Morgan Freeman's Thoughts on Black History Month

Not sure I fully endorse this statement, but Freeman's 2005 comments on "60 Minutes" sparked a national debate that has been interesting to watch. Check out the vid below, and you'll get my drift.

There's certainly some truth to his statement. In the same way that our futures are indelibly linked, our pasts have been just as tightly bound. So, does it make sense to relegate a people to a single month when Black history, Native American history, Asian history, Jewish history etc...you name it...are, indeed, EVERYONE'S history? But on the flip side, if we don't make a conscious effort to acknowledge and celebrate our diversity (even for a month), it will likely go unnoticed.

Not really sure what side I'm on, but I hope you've enjoyed this BHM feature, nonetheless.

I hope that this poetic journey has opened your eyes to a different understanding of the world and has helped you to discover something new about yourself. It surely has had that effect on me.

As always, thanks for reading! You rock!

-sb

::HEART:: Target's BHM Ad

If I have to watch one more rapping, singing, dancing Black History Month ad from Walmart/ McDonald's/ Kroger (and the list goes on and on), I might explode!! McDonald's has actually been on on-going offender, with the string of "urban ads" featuring a one dimensional view of black America, but has gotten way worst this month. Fortunately, there is one shining light in the ad-space...out of the rubble, one advertiser has emerged with a commercial that is actually positive, thoughtful and inspiring.

Love Target! Yes!! A company that is sharing stories about successful blacks, not just using our culture and music as the backdrop to their product story.

Thanks to All About Race for getting me hip to this ad campaign!

FREE* As in freedom

My church is starting a new series called Free, so I'm totally on a "freedom" kick right now. It's such an over-used term, especially in America, but what the heck does it really mean? Does it mean being able to pursue whatever path, without judgment and reproach? Or does it deal more with the internal state of thing? With the relationship between our internal sense and our outward persona? What role does our faith play in helping us unlock its door?

::le sigh:: Trying to understand what freedom means in absolute...what it can mean in my life, is no simple feat. So, until I get some better answers, here's a little piece by famous Ohioan Rita Dove, to noddle your brain on:-)

In this poem, Dove describes freedom more as outward eccentricity, without really touching on the cosmic question of how we are to perceive it. None the less, it's a fantastic read! With lines like, "she who has brought mercy back into the streets/ and will not retire politely to the potter's field," what's not to love?

Be sure to read this one slowly...and savor the words!

Lady Freedom Among Us
BY Rita Dove

don't lower your eyes
or stare straight ahead to where
you think you ought to be going
don't mutter oh no
not another one
get a job fly a kite
go bury a bone
with her oldfashioned sandals
with her leaden skirts
with her stained cheeks and whiskers and
heaped up trinkets


she has risen among us in blunt reproach
she has fitted her hair under a hand-me-down cap
and spruced it up with feathers and stars
slung over her shoulder she bears
the rainbowed layers of charity and murmurs
all of you even the least of you
don't cross to the other side of the square
don't think another item to fit on a
tourist's agenda
consider her drenched gaze her shining brow
she who has brought mercy back into the streets
and will not retire politely to the potter's field
having assumed the thick skin of this town
its gritted exhaust its sunscorch and blear
she rests in her weathered plumage
bigboned resolute

don't think you can ever forget her
don't even try
she's not going to budge
no choice but to grant her space
crown her with sky
for she is one of the many
and she is each of us

© Rita Dove. From On the Bus With Rosa Parks (W.W. Norton & Company).

Quote of the WEEK

"History, despite it's wrenching pain, cannot be un-lived, but if faced with courage, need not be lived again."

- Maya Angelou

Amiri Who?

Something In The Way Of Things (In Town)
BY Amiri Baraka

My mistake is I kept sayin' "that was proof that God didn't exist"
And you told me, "nah, it was proof that the devil do"
But still, its like I see something I hear things
I saw words in the white boy's lying rag
said he was gonna die poor and frustrated
That them dreams walk which you 'cross town
S'gonna die from over work
There's garbage on the street that's tellin' you you ain't shit
And you almost believe it
Broke and mistaken all the time
You know some of the words but they ain't the right ones
Your cable back on but ain't nothin' you can see
But I see something in the way of things
Something to make us stumble
Something get us drunk from noise and addicted to sadness
I see something and feel something stalking us
Like and ugly thing floating at our back calling us names
full text

Amiri Who?
"Amiri Baraka, born in 1934, in Newark, New Jersey, USA, is the author of over 40 books of essays, poems, drama, and music history and criticism, a poet icon and revolutionary political activist who has recited poetry and lectured on cultural and political issues extensively in the USA, the Caribbean, Africa, and Europe.

