the far end of Washington Street just before it gives up the ghost at the far end of the bypass.  I drove my unexpected passenger up Washington till it reached Aurora, and then north on Aurora till she asked me to let her out on Dover, a distance of 2+ miles.  Had she walked all the way to church that morning on her own?!  And if she had, on how many Sundays now had she made that long, lonely journey?

But then, of course, it came to me that this was one lady who probably knew a fair amount about long, lonely journeys.  And clearly, for all her finery, she was a lot tougher than I.

This year’s One Maryland One Book is called All American Boys.  One Maryland One Book is the program of Maryland Humanities in which people all across the state read the same book at the same time.  All American Boys [written by Jason Reynolds and Brendan Kiely] is the story of what happens when a policeman allows an unconsidered first impression to determine his behavior.  In a day and age when patrol car cameras have unexpectedly illuminated a few dark and (hopefully) seldom frequented corners in our policing of America’s underclasses, the subject is a timely one.  Of course I would like to think that as an enlightened Southerner I have long since risen above such unconscious prejudice.  But then I come up against that “maid” I saw walking down our church lane.

On Monday, September 12, at 6:00 p.m., in the Easton branch of the Talbot County Free Library, and again on Friday, September 16, at 3:00 p.m., in our St. Michaels branch, I will host a discussion of All American Boys.  I hope you will join me.  Who knows?  We might all discover a corner or two in our own particular lives that could use a little light.

 

Bill Peak is the communications manager and all-encompassing “Library Guy” at the Talbot County Free Library on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. He is the author of the novel “The Oblate’s Confession” (2014). Bill writes a monthly article for The Star-Democrat about working at the Talbot County Free Library.  This essay was originally published in The Star-Democrat on August 2, 2015.

Where the Buffalo Roam: Celebrating the National Park Service

Posted on by Lou Williams

Last Thursday, August 25, 2016, the National Park Service celebrated its 100th birthday. We reflect on this centennial celebration with a blog post that was published last year about Hampton National Historic Site.

Today marks the 99th anniversary of the National Park Service (NPS). Prior to the establishment of the agency in 1916, national parks and national monuments, such as Yellowstone, were individually managed. After a publicity campaign pushing for the establishment of one governing agency, President Woodrow Wilson signed the National Park Service Organic Act to create an agency whose goal is “to conserve the scenery and the natural and historic objects and wildlife therein, and to provide for the enjoyment of the same in such manner and by such means as will leave them unimpaired for the enjoyment of future generations.” It is that latter point that the National Park Service appears to be focusing on in their #FindYourPark campaign to help celebrate their upcoming centennial. It appears that I found my park in Towson, Maryland.

Hampton National Historic Site is an 18th-century estate that was owned by the Ridgely  family from 1745  to 1749, including Charles  Ridgely, the 15th Governor  of Maryland.  Decreased greatly in acreage over the  years, the  site will still provide you with much to see:  the  Georgian-style mansion with many of the  original  furnishings, terraced gardens, and slave quarters amongst other buildings. Standard house tours of the property tell the story of the many generations of Ridgelys who called Hampton their home. But I encourage you to take one of their special tours led by Park Ranger Anokwale Anansesemfo.

Park Ranger Giving Tour
Park Ranger Anokwale in period attire

“On the Hampton Plantation” and “Servitude In  Black and  White” are  two special tours in  which  you can  explore the  property, from the  perspective  of the many European    indentured  servants and  enslaved  Africans and African-  Americans  who lived and  worked at Hampton  and  helped the Ridgelys acquire their wealth. From the first few  minutes of the 90-minute tour, Anokwale’s passion for African-American history is very evident, as well as her penchant for story-telling , which is personified by her chosen name (Anokwale means “truth” in Akan, a Ghanaian language; Anansesemfo means “storyteller”).

During the course of the tour, I learned about Nancy Davis, an enslaved woman who was freed in 1858 but returned to work for Ridgelys until her death in 1908. Davis, who raised three to four generations of Ridgelys, is one of only two servants known to be buried in the Ridgely family cemetery. The intriguing story of Lucy Jackson,  a house servant who fled to freedom around 1862,  is also shared: in 1866, Lucy obtained a lawyer to sue John Ridgely on her behalf to obtain an extensive list of items that she left  behind at Hampton. Some of the items listed included twenty-one dresses,  six pairs of lace gloves, and furs and muffs.

