Posts Tagged ‘fannie lou hamer’

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Ornaments tell a story, part 2


2010
12.15

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Yesterday I started a little series on Chrismas ornaments and how they tell stories.  How every year when I hang ornaments on our window, I replay the particular occasion that the ornament brings to mind.  I put this photo in yesterday, but in case you missed it, I’ll do it again because we don’t have a tree, we have a window.

So, a few more stories.

When I taught at Fruitvale Jr. High my lunch was fifth period.  About ten of us had 5th period lunch and we became a close group.  We always ate in the lunch room.  I didn’t allow anyone to eat lunch in their classroom while they worked.  Not that I was in charge or anything, but it just seemed important.  I know when new teachers started they must have wondered who the lunatic was who thought she was the boss.  But soon they realized we had a good thing going.  We pulled the tables together and talked, laughed, and learned.  There was no griping or complaining or gossiping allowed.  Our 5th period lunch bunch was legendary (or else it’s a legend in my own mind) and we gave each other little goodies at Christmas.  Lori Maynard, who taught history, gave out these tin seahorses one year.  Lori and I both coached history day and we spend lots of time together traveling to the state and national competition.  We don’t see each other now because she’s still teaching and I’m not, but I remember Lori every time I put out this decoration.  I think I’ll call her for lunch soon.

We went to China right before the Beijing Olympics.  It was a wonderful trip – a National Geographic Expedition and boy, did they do it up right.  I bought this little Olympic mascot doll to hang on the window.  You can see a pagoda hanging next to it – another of those Cost Plus ornaments I talked about yesterday.

I used to go to Lugano, Switzerland to visit William Jordan, a student of mine in 7th and 8th grade who went to high school in Lugano.  I went the first year for a long weekend.  Was I crazy? Perhaps.  But a friend of mine surprised his wife on their anniversary one year with a long weekend in Paris.  If they could go to Europe for a few days, so could I!  And I did.  The second year, however, I realized it was a bit much for a weekend so I added three days in Venice by myself.  I took a tour of the Doge’s Palace and afterwards, out front, found these cute little puppets at a cheesy souvenir stand.  I bought some for everyone and decided to give them out as ornaments.  Who knows – maybe that’s what they were designed to be – but they always make me remember that trip.

There’s something else it reminds me of, too.  I booked a room in a small little place I found in the Rick Steves tour book.  After checking in, I set out for a walk to get an idea of the surroundings, and when I decided it was time to head back, I realized I had no idea what the name of the place was or where it was – and no business card or anything!   I didn’t really panic because I realized Venice is very small and it’s an island so I was bound to stumble upon it sometime. I started walking until I saw places that looked familiar – and I’ll tell you, my lifetime habit of taking note of my surroundings really paid off. I did find my room without too much difficulty – no small feat, but I did it.

This star was a gift from my dear friend Michael Purcell.  He’d gone to Santa Fe and brought this ornament back.  I remember lots more that I won’t discuss, because it became a very painful time in Michael’s life.  It all worked out, and I see the ornament as a testament to resiliency and the human spirit.

Ah, this bedraggled kitten in a mitten.  I fell in love with it as a twisted version of the Three Little Kittens who lost their mittens.  And I bought it in a Christmas store on the Outer Banks in North Carolina.  Christmas stores that were open all year weren’t so common then – it must have been 1974 – but we had good years in North Carolina and great trips to the Outer Banks, so that store provided me with lots more than a kitten in a mitten.  It’s provided me with memories of our three years in North Carolina.

