[BlackRose1042]

Day 12: "An African-American Woman's Perspective on the Independent Living Movement in the Bay Area 1960-1980"
Screenshot of Johnnie Lacy in dialogue with David Landes from "Johnnie Lacy: Director, Community Resources for Independent Living: An African-American Woman's Perspective on the Independent Living Movement in the Bay Area 1960-1980," 1998.

A series of interviews with Johnnie Lacy, a disability rights and independent living movement leader, highlight her contributions to Black history and her tireless efforts to center the voices of Black disabled communities.

About Johnnie Lacy

Johnnie Lacy was born in 1937 in Huttig, Arkansas,  as the youngest of five. Her family lived in several towns in the South before moving to California. Her experience growing up in segregated schools informed her work throughout her lifetime.
 
Lacy contracted polio at the age of 19 while working on a nursing program at San Francisco State University.  What started as neck pain, headaches, and blurred vision worsened quickly. Ultimately, the disease left her paralyzed and in rehab for 2-3 years. During that time, she met  Ed Roberts and Bill Tainter, two other men with polio that would also become prominent leaders in the independent living movement (Ramp Your Voice).
 
Afterward, she wanted to pursue a degree at the San Francisco State University in speech pathology but was initially denied because of her disability. Lacy realized that the school wouldn’t be justified to discriminate against her if she were “just” a woman, or “just” a Black woman. It was her disability that allowed them to. She ultimately graduated in 1960 but wasn’t allowed to participate in the ceremony (Medium).
 
From here, Lacy became an adamant advocate for Black disabled rights. She noticed how the Civil Rights Movement seemed to overlook – and ignore – the needs of the Black disabled community. In that way, she realized that the discourse needed to change to center the needs of the disabled community within the fight for racial equity.
 
 

"I believe that African Americans see disability in the same way that everybody else sees it--worthless, mindless--without realizing that this is the same attitude held by others toward African Americans. This belief in effect cancels out the black identity they share with a disabled black person, both socially and culturally, because the disability experience is not viewed in the same context as if one were only black, and not disabled. Because of this myopic view, I as a black disabled person could not share in the intellectual dialogue viewed as exclusive to black folk. In other words, I could be one or the other but not both."
 --Johnnie Lacy, II Seeds of Disability as A Civil Right: Experiencing Tokenism, Condescension, Empowerment, and Pride
 
 
 
Lacy created the Center for Independent Living (CIL) in Berkeley and then led CRIL (Community Resources for Independent Living), a peer-based disability resource organization that advocates and provides resources for disabled people.  From 1981 to 1994, Lacy worked tirelessly to develop CRIL's visibility and presence in Hayward. She raised funding from corporations, the City of Hayward, and individuals to build the Hayward CRIL Center on A Street in Hayward, completed in 1984 (Ramp Your Voice).
 
Throughout her work, she advocated for the Black community to center those disabled in their fight for racial equity. She served as a role model for many other disabled Black women (Independence Now). Lacy was named Woman of the Year by the California State Senate in 1988, served on the state Attorney General's Commission on Disability, and served on Mayor's Disability Council for the city and county of San Francisco. She passed away on November 15, 2010.
 
To this day, the Black disabled community is still disproportionately impacted by racial injustices. Studies show that one-third to half of the Black people killed by the police are disabled (Time). And Black disabled people are most impacted by COVID-19 – not just for any potential pre-existing health conditions, but also because of how the pandemic has hampered access to healthcare and accessibility. Disabled people across the country, for example, are being denied access to care based on "low quality of life” decisions (NPR).
 
