The First Bite

America has a multitude of best-kept secrets. The Albany Georgia Civil Rights Movement  is one of them. It started in the fall of 1961. I was seven years old, and my late sister, Betty, was just shy of twelve.To my knowledge our late parents—like most of the more than 20,000 blacks in Albany at the time—were not active in the Movement. Quite the contrary, they sheltered us from it, for obvious reasons: extreme southern white bigotry was nothing to mess with. Yet that is exactly what a few brave souls chose to do, mess with the racial status quo in order to force change. You will meet many of those heroes in future posts.

I have many vivid memories of my parallel life growing up on Hazard Drive while this crucial part of American history unfolded around me. These memories were the bud for my upcoming novel, PEACH SEED MONKEY, where I have placed a host of fictional characters inside the very real present-day Albany, complete with flashbacks to the highly charged 1960s.

I invite you to visit here often (and subscribe!)  to learn how important the Albany Movement was–and still is–as an instrument of change and a model for the Women’s Movement, Vietnam protests and subsequent non-violent struggles for human rights throughout the world. Although the Movement is crucial to this story, PEACH SEED MONKEY is a work of fiction and will set out to do what novels do best ~ present the author’s exploration of a certain truth.

Leave comments, join the conversation as I’ll be sharing snippets from my process and travels—both mythic and actual—as they pertain to and inform the story; sometimes going back to 1960s Albany and my childhood house on Hazard (now a parking lot, for real); sometimes looking around my present-day life in northern California and even projecting ahead to the world our teenage daughter is headed for. I will let you in on why this is a story I am powerless to resist.

Golden Gate Bridge is 75!

Sunday, May 24, 1987 ~

Hard to believe it’s been 25 years since Rob and I joined 300,000 +  people for “Bridgewalk 1987″, celebrating the Golden Gate Bridge’s 50th Anniversary. One thing’s for sure—you could hardly call what we did a stroll on the bridge…what was everybody thinking?? Who knew if the thing would hold us all!

We were living in SF at the time so we walked from that side. We made it only as far as Fort Point before our crowd hit a wall of people coming from the Marin County side. And there we all were, stuck for hours. One of the worse days of my life. I thought we would surely die on that bridge, especially when somebody convinced too many of us to jump up and down in unison.

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

My time is consumed with rewriting Peach Seed Monkey so I haven’t read a book cover-to-cover in months. But this past week I spent every spare moment reading Rebecca Skloot’s, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks. The book’s been out since 2010, so I’m late—my copy has been stacked on my bedstand with many other titles I’m collecting to read when I finish writing. Don’t know what made me start reading the Lacks’ story, but I’m glad I did. I’m sure most of you are far ahead of me, but for those who haven’t read it or don’t even know the book, it’s an important story:

In 1951,  a poor, black tobacco farmer named Henrietta Lacks died of cervical cancer at John Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. The attending doctor—who lived into his nineties—never saw another tumor like Henrietta’s. Without the family’s knowledge samples of Henrietta’s normal and cancerous cells were taken for cancer research, as was and still is done countless times, in search of cells that will become “immortal”, providing priceless opportunities for all kinds of research. But Henrietta’s cells were/are like no other and launched an incredible true story that would finally come to the world stage in Skloot’s astounding account.

Kept alive in cultures for the past 50 years, Henrietta’s cells have been on a parallel course with world history; from civil rights to the cold war; genetics and polio to AIDS. Depending on your POV, this story reads like a novel or science-fiction-horror. Onethingaboutit, like the HeLa cells, this is a story like no other:

“Doctors took her cells without asking. Those cells never died.
They launched a medical revolution and a multimillion-dollar industry.
More than twenty years later, her children found out.
Their lives would never be the same.”
— Book cover, The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

The Barber of Birmingham

Boy I tell-ya…it’s amazing what can grow in your own backyard.

Robin Fryday lives about a mile down Center Road from me here in Novato, CA, and I’m so glad we met about a week ago through our mutual friend, Sharon Eide (met Sharon years ago on my morning walk).

Sharon follows this blog and has been telling me for months that I have to meet Robin—co-director of the 2012 Oscar nominated short documentary, The Barber of Birmingham—Foot Soldier of the Civil Rights Movement.