Yes, it’s a key chain and I really didn’t need a key chain but I determined it could go on the Christmas window.  When Ali, my 16-year-old granddaughter was in 7rh grade, she and a friend made a video documentary for History Day on Fannie Lou Hamer.  Hamer was a hero of the Civil Rights Movement and you can go right here on You Tube and watch their video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xKXoXwYpzmU.  Take ten minutes to learn something about this remarkable woman.  Ali and Allie were invited to present their documentary at the Second Annual Conference of Mississippi Civil Rights Veterans, where it was well received.  This key chain has nothing to do with Fannie Lou Hamer, but it is from the Mississippi Museum of Natural History and it brings the entire experience to mind.  And it is a gecko, which again has nothing to do with Fannie Lou Hamer, but I like geckos.  I have a tattoo of a gecko on my back (my 60th birthday present to myself).

If you watch the video and want to contribute to a fund for a statue to honor this woman, go to fannielouhamer.info.  You can give as little or as much as you want.

Ok last one today.

Two gold birds.  Three years ago was my parent’s 65th wedding anniversary and I planned a big party.  I went all out with decorations and these gold birds I believe I used on the napkins.  It was an amazing event if I do say so, so now I put the birds on the Christmas window not just as a reminder of the party, but as a testament to a long and happy marriage.  My parents just celebrated their 68th.

More tomorrow.

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Courage


2010
06.09

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Posted in Essays about Life, General | 3 Comments »


Links of Courage by Larry Poncho

Courage is reckoned the greatest of all virtues; because, unless a man has that virtue,

he has no security for preserving any other.  ~Samuel Johnson

I’m exploring the topic of courage on Coach Dian’s blog challenge. Everyone has been invited to discuss in any way at all one of the twelve subjects this particular art installation addresses, plus a thirteenth added by Dian. The art installation itself is from a Burning Man festival, and asks us to what do we pledge allegiance, learning to see with new eyes and act with new vision in the web of life.

Courage encompasses so much.

For many people, seniors and those with debilitating conditions especially, courage is getting up every day, getting dressed, and meeting the day.  I feel that the day one or both of my parents doesn’t get dressed, we’ll have crossed a threshold.

Courage for people in the armed forces, both past and present, seems to me to happen as much at home as on the battlefield;  returning home and having the courage to work through issues caused by war, and then lead what passes for a normal life.  My dad fought and painted as an artist correspondent in the Fifth Army during World War II. He endured what many think is the most brutal confrontation of that war: the Battle for Monte Cassino. To come home from that, start up a life with his bride, have children, work, and do all the things that a family man would do – that, to me, is exceptional courage. Not just for Dad, but for all the servicemen and women in all conflicts and wars.

During many hisorical movements that led to social change, courage was vital.  In the United States during the civil rights era, men and women, young and old alike, risked their lives to fight for the ability to exercise their rights – rights that already were theirs in law, just not in reality.  When asked if she wasn’t worried about being killed, voting rights activist and former sharecropper Fannie Lou Hamer said she reckoned they’d been trying to kill her all her life anyway. To honor this brave woman, click here and make a donation, large or small, to the statue committee.  We building a work of art, a visual reminder of courage. Alice Walker, author of The Color Purple, donated $10,000.  The Color Purple itself is a story of courage. You can watch a 10-minute video about Fannie Lou Hamer here - my granddaughter  and a friend made it when they were in seventh grade.

Addicts, alcoholics, those who fight every day to conquer their problems show courage.  It takes tremendous strength to decide to quit an addiction, and courageous determination every day to stay clean.  Those who move forward in the face of abuse and then try to help others are courageous.

I could go on and on because courage comes in all shapes and sizes; it’s not simply saving someone from a fire, or all the “big” things we think about.  Now, I know there is nothing simple about saving someone from a fire, so don’t get that wrong.  It’s just an example.

Because for me, personally, courage can be something as small as taking hold of oneself and moving forward – something no one else ever knows about.  Personal courage. It can be saying to someone, “I’m Jewish, and I wish you wouldn’t use the expression ‘Jew them down.  It’s offensive.’ “  Which I’ve had to do.  It’s publicly sticking up for someone getting bullied at school, not worrying about retaliation or how you will look to others. It’s doing what’s right.