 
 

Reflection Questions

1. How are the needs of the Black disabled community prioritized in your community, workplace, etc?
   
   
2. Consider: how many Black leaders have you learned about that focus on disability justice?
   
   
3. What is your perception of disability justice? Are you learning from a diverse group of leaders on the subject?
   

[BlackRose1042]

Day 13 "Rachel" by Angelina Weld Grimké


Playbill for Angelina Grimké’s play, "Rachel". Courtesy of the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University Archives, Howard University, Washington DC. (DC Historic Sites)

“Rachel,” written in 1916, is considered the first play written, directed, and performed by an all-African American cast. It was written by Angelina Weld Grimké (1880-1958), a playwright and poet who often wrote about racism and systemic oppression.

About "Rachel"

Grimké wrote the play, "Rachel," in protest of “Birth of a Nation (1915),” a film that glorified the Ku Klux Klan and depicted a racist, demeaning view of Black people in the Reconstruction South. In response, the NAACP commissioned a series of works that would directly counter this hateful rhetoric and produced "Rachel" as part (Howard). This made this play not just a powerful theatrical production but a political piece that worked to make a new narrative mainstream.
 
According to the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, the program notes referred to the play as "the first attempt to use the stage for race propaganda to enlighten the American people relative to the lamentable condition of ten millions of Colored citizens in this free republic."
 
Despite being written over a century ago, the play’s premise remains timely. The protagonist is grieving after witnessing the injustices of Black life in America and experiencing the grief and sorrow of those around her. She vows never to become a mother to avoid the shared suffering of those that lose innocent children to a world of racism.
 
 
 
“Then, everywhere, everywhere, throughout the South, there are hundreds of dark mothers who live in fear, terrible, suffocating fear, whose rest by night is broken, and whose joy by day in their babies on their hearts is three parts pain.”
 
Excerpt from "Rachel" by Angelina Weld Grimké 
 
 
 
The play was often dismissed as "anti-racist propaganda" and criticized for feeling too heavy and bleak. There are no recorded reproductions of the work for decades after its first run (WHYY). But more contemporary actors and directors are reviving this story in this generation, recognizing that the sentiment reflects a world we still live in. The work may have been written over 100 years ago but remains just as urgent and relevant today.



Angelina Weld Grimké, date unknown, public domain.

About Angelina Weld Grimké

Despite the significance of "Rachel," Angelina Weld Grimké is most remembered for her poetry. Born into a prominent biracial family of abolitionists and civil-rights activists, she actively wrote about the injustices that Black people faced during her lifetime. Her work beyond "Rachel" was a critical part of the Harlem Renaissance, an influential movement in African American literary history (NMAAHC). Many of her poems also express a yearning for love and thoughts on loneliness. You can read some of her poetry on poets.org.
 
Although Grimké was particularly reclusive and private, many of her poems and diary entries suggest that Grimké was queer. Her personal journals wavered “between using male and female pronouns to conceal her lover’s gender". These letters, which have never been released to the public, "also detail her father’s disapproval of her attraction toward women" (Who’s Who: In Gay and Lesbian History From Antiquity to World War II). She is one of the many LGBTQ leaders that shaped the Harlem Renaissance and paved the path for Black people for decades to come.
 
 
 

Reflection Questions

1. What else have you read, watched or listened to this past year that protested against inequitable conditions?
   
   
2. How can you use your skills and passions to stand for change?
   
   
3. How are you supporting the LGBTQ+ leaders in your community right now?
   

 
 
 

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Day 14: “Popo and Fifina” by Arna Bontemps and Langston Hughes

Found In: Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library > Popo and Fifina : children of Haiti / by Arna Bontemps and Langston Hughes ; ill. by E. Simms Campbell.

In 1932, Arna Bontemps and Langston Hughes were the first two writers of color to have original work for children issued by a major publishing house. The two Harlem Renaissance writers' collaboration on Popo and Fifina: Children of Haiti, the first mass-market children's book, provided an intimate and nuanced look into Haitian culture through sympathetic, Black main characters.

About Popo and Fifina
Arna Bontemps (left), Langston Hughes (right.) Photo by Griffith Davis. Photo courtesy of the Yale Collection of American Literature, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, the Estates of Alberta Bontemps and Langston Hughes,
and Photos by Griff Davis.