We all finally met for lunch downtown Novato, and what a great day that was! Shirley Gavin Floyd , Civil Rights Historical Researcher from Birmingham, was with Robin. They walked into the restaurant with movie posters in hand, rolled and tied with a ribbon like a diploma. (I was grateful to Shirley for helping me temporarily increase the black demographics in downtown Novato).

As you can imagine the conversation was lively; I gave them Peachseed Monkey bookmarks and introduced a few characters; Robin and Shirley shared stories of their journey making the film, and of the late Mr. James Armstrong—the subject of the film and a mighty force indeed. He cut hair at Armstrong Barbershop in downtown Birmingham for more than 50 years. His most famous client: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Mr. Armstrong was one of many who put everything on the line for racial equity and the right to vote during the Civil Rights Movement. It was beyond belief for him in 2008 to witness President Obama’s Inauguration.

Last Monday I drove to Oakland for a screening at Bishop O’Dowd High School. The Barber of Birmingham packs a powerful punch into 25 minutes, a perfect length for educational purposes, which was a goal of Robin and her co-director, the late Gail Dolgin [http://barberofbirmingham.com/who-we-are/gail-dolgin/]. A fitting legacy for an American citizen who did extraordinary things.

THE SKINNY ~ Mark your calendar to see the film on:
Thursday, August 9th
National Broadcast on PBS
www.pbs.org

Prom Season

May, 1972, the year of my senior prom. I made the dress, (polyester double knit, what else) but when I opened the door, there was no accounting for my date’s outfit.

Speaking With Conviction ~ Taylor Mali Poem

We Americans have an epidemic linguistic problem and it DRIVES ME CRAZY!! I’ll write the next section of the post in a way that illustrates my point:

Three Heroes—with more on Emmett Till

133 people visited the blog yesterday! A recent high, topped by 296 the day I launched six months ago. I’m psyched! Thanks to all who came,  read, hopped around the site and commented.

L-R: Dennis Roberts, Charles Jones, me and Peter de Lissovoy at BBQ hosted by Chevene King, Jr. in Albany, GA. June 2011

It’s 5:30 am Saturday and I spent a restless night thinking about Emmett and Trayvon and their families, finally pushed from the bed by these words and the picture above taken last June in Albany when I met these three heroes of the Southwest Georgia SNCC Civil Rights Movement at the 50th Anniversary.

Trayvon and Emmett

Back in March, I had my husband take this picture of me, still using it as my Facebook profile.

Life has its moods and swings, ups and downs, and so does this blog. As much as I was renewed by my post honoring Ms. Irene, and encouraged by Angela Blackwell, I am drained by this post. I knew I would be and put it off for weeks, not wanting to dive into the horror of it, but it’s just as important now—as it was in the past—for the truth not to be buried. We all know too well the story of Trayvon Martin and ask the question how can this be happening in 2012? From the time I first heard of Trayvon’s murder I saw the obvious comparison to Emmett Till.

Angela Glover Blackwell: Intelligent passion personified

I love it when a person makes so much sense that you can’t help but understand them. That’s the case with Angela Glover Blackwell who says ~

“America doesn’t want to talk about race,”  and also, “America can see its future.
And it’s a five-year-old Latina girl. It is a seven-year-old black boy.
What happens to them will determine what America looks like.”

I have my husband, Rob, to thank for pointing my nose toward this Bill Moyers interview with her. 

Ms. Irene

Graduation from Albany State College, 1952

Ask anybody who knew my mother well and you’ll get stories of her positive attitude, her love of people and how she was a leader; in the Gaines family she was born into, and the Jones family she married into. Oh…and they may mention how she liked giving you a loving maul with her fist in the fleshy part of your arm…just to show she cared!

April is National Poetry Month ~ and so ~ A Poem

Brownland Browsing

by Anita Jones

when you sit down you make a lap   a place for something to happen   cradle your plate at the potluck where they didn’t think enough to set up tables   rock a baby to sleep   bounce a toddler on your knee   pat out the rhythm for juba-this-and-juba-that

when you stand up your lap disappears but the notion is always there