Maybe that’s what courage amounts to – in the macro-situations like war, rescue or defense to the micro-situations like getting up and getting dressed each day when you’re 92 and just plain tired, or standing up for others.

So that’s what I think courage is – now, how do I use it to expand my view of the world, see with new eyes, act with new vision, and pledge my allegiance to this quality? This is tricky.  I’ve always tried to exercise personal courage and in many instances have, I think, and we talked about it a lot in the leadership class I taught in 8th grade.  I’ve never had to exercise courage on a large scale, however.  Now I wonder.  When you’re young, you are ready to put yourself in harm’s way for the sake of something larger than yourself.  When you’re older and retired, you wonder if you would have the energy to do the same.  So I pledge myself to the smaller gestures – to not letting an insult or slur pass me by, to stopping at the accident or picking up a stray animal even if it’s inconvenient, giving a cordial and civil greeting to the homeless person I pass on the street, even if it seems scary.  Doing what’s right, not what’s easy.

Mark Twain had something to say about this.  Mark Twain had something to say about almost everything, all from sharply observing the world.

It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world and moral courage so rare.  ~Mark Twain

A wonderful vision of the world, of our country, would be to see everyone doing these small things, everyday acts of personal courage, that could result in a whole new world, dare I say a brave new world.  My vision of  courage would be to know everyone is working on what I call CSI – continuous self-improvement.  From that alone, the internal courage to face yourself, like yourself while working on what you don’t like, the external small acts of courage would result.  A new  vision of the web of life would be that with enough external small acts of courage, many of the large ones wouldn’t be needed anymore.  Maybe that would be called peace, with yourself and the world, in the world.

Tomorrow: Leah’s Creative Everyday Day theme of Bliss.


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Being non-judgmental, inclusive, generous and positive: a reminder from the Glamberts


2010
05.23

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“A man is but the product of his thoughts; what he thinks, he becomes” ……. Mahatma Gandi

Late yesterday afternoon I did a quick check-in on Twitter and saw that Adam Lambert would be coming up on the KISS concert in Boston. Great timing for me – I didn’t even know there was a KISS concert.  I’m don’t know much about this radio live-streaming stuff.  As I waited, I reflected on my fangirl experience and realized I’d learned a lot about being non-judgmental.

I believe I have basically always been non-judgmental in that I try to be open to anyone, no matter how odd that person seems at first or what he or she looks like.  Others in my family tell me so – and that they operate from exclusion, not inclusion – they say so, not me.  I’m the one that invites people to Thanksgiving when they have no where else to go, and at first my family was not happy.  But I was cooking the dinner so I did it anyhow, and it turned out just fine.  Still does.  Why would we not include people if we are able to?

As I embarked upon my year-long study of fandom and started following other glamberts (fans of Adam Lambert) on Twitter, sometimes I’d think, That person is a little scary; why is that person so obsessed, or that person must be living in a fantasy world.  As I prepared to go to Fantasy Springs for Adam’s first concert, I bought flashing antenae, which – face it – could be seen as more than a little weird. And, let’s face it again, I was being judgmental about something I had no real knowledge of.  And I was a little bit scared. But I started to meet people, people I’d known only on Twitter, or whom I hadn’t even seen on Twitter.

This is what I found out. One woman, who seemed a little bitter and in need of attention, had experienced an unexpected divorce a year prior, right when Adam’s season of Idol began.  She had no children and was adrift.  This was giving her an anchor, at least until she sorted other things through.  Others had simiilar situations.  Some were just having fun.  Some, like me, had just fallen in love with this wonderful man and felt fiercely protective and supportive.  I didn’t think I was scary, obsessed or living in a fantasy world (although sometimes I’d like to).  Why had I been feeling so judgmental?

And I found out this: I was one of those fangirls that could be seen as a little obsessed (but could we say focused instead of obsessed?).  According to my previous thinking, I was just as scary as anyone else.

I remembered that one of my daughters likes the eHow I wrote on How to Control your Anger in Traffic better than any of the others.  In that little article I said it wasn’t worth getting fussed at drivers who sped ahead, did something rude, because we didn’t know what was going on with them.  Sure, they may be rude people, but they may be rushing to get to a hospital or a child, they may have had a horrible day, someone in the family may have died – we just don’t know.  So how can we make judgments? Perhaps of an act, but  not of a person.  If I live by the premise I try to, that everyone is doing the best they can, where they are with what they have, I have to believe that the rude person is doing the same.  I don’t have to like it or befriend that person, but there is it.

And this is what I found out, and have continued to see on twitter: the Glamberts are kind, generous, non-judgmental, inclusive, and caring.  They are positive people.

And I realized this: Adam never says anything negative about anything or anybody.  He’s a master of diplomacy, yet – that’s the way he is inside.  He is always telling people to be positive, that being resentful is “so yesterday,” that entitlement “isn’t sexy,” and when his fans ask if he likes gifts from them, he says of course he does, but he’d be happy if people gave him receipts from charities they’d donated to instead.  How can you not love this beautiful human being – beautiful inside and out – with an indescribable voice?

I guess like attracts like, and that’s why Adam has attracted such a large, loyal fan base that share his values.  He sets a positive, non-judgmental, inclusive tone.  When a Glambert -or – anyone – says something negative on twitter, that person hears about it – nicely, from other Glamberts.

Last night when being interviewed and asked about the fan gift thing, Adam said to donate to a charity and give him the receipt instead of a gift.  He didn’t specify what charity.  I tweeted to @glamulli to help spread the word about the fund drive I’m involved in to build the statue for Fannie Lou Hamer., seeing it as an opportunity to maybe bring in some money and shoulder my part of the fundraising effort.  I said $10 a person would help even. And that I thought Adam would approve of this charity.

@Glamulli did retweet my request because Glamberts can count on the support of other Glamberts.  It’s actually amazing.  Already someone has tweeted she made a donation, and not for Adam this time, but because Fannie Lou Hamer needs to be “remembered and celebrated.”

I’ve not been successful getting many donations. A plea on facebook resulted in two.  I’m guessing I’ll get more from Glamberts than any other source. It’s easy to donate on Fannie Lou Hamer.

So that’s my train of thought, my journey through judgment in the last few days, my belief that being inclusive is so much more positive than being exclusive.  I’m glad I was reminded of it because since I am not a perfect person, I have to keep on striving.  I hope I never become a perfect person – it would probably be boring – and it would end the journey, the climb.  We’ve got to keep climbing until the very end, when we topple over into wherever it is we end up.

Benjamin Franklin said it well: “The best thing to give to your enemy is forgiveness; to an opponent, tolerance; to a friend, your heart; to your child, a good example; to a father, deference; to your mother, conduct that will make her proud of you; to yourself, respect; to all men, charity.”

And like Fannie Lou Hamer, celebrate the positive.



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Odds and ends and follow-ups


2010
04.24

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Review of Painting World War II: The California Style Watercolor Artists

The art show we went to recently, in which one of my dad’s World War II paintings was exhibited, got a wonderful reivew.

Check it out here.

Weedpatch Camp

I posted not too long ago about the Sunset Labor Camp, or Weedpatch Camp.  Here’s one of the wonderful things about the internet.  I received a comment from Judy Anderson, a woman who lived in that camp as a child.  We’ve exchanged a few emails since and she has helped bring history alive.  For example, here is one of her emails.

“In reminiscing about the past I remembered a few things you might find interesting about the history of the camp. There used to be tents instead of houses. At least the front part was tent and the back part which was the bathroom and one bedroom was build very crudely with scrap wood. It rented for $10.00 a month. The one room wood shelters were $12.00 a month and the better built wood structures were from $15.00 to $20.00 a month. There was a general store strictly for the residents which had the absolutely cheapest prices anywhere. You were issued a card when you moved in and had to show that card to prove you lived there. You could