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i am accused of tending to the past
as if i made it,
as if i sculpted it
with my own hands. i did not.
this past was waiting for me
when i came,
a monstrous unnamed baby,
and i with my mother’s itch
took it to breast
and named it
History.
she is more human now,
learning languages everyday,
remembering faces, names and dates.
when she is strong enough to travel
on her own, beware, she will.

Lucille Clifton

I wish I could say that I’ve known about Ms. Clifton all along, but that would be a lie. I found out she lived – and wrote and inspired and made people laugh and cry and hope – mainly because she died, and many of the people who did know her or her work have been writing about what she meant to them.

She is gone now, but I still have the work of a lifetime to get to know. 

Who was she? The credits say “Mulatto ex-slave in her house near Greensboro, Alabama, May 1941”, and I’m not sure why they have told us that she is mulatto, but then this “colorism” business that still grips and poisons didn’t come breeding alone out of the earth, more like it was cultivated, nurtured with far more attention and care than the lives it crushed underneath as if they were the weeds.

Did she make the quilts? Crabbed and scarred hands pulling the threaded needle through scraps of this and that, I’ve seen these old women (and young) place each piece with meaning, and some with none at all beyond that the shape or the colors fit. No bright hues here in the photo that became a work of art as soon as she sat her old bones down in the rocking chair and competed for focal point with the bright, insulating newspapers with the little blond boy front and off center.

Who put them there? Did she paste them one on top of the other whenever she got some to keep out the cold that was always finding a new way in, is that how it works? or did she or someone spruce up the walls for the photo shoot and whose idea was that, anyway?

She’s looking to the side or maybe just not at the camera, almost not there except that of course she is, she is, but it reminds me of that look we get sometimes when we’re in a situation that we don’t want to be in but have to endure for whatever reason, maybe because of a power that might have nothing to do with us or little for us that decides for us whether we want whatever they are offering or not.

I don’t know but did you notice the dingy patch up on the wall toward the ceiling? Maybe it couldn’t be reached or paper ran out or time like when someone comes to the door when you are not quite ready to let them in. But sometimes they come in anyway.

She is beautiful and as art it works, this mulatto woman who was an ex-slave sitting in her bedroom and sitting room with the bright new contrast to her old wood slat bed and old quilts and old body and old chair – oh,  is that dingy patch on the wall maybe a small, stubborn rebellion? – a picture taken in 1941 when she had a designation and a color but apparently still no name, it’s a shame I can’t just enjoy it, I wanted to do that, but I can’t help it I just have questions, questions, questions.

Like – in this carefully cleaned and appointed room, why is there a padlock sitting on the empty chair?

The next step (which may take us another hundred years or so) is to bring about the recognition that Black history is American history. You can’t have one without the other because these are not stories that have run on separate tracks, but clearly interwoven lives, tragedies and triumphs.

In the U.S. history books, school books of yore (and perhaps today as well) the history of whites in the Americas dominates the narrative, with non-whites, non-Europeans – should they be mentioned at all – sort of drifting on and off the stage as not even supporting cast, but extras and fillers whose contributions are not integral to the plot. The central part of the story, as told then, could continue on its arc with or without these nameless, faceless bit players.

Patently untrue, of course – but believed, to this day, by many.

Even the narratives of those Black historical figures whose names are familiar to most every school child – Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Martin Luther King, Jr. and so on – are presented as Black stories, not American stories, and are emphasized primarily only during Black History Month. And even they are at times presented as outliers, above and beyond the norm within cultural Black America.

This, partly, is why it is so necessary for us to – over and over again, for as long as it takes and beyond – tell our own tales, our histories, the lives of those ancestors of ours who were ordinary heroes whose daily lives were – mundane though they may seem – studies in survival, triumph, dignity and often joy.

Our stories – Black, Latino, Native American, Asian, Jewish and more – in America are American stories. Without us, the continent, the U.S. in all its often overbearing wealth, hubris as well as its generosity, would not exist as it does today.

I will, this month and always, be not only writing about my own history and about the people I find shoved into a corner somewhere, forgotten, but will also seek out others who have written/are writing about their own historical finds and treasures and highlighting those. With enough of us talking, maybe someday we’ll be heard.