"Simplicity, realism, a poetic charm - all these appeal to the small children who will meet Haiti for the first time in this book.” 
Popo and Fifina: The Children of Haiti came about by way of friendship. The story goes that over the span of 40 years (1925-1967),  Bontemps and Hughes exchanged thousands of letters as dear friends and collaborators. (The American Reader published one here from Arna Bontemps – Langston Hughes Letters. Edited by Charles H. Nichols., and reading one of their letters led to the posthumous publishing of their book, Boy of the Border: A Children's Tale). Prior to Popo and Fifina, the authors were successfully published novelists, poets, and archivists (Bontemps even a librarian!), but this was their first endeavor for a children's audience.
 
It was praised by the New York Times for its "simple home-like atmosphere," and how it “ tempts us to wish that all our travel books for children might be written by poets” (New York Times). This review was vital in getting Americans of all backgrounds to see the shared similarities they had with the Haitian family depicted in the book. 
 
The original book sleeve introduces the characters and premise of the story in an inviting way:
 
 “These funny names belong to a small black boy and girl who live on the Island of Haiti. What fun they had - and how like the fun of any children anywhere in the world. Yet it all happened on a tropical island far away.
 
Moving day is an exciting event; for Popo and Fifina it meant a few bundles slung upon burros and a long dusty walk from their home in the hills down to the little town by the sea. Sett’ling down in a new home was fun, but mama Anna became homesick, and they paid a visit to the hills; then small Popo had an adventure of the “Drums at Night.” Rather soon after that he had to start his work in the world, in a fine carpenter shop, and there he learned one of the great hero-stories of his land. A very live picture of this little world is given, ending with the thrilling visit to the light-house, and tropical storm.”
 
 
 

The Importance of Childhood Literacy

In 2016, Professor Michelle H. Martin, former Augusta Baker Chair in Childhood Literacy at the University of South Carolina and current Beverly Cleary Endowed Professor for Children and Youth Services in the Information School at the University of Washington, gave remarks titled “Brown Gold: African American Children’s Literature as a Genre of Resistance” at the  Schubert Center for Child Studies of Case Western Reserve University. In reference to Popo and Fifina, she said:
 
[The book] “combats the prevailing notion that black Americans and those in the African Diaspora spoke broken English reminiscent of slavery, that they were shiftless and lazy and that their broken families left their children to their own devices”—all tropes that still bedevil the white imagination.”  (AWBA)
 
Throughout history, those with political power have worked hard to prevent Black people from reading. This makes the celebration of early publications such as Popo and Fifina all the more sweeter, but also drives us to further champion what remains unpublished. According to the AWBA article mentioned earlier, “among the 3,500 titles sent to the Cooperative Center for Children’s Books in 2013, less than three percent were about black people and less than two percent were written by black authors”.
 
Literacy remains a powerful tool for liberation. Time continues to reveal the incalculable value of not only being able to read and write, but also the critical skills to interpret, discern, and to not only embody the lessons of Black children’s books such as Popo and Fifina, but also defend against health misinformation and the movement to ban books with social consciousness and concern. Literacy allows us to travel the distance of time, place, and social location – To honor the past, preserve the present moment, and dream and envision new possibilities for our future.
 
 
 

Reflection Questions

• Consider: When is the last time you read a children’s book? When was the last time you read a children’s book about Black characters by Black authors? What was it about?
  
  
• In addition to Bontemps and Hughes, Alice Walker, bell hooks, W.E.B. DuBois, Nikki Giovanni, Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, Toni Morrison, and Gwendolyn Brooks all wrote children’s books in parallel to the writings intended for adults. Why do you think this is?
  
  
• How does historical illiteracy impact our ability to address COVID-19 misinformation and the banning of books?
  

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Day 15: The Quilts of Gee’s Bend

Doris Pettway Mosely, a quilter in Gee's Bend, with one of her creations, via Etsy.