With influences on his work ranging from musical orishas such as Ornette Coleman, John Coltrane, Thelonius Monk, and Sun Ra to the Cuban Revolution, Malcolm X and world revolutionary movements, Baraka is renowned as the founder of the Black Arts Movement in Harlem in the 1960s that became, though short-lived, the virtual blueprint for a new American theater aesthetics. The movement and his published and performance work, such as the signature study on African-American music, Blues People (1963) and the play Dutchman (1963) practically seeded 'the cultural corollary to black nationalism' of that revolutionary American milieu." (excerpt from http://www.amiribaraka.com)

Lucille Clifton, award-winning poet, dies at 73

OMG! What?!!? I am too stunned right now to write a proper post on this. I can only say that the arts community, and the world as a whole, has lost one of the greats. So sad.

Lucille Clifton, award-winning poet, dies at 73
AP

Sun Feb 14, 2:40 am ET

BALTIMORE – Lucille Clifton, a National Book Award-winning poet and Pulitzer finalist, has died. She was 73.

Clifton's sister, Elaine Philip of Buffalo, N.Y., said the former poet laureate of Maryland passed away Saturday morning at Johns Hopkins University Hospital in Baltimore.

Philip said the cause of death was unclear but Clifton was hospitalized for an infection last week at a hospital in Columbia, Md., before being transferred to Baltimore.

The native of Depew, N.Y., won the National Book Award in 2000 for "Blessing the Boats: New and Selected Poems 1988-2000." She was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1988.

Survivors include three daughters, a son and three grandchildren. Funeral arrangements are pending.

One-Stop Shop for BHM Poet Info

I just found this great Black History Month feature on the Poets.org site that breaks down the role of African American poets/ poetry in splendid detail. Check it out!!

EVENT 2/17/10: The Art of Resistance!

Cincinnati's one and only National Underground Railroad Freedom Center has all kinds of awesome events to help us celebrate Black History Month, but the event I am most looking forward to is the ART OF RESISTANCE forum!! Not just because my Facebook Friend Charles is putting it on...promise:-)

Description and event details below. Be there or be square!

WHAT?
Community Forum: The Art of Resistance: An Artistic Response

WHEN?

February 17, 2010 06:30 PM

WHERE?

National Underground Railroad Freedom Center
50 East Freedom Way
Cincinnati, Ohio

WHY?

In his seminal essay “On Black Art”, Dr. Maulana Karenga writes that “Black Art must be for the people, by the people and from the people. That is to say, it must be functional, collective and committing…. All art must be revolutionary and in being revolutionary it must be collective, committing, and functional.” In this presentation the Freedom Center will invite local artists to engage and artistically respond to our Without Sanctuary Thematic Framework of Looking Back, Bearing Witness and Keeping Watch.

I'm Not Lonely...Any More

A week ago, I was totally dreading Valentine's Day. I mean, for a single girl, all of the lovey-dovey stuff can really deepen your own sense of romantic longing, but today actually went much better than expected.

No exes, no random text messages, no loneliness. Just quality time with really good friends and some much needed "me" time. Yes, it's been a crazy past 8 months in my romantic universe, but the sting of the last one has all but worn off. I'm finally realizing that I'm stronger than I ever gave myself credit for (yay) and that he held a much looser grip on my heart than I previously thought (double yay!!).

As they say...on to the next one:-)

I'm Not Lonely
BY Nikki Giovanni

I'm not lonely
sleeping all alone
you think I'm scared
but I'm a big girl
I don't cry or anything

I have a great
big bed to roll around
in and lots of space
and I don't dream
bad dreams like I used
to have that you
were leaving me
anymore

Now that you're gone
I don't dream
and no matter
what you think
I'm not lonely
sleeping
all alone

Happy V Day

Today, remember that somebody loves you. You are precious and cherished and wonderful...even if you're a little on the slutty side..jk:-)

Love you all...more than a fat kid loves cake!