Nancy Davis with Eliza Ridgely
Nancy Davis with Eliza Ridgely III

It is clear that these stories are intended to change one’s perception of slavery and the lives of the enslaved. Near the conclusion of the tour, Anokwale quoted Frederick Douglass: “Agitate! Agitate! Agitate!” This resounded with me and my training as a public historian. One of the six principles of interpretation laid out by Freeman Tilden, one of the fathers of the NPS, states that “The chief aim of interpretation is not instruction, but provocation.” I do not believe Douglass or Tilden was encouraging physically aggressive forms of agitation or provocation, but more intellectual. Telling Nancy’s or Lucy’s story does not take away from the Ridgelys’ story – it just adds many more layers to it. Entities that engage in public history, like the National Park Service, are at their best when they seek to weave together stories that reflect the tapestry of American history.

A Writer with Writers: #BlackLivesMatter: Understanding Race, Revolution, & Resistance

Posted on by Maryland Humanities

by Karsonya “Kaye” Wise Whitehead, Ph.D.

Four years have passed since Alicia Garza, Patrisse Cullors, and Opal Tometi launched the social justice international activist movement, #BlackLivesMatter (BLM). What began as a hashtag in response to the murder of unarmed black teenager Trayvon Martin quickly became a rallying cry. Both the phrase “Black Lives Matter” and its meaning resonate around the world—from Ferguson to Tibet, from the White House to the United Nations. BLM is an intergenerational movement and a call for action to reform policies, racial profiling, police brutality, and racial inequality. Given that BLM is a movement in action, it is difficult to participate in the movement while critiquing it, but Dr Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor did just that in her new book, From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation. We begin our discussion below with a shorter interview, and an extended version can be found on my website with poetry and resources for further discussion.

 

Kaye Whitehead: Why did you decide to write this book?

Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor: I decided to write the book because I thought I had insight and analysis that would be useful for people either in the movement or sympathetic to the movement.

KW: Which writers inspire you?

KYT: There is nothing like reading something that makes sense. I am a fan of W.E.B. Du Bois, Anne Petry, Toni Morrison, Leon Trotsky, Nathan Connolly, Alan Maass, Michelle Alexander, Edmund Morgan, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

KW: How much research did you do?

KYT: I did not do a ton of research. I was not trying to show something new. I was trying to analyze and understand what historical dynamics have resulted in the persistence of racism in our contemporary society. I read a lot, not necessarily for new information but to make sense of the existing information.

KW: What is the hardest thing about writing and/or your research?

KYT: Well, writing is hard. It is hard to get it right and to most clearly and succinctly express oneself. Probably the most difficult thing about writing now is having the time to do it the way you want. Writing is about revision. Everyone wants the “hot take,” but writing should be a slow process. It is about re-writing and stopping and thinking and doing it over.

KW: What writing advice do you have for other aspiring authors?

Read. If you want to write then you have to read. Read a broad range of things. And then write.

KW: What is your next project?

KYT: I am working on my book, Race for Profit: Black Housing and the Urban Crisis of the 1970s. It looks at the federal government’s promotion of single-family homeownership in black communities after the riots in the 1960s. It is a critique of private institutions like banks and the real estate industry shaping public policy to their benefit and the detriment of black communities they claimed to be serving.

KW: What is the current state of the Black Lives Matter Movement and how do you see it moving forward?

KYT: I think the movement is still sorting out what it is and what it wants to be. I do think that right now the movement is going through a process of maturation; meaning that two years ago when everything was erupting, it was tempting to believe that a seat at the table—especially if it were a table in the White House—might put us in closer proximity to political power which might in turn get us closer to our goal of ending police violence. Instead, it was a stalling mechanism from the political establishment, which has no real answers to ending police violence. Not everyone has learned that lesson, but enough people have learned the lesson that there is a greater emphasis on the political independence of the movement and advancing goals that will build the movement and worry less about appealing to those in power.
About the Writer: Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of African American Studies at Princeton University and the author of From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation (Haymarket Books, 2016), an examination of the history and politics of Black America and the development of the social movement Black Lives Matter in response to police violence in the United States. Interested in Dr. Taylor’s work? Follow her on Twitter: @keeangayamahtta.