[Story/chapter synopsis from William Still’s “Underground Railroad”.]

Anita Hackley-Lambert had a promise to keep. A promise made not by her, originally, but one passed down through the generations until it finally reached someone who could, or would, keep it. A promise not to let F.M.H. Murray’s (Hackley-Lambert’s great-grandfather) legacy be forgotten. And so was born…

F.H.M. Murray: First Biography of a Forgotten Pioneer for Civil Justice

Ms Hackley-Lambert says:

I did not become serious about my writing until I promised my blind mother I would honor her promise to her mother who had promised her father (F.H.M. Murray) she would not allow his legacy to be forgotten. At that time, I was unaware of the huge challenge that lay ahead — research and validation. I had no way of knowing it would take more than ten years researching to compile his story into a historical format with endnotes and an index. My final inspiration to complete the manuscript came from a request from the Harpers Ferry National Historical Park to bring copies of my book and to present a scholarly paper at their Centennial Celebration of the Niagara Movement in 2006. Completing this monumental task actually helped me reconnect with myself. I regained my life while fulfilling my own dream to write.

When I came across this book and story, of course it resonated with me. Although I am beginning at an earlier time in my research (antebellum South), my interest in my family (and other) history was spiked by my great-grandfather and his brothers, who also knew and were contemporaries of W.E.B. Dubois and Booker T. Washington.

From Fisk University, where lifelong friendships were formed, to their work with the Tuskegee Institute, and on Du Bois’  magazine, these lives shared interconnections that span many years. It would be interesting to find out if our (Ms. Hackley-Lambert’s and mine) ancestors ever met. As far as I know, none of them worked with the Niagara Movement, but there may have been other points of paths crossing. I’ll have to make a note to look into it when I get to that era. I don’t recall ever having heard of the Niagara Movement before this, in fact, so that’s something to add to my things to research list as well.

Anyway, I’ve not read her book but that doesn’t stop me from recommending it. The important thing is to get the stories out there, to repair the past and maybe learn or teach a little bit more of our forgotten (or suppressed) history.

It heartens me a bit, too, by the way, that she says that it took her ten years of research to even write the book. I doubt it will take me that long for mine, at least the first one, because much of it is necessarily fictionalized – I only have three short paragraphs of fact to work with for my Great-great-great Uncle Louis, but masses of material to fill in the blanks for that time period.

(Laurie Cooper Art)

I’ve mentioned this before, but it still surprises me that the more I read of Black history, Black writers in just about every time period I’ve delved into so far, the more I realize how little things have changed. And, also, how much.

We do, in this year of 2010, have a Black president and first lady, yes. Many- not all – previously closed doors are at least cracked open a little for us to squeeze through if we can. We can, at least on paper, live where we want, eat wherever we wish to sit our butts down and, in general, attempt to live out our lives, our dreams, our realities, just like everyone else.

Yet… we still fight the same stereotypes which have never faded away, repurposed refitted themselves for the current times. We still strive, daily, to change the narrative imposed on our lives, our bodies, our many and varied cultures.

Whether we have fully assimilated into mainstream/white society or have (as completely as possible) rejected doing any such thing, our individuality is still an amorphous entity, a puff of self easily dissipated by a news report of some far off person doing some far out thing who, in the minds of some, somehow immediately becomes you.

I still remember how, after the elections in 2004, a woman who I had spent a couple of years talking with in chat rooms just… shocked me. And that’s not easy to do. We weren’t close friends or anything, mind you, but we did have any number of conversations on gay rights (she was a lesbian) and how to move forward on things such as equal marriage rights and other things. These topics weren’t the whole of our conversations – she was not “the lesbian woman chatter” and I was not “the Black woman chatter”; there were also discussions on business, home life, all around aspects of who we were.

So. The day after the 2004 elections she comes into the chat room and, as soon as I say hello to her, announces that “I guess gays and Blacks are enemies now”.

Huh?