The quilts of Gee's Bend represent a practice of quilt making that started with enslaved women in the early 1800s in Alabama. The patterns and styles have been passed down through generations, literally and figuratively stitching together a legacy of Black culture throughout time. Initially, the quilts were purely functional – stitched together for warmth. But in the 1960s, the quilters joined together to create a coop, selling the quilts to create economic independence. Since then, the quilts have made their way across the nation, carrying with them stories from generations past.

Housetop Variation by Loretta Pettway. Photo by Steve Pitkin/Pitkin Studio, courtesy of Souls Grown Deep Foundation

Quilting, or, the stitching together of layers of padding and fabric, is a practice found in nearly every culture throughout history. Oftentimes, it was a functional practice; a way to use discarded scraps of fabric to create purposeful bedding and garments for warmth. But there are also demonstrated examples of using quilting for art in many cultures to commemorate people and events, pass down stories, or show alliance to causes. In the U.S. quilting was a popular pastime for women, and often a chore passed to enslaved women (A Block Away). There’s also that quilts were used to send messages for the Underground Railroad (Smithsonian).
 
When enslaved people in Boykin, Alabama – better known as Gee’s Bend – began to quilt, it was rooted in necessity. After the end of slavery, the freed Black people remained, working as sharecroppers (Auburn University). When the price of cotton dropped in the 1930s, the community faced economic ruin. A federal program that provided loans to formally enslaved people to own the land they lived on was introduced in 1930, allowing the residents of Gee’s Bend to obtain and preserve their community (Souls Grown Deep). Despite facing hardships as they established independence in an isolated part of the South, the quilting continued, passed down through generations.

Housetop, Log Cabin Variation by Lucy Mingo. Photo by Steve Pitkin/Pitkin Studio, courtesy of Souls Grown Deep Foundation

During the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. visited Gee’s Bend. The community rallied behind him, marching and registering to vote.  The local authorities retaliated by shuttering the already limited ferry service available in the community. Reportedly, the sheriff stated that  "We didn't close the ferry because they were Black. We closed it because they forgot they were Black” (Smithsonian). Again facing isolation and ruin, the group created the Freedom Quilting Bee, a workers cooperative that allowed quilters from Gee’s Bend and nearby Rehoboth to find economic sustainability. They began to sell their quilts around the U.S., introducing new communities to their vibrant and unique patchworking (arts.gov). When collectors became intrigued in the 1990s, their work became a fixture in the arts space.
 
Now, the work of Gee’s Bend can be found in over twenty permanent collections in art museums around the world (Souls Grown Deep). Three of its members, Mary Lee Bendolph, Loretta Pettway, and Lucy Mingo, have been awarded 2015 NEA National Heritage Fellowships (arts.gov). I've added a photo of each of their work in this email. But until recently, these quilts weren’t available to buy online. Last year, the makers partnered with Souls Grown Deep, a foundation dedicated to preserving the work of southern African American artists, and Nest, a nonprofit dedicated to the “handworker economy” (ArtNet). Together, they made it possible for Gee’s Bend community to sell their work on Etsy, and now, anyone can join in on preserving the legacy of their work.

Strips And Strings by Mary Lee Bendolph. Photo by Stephen Pitkin/Pitkin Studio, courtesy of Souls Grown Deep Foundation.

Although there’s still a thriving population in Gee’s Bend, there’s limited industry (Auburn University). As part of the worker’s co-op, members that sell quilts keep part of the profits for themselves, and share the rest with other members, ensuring collective sustainability. Not only does quilting continue to preserve the history and culture of the community, but invests in its future.
 
 
 

Reflection Questions

• What cultural artifacts carry stories from your immediate family? Does someone in your family paint, or draw, or create music? 
  
• What do your clothes say about you? What story does the clothes you consume today say for your family? For future generations?
  
• What were the types of crafts that your ancestors spent time doing? If you don't know, how can you learn more?