About the Interviewer: Karsonya “Kaye” Wise Whitehead, Ph.D. is Associate Professor, Department of Communication at Loyola University Maryland and the Founding Executive Director at The Emilie Frances Davis Center for Education, Research, and Culture. Her new anthology, RaceBrave, was published in March 2016.

bLAM Collective: Here to Share

Posted on by Lou Williams

by Jennifer Ferretti

In 2015, bLAMcollective, Baltimore Libraries, Archives, and Museums collective, was born on Twitter. As a group of individuals who are part of a lateral, non-hierarchical group who live to a large extent on social media, the collective’s name and it how it looked on phones, tablets, computers is extremely important. The concept and purpose, however, were more thought out and deliberate.

bLAM is for librarians, archivists, museum and cultural heritage professionals, but also for those who utilize materials held in those institutions and organizations, whether for personal research, in the classroom, journalistically, or through freelance work. The collective is not limited to professionals in the field, nor is a particular degree required to join. bLAM works toward not only networking and educating ourselves, but also sharing what we do and where we want our professions to go.

The idea of sharing and connecting with my community of library and information science (LIS), museum, and technology professionals started when I was completing my masters degree at Pratt Institute in New York City. After receiving my undergraduate degree at the Maryland Institute College of Art, I worked for six years in Baltimore, where I built strong professional relationships and developed a passion for archives, libraries, and digitization of collections.

During the years in Baltimore before graduate school, I processed a collection of over 7,000 photographs by Afro-American newspaper photographer Paul Henderson, curated a solo exhibition of his work, and helped plan a public program at the exhibition opening. I left Baltimore feeling that my work played a small part in helping to lift some assumptions about the Civil Rights Era in Baltimore, the focus of the Paul Henderson show and program. One of those assumptions being that it did not begin as early as it had, which was around 1935.

When I walked into my first class in grad school, I saw several people of color, such as myself. I was elated. I had never seen so many minorities at an LIS-related function. Months later, I told a good friend in the program who emigrated to NYC from the Dominican Republic during her teenage years about my feelings. Her perspective, walking into the same class, was completely different. She was disappointed at how few minorities were in the class, and her words were, “Come on New York, we can do better.” Talking with her about this made me think I could and should ask more of the profession as well as consider how I could personally help it “do better.”

Librarianship is so much more than books on shelves. One of its main functions is to teach how to gain access to information. And information is every single thing around us — art, politics, economics, culture. Librarianship is overwhelmingly white and female.[1] As a first generation American Latina, I never saw a librarian like me growing up. As a result, I feel it is imperative not only to promote the profession in general, but to also be an active participant in my profession in order to get a seat at as many tables as possible.

bLAM1.forwebAfter returning to Baltimore, I knew I wanted to start a group that served as a place to meet people, talk about work in a non-stressful environment, and learn new things. Creating a group that limits who can join was never something I considered. I’d much rather be part of a group that fosters discussion around difficult or unpopular topics while focusing on outreach to minorities to have a seat at their community table. The second bLAMcollective meetup was a discussion about whiteness and librarianship based on Angela Galvan’s article “Soliciting Performance, Hiding Bias: Whiteness and Librarianship.” We talked openly and honestly about how to combat bias in the hiring process and who sits on hiring committees and why. Other meetup activities included project shares and what we call “say hello” happy hours.

Typical bLAM-mers are people who collect, organize, analyze, and disseminate information, those who curate and promote cultural literacy, and those who educate and consistently conduct research. A lot of these activities take place online or have an online component, which requires digital skills. My graduate school program taught me to be adventurous when it comes to technology. Just as I hope to empower students at my library, I hope that bLAM is a place where people feel empowered to try something new.

bLAM began hosting a series of free tech-based workshops called #bLAMclass that are tool and topic-specific. For example, our first two workshops were on the exhibition publishing platform Omeka and the web-based repository for sharing code, data, and documentation, GitHub. Future workshops will include personal digital archiving, mapping/geographic information systems, and creating information visualizations.

A collective like bLAM provides the space to improve digital skills and learn new things from colleagues in a nonjudgmental environment. The libraries, archives, and museums professions are advanced by stepping outside of one’s own institution, openly sharing, asking questions, and giving feedback. That’s why bLAM’s tagline is here to share.

The #bLAMclass series will continue in the fall.

Jenny Ferretti is the Digital Initiatives Librarian at the Maryland Institute College of Art’s Decker Library. @citythatreads

[1]American Library Association. Diversity Counts 2009-2010 Update http://www.ala.org/offices/sites/ala.org.offices/files/content/diversity/diversitycounts/diversitycountstables2012.pdf