It seems the Black churches in Texas, where she lived, were vociferous in their condemnation of GLBT folk and urged their parishioners to vote “No” on whatever legislation was put forth on the Texas ballot that affected the GLBT community and, for whatever reason, I became a substitute for them in her mind.

Now, I understood, in a way, her hurt and disappointment. I was disappointed, too. I even tried to, in my own mind, use that to excuse her behavior – after all, whatever we do, people of color must make other people comfortable with us. But the more I thought about it, the angrier I got, because really… she had no right to completely jettison *me* – my conversation, my views, my years of human rights work and for fighting, in whatever big or small way I can for equal rights, equal justice for all… and replace me with bunch of bigots, no matter that they shared my skin color. No right at all. And, of course, that was just (on a very small scale) the precursor to the reaction of some – by no means all or maybe even most – to the Prop 8 vote in California in 2008. Which is a whole ‘nother story.

Anyway – back to why I was writing this in the first place.

In so many of the works I am reading by Black people in the 18th and 19th centuries (not to mention the 20th) have variations of “We have to tell our own stories. We must work to counter the stereotypes, the slanders, the slurs in popular culture and in the media. We have to take control of our own narratives.”

They were right of course. And they tried and continued trying. As we, today, continue to do the same – with, sadly, about the same effect. I suppose there is comfort though, in the knowledge that with each voice raised, with each passing year or decade or century, we move a little closer to our goal.

Thus, my little site here where I plan to do my part, to the best of my ability.

 cartoon from toothpastefordinner.com

Haiti hurt my heart. I’m not sure why as I don’t, as far as I know, know any Haitians, nor have I ever been there. It just did. And unlike many writers/bloggers, when big, bad things hit, my first instinct isn’t to write about it, to react instantly – it’s to go silent. And think. Or mourn. Observe. Then maybe write.

This is me in offline life, as well, so I am not sure that I can change that feature (or bug) of mine, but I am going to make an effort.

Anyway, though silent I have not been idle, writing wise. I have a couple of articles started – one on Haiti, due Monday for Human Beams, and another on Obama and brands, due Wednesday for Serenity. And then a very surface history piece for Book of Louis about the women I had been missing (but then found) who were enslaved in the US. That is due Friday.

What is all this “due” stuff, you may be asking? Well, I’ve also decided to do an editorial type calendar, committing myself to a certain amount of writing for each site per week – plus whatever nattering I happen to do in between the scheduled articles. Now, considering that I’ve already missed one deadline for each (all the dates have been moved back, lol) this may take a little getting used to, for me, to get into the groove. But get into it I will.

I am posting this at all three sites (I know, cheating!) to get something up, and also to be accountable to more than myself. Ack!

“DRAPETOMANIA, OR THE DISEASE CAUSING NEGROES TO RUN AWAY.”

From “Diseases and Peculiarities of the Negro Race,” by Dr. Cartwright (in DeBow’s Review)

The whole thing really has to be read to be believed – and even after you read it you might (like me) not even believe that someone actually wrote that with a straight face.

Still, not all is bad. Wackity stuff, but boy can I use it as material in my book!

To start with the good. It’s sometimes far too easy, particularly in this line of work, to get caught up on the bad.

Like this morning, when I came across a historical paper that was so bad, so unbelievable that I rushed to write it up and link to it – and just stopped myself from clicking “publish” at the last-minute. When I remembered about the good; about teaspoons and shovels.

So, what’s the good for today? We are. All of us, of course (unless we are not) but Black folks in particular, for my purposes. (Even to write that – “Black people are good” – feels almost transgressive and bold, in the face of all that society imputes to us. I think I will write it more often.)

We didn’t lay down and die. Have never laid down and died, never given up, no matter what has been thrown at us, no matter how much some may have wanted to.

That’s one reason I want to begin and end each day on a positive note – to honor those survivors and thrivers who came before, those who exist today and those who will come tomorrow.

I need to expand on this thought and refine it when I have a quiet moment. There are important (to me) parts which I am unable to tease out right now, but I will one day.

[Note: the picture at the top is from here. The writing on the picture is too small for me to read on this device, so I don’t know who painted it. But full credit to whoever it is.)