Kicking Down Color Lines, Busting through Glass Ceilings

It wasn't until I read Anthony Walton's article "Double-Bind: Three Women of the Harlem Renaissance" that I realized how truly absent the female voice has been from our contemporary understanding of the poetic Harlem Renaissance. And, it is not that it didn't exist. Quite the contrary. Many women lit up both page and stage with beautiful words of struggle, progress, and the human condition. It is only that their status as women, black women, at that (what Walton refers to as the "double bind") made it difficult for them to get the respect and acclaim they deserved.

Well, I will do my part to keep their legacy alive!!

Thanks to Walton for getting me hip to these three feminine voices of the Harlem Renaissance. Hope you enjoy these short but powerful piece! And remember, the best way to keep this train moving is to share the love. Pass these poems along.



Dead Fires
BY Jessie Redmon Fauset

If this is peace, this dead and leaden thing,
Then better far the hateful fret, the sting.
Better the wound forever seeking balm
Than this gray calm!

Is this pain's surcease? Better far the ache,
The long-drawn dreary day, the night's white wake,
Better the choking sigh, the sobbing breath
Than passion's death!

Black Woman
BY Georgia Douglas Johnson

Don’t knock at the door, little child,
I cannot let you in,
You know not what a world this is
Of cruelty and sin.
Wait in the still eternity
Until I come to you,
The world is cruel, cruel, child,
I cannot let you in!

Don’t knock at my heart, little one,
I cannot bear the pain
Of turning deaf-ear to your call
Time and time again!
You do not know the monster men
Inhabiting the earth,
Be still, be still, my precious child,
I must not give you birth!

Quatrains
BY Gwendolyn Bennett

1
Brushes and paints are all I have
To speak the music in my soul—
While silently there laughs at me
A copper jar beside a pale green bowl.

2
How strange that grass should sing—
Grass is so still a thing ...
And strange the swift surprise of snow
So soft it falls and slow.

20 Years Ago Today, Mandela was Freed

"For to be free is not merely to cast off one's chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others."

- Nelson Mandela

Love Me Always

Love is in the air and, instead of being my usual bitter and single self, I've decided to soak it up and hold back my bah humbugs for this week! Tonight, I'm actually starting my V-Day early by heading to the Midnight Sun Cafe's Valentines poetry showcase. Yowza:-)

In honor of my slight change of heart, I'm posting this lovely piece by Claud McKay. Not your typical love poem, but McKay's not exactly your typical love poet. For a heavy hitter of the Harlem Renaissance, who made his name famous with highly political and often straight up militant poetry, this strikes just the right balance between romantic infatuation and pragmatism.

Enjoy and let me know what stores have sales on V-Day candy. I need to stock up!!

Romance
BY Claude McKay

To clasp you now and feel your head close-pressed,
Scented and warm against my beating breast;

To whisper soft and quivering your name,
And drink the passion burning in your frame;

To lie at full length, taut, with cheek to cheek,
And tease your mouth with kisses till you speak

Love words, mad words, dream words, sweet senseless words,
Melodious like notes of mating birds;

To hear you ask if I shall love always,
And myself answer: Till the end of days;

To feel your easeful sigh of happiness
When on your trembling lips I murmur: Yes;

It is so sweet. We know it is not true.
What matters it? The night must shed her dew.

We know it is not true, but it is sweet—
The poem with this music is complete.

Quote of the WEEK

“Now is the accepted time, not tomorrow, not some more convenient season. It is today that our best work can be done and not some future day or future year. It is today that we fit ourselves for the greater usefulness of tomorrow. Today is the seed time, now are the hours of work, and tomorrow comes the harvest and the playtime.”

- W.E.B. DuBois

we are the ones we have been waiting for

::HEART:: June Jordan. Poet, novelist, teacher, human rights activist, journalist. She played a pivitol role in black arts and global politics and is cosidered one of the most significant African America, bisexual authors of our time. Jordan dared to speak out, with fiery honesty, about all that ails us, as blacks and as citizens of the world. She also left us with a haunting battle cry of our generation - "We are the ones we have been waiting for." These words inspired many other works, but, most importantly, Alice Walkers book, of the same name.

Excerpt from We are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For by Alice Walker

"It was the poet June Jordan who wrote 'We are the ones we have been waiting for.' Sweet Honey in the Rock turned those words into a song. Hearing this song, I have witnessed thousands of people rise to their feet in joyful recognition and affirmation. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for because we are able to see what is happening with a much greater awareness than our parents or grandparents, our ancestors, could see..."

Poem for South African Women
BY June Jordan

Our own shadows disappear as the feet of thousands
by the tens of thousands pound the fallow land
into new dust that
rising like a marvelous pollen will be
fertile
even as the first woman whispering
imagination to the trees around her made
for righteous fruit
from such deliberate defense of life
as no other still
will claim inferior to any other safety
in the world

The whispers too they
intimate to the inmost ear of every spirit
now aroused they
carousing in ferocious affirmation
of all peaceable and loving amplitude
sound a certainly unbounded heat
from a baptismal smoke where yes
there will be fire

And the babies cease alarm as mothers
raising arms
and heart high as the stars so far unseen
nevertheless hurl into the universe
a moving force
irreversible as light years
traveling to the open eye

And who will join this standing up
and the ones who stood without sweet company
will sing and sing
back into the mountains and
if necessary
even under the sea:
we are the ones we have been waiting for.

I, too, am America BY Langston Hughes

I, too, sing America.

I am the darker brother.
They send me to eat in the kitchen
When company comes,
But I laugh,
And eat well,
And grow strong.

Tomorrow,
I'll be at the table
When company comes.
Nobody'll dare
Say to me,
"Eat in the kitchen,"
Then.

Besides,
They'll see how beautiful I am
And be ashamed--

I, too, am America.

Of Course a Chick had to Be First:-)

Yes. It's still Black History Month and...yes. I'm dropping a bit o' history on ya'll:-)

Check out the earliest known piece of literature by a black writer in North America. Although she was still a slave, Lucy Terry's poem was the most accurate account of a deadly raid that devastated a small New England town in 1746. It wasn't published until many years later (1855) in Josiah Holland's History of Western Massachusetts.

It's not the most beautiful poem I've ever read, but the historic significance of it gets me all giddy:-)

enjoy!

The Bar's Fight
BY Lucy Terry

Seventeen hundred forty-six
The Indians did in ambush lay
Some very valiant men to slay
The names of whom I'll not leave out
Samuel Allen like a hero fout
And though he was so brave and bold
His face no more shall we behold.

Eleazer Hawks was killed outright
Before he had time to fight
Before he did the Indians see
Was shot and killed immediately.

Oliver Amsden he was slain
Which caused his friends much grief and pain.
Samuel Amsden they found dead
Not many rods off from his head.
Adonijah Gillet we do hear
Did lose his life which was so dear.

John Saddler fled across the water
And so escaped the dreadful slaughter.
Eunice Allen see the Indians comeing
And hoped to save herself by running
And had not her petticoats stopt her
The awful creatures had not cotched her
And tommyhawked her on the head
And left her on the ground for dead.

Young Samuel Allen, Oh! lack a-day
Was taken and carried to Canada.

*Source

African American Literary Firsts

Novelist: Harriet Wilson, Our Nig (1859).

Poet: Lucy Terry, 1746, "Bar's Fight."

Poet (published): Phillis Wheatley, 1773, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral.

Pulitzer Prize Winner: Gwendolyn Brooks, 1950, for her second book of poetry, Annie Allen.

Pulitzer Prize winner in Drama: Charles Gordone, 1970, for his play No Place To Be Somebody.

Nobel Prize for Literature winner: Toni Morrison, 1993

Poet Laureate: Robert Hayden, 1976–1978

Black female Poet Laureate: Rita Dove, 1993–1995.

The GREAT Black History Month Fish Fry

I love food as much as the next person. Quite possibly, much more than most people. I love a good (or mediocre or slightly decent) reason to get together with friends and straight up chow down...but even a person like me has to draw the line when I get three invites in one week for Black History Month potluck dinners. No educational video or historical discussion. Just fried chicken, watermelon, and mac and cheese casserole. Really, good people!??!

Like I said, I love to eat, but Black History Month is not a time to tout our ability to make a "mean green bean casserole" or perpetuate one-dimensional archetypes of "blackness." It is the only time of the year that we are given permission to educate and be educated about the many, many contributions that Americans of African descent have made to this country.

So, this month, Evolution of Paper will be highlighting the heavy hitters of the African American poetry game...from Phillis Wheatley and Paul Laurence Dunbar to Langston Hughes and Audre Lorde! There will also be special attention paid to the big cats of the Harlem Renaissance...because it's my blog and I can do what I darn well please:-)

Come with me on this poetic journey. Hopefully we'll all learn something along the way.

-sb

*photo credits - Michael Dixon,Chicken Eaters, oil and graphite on canvas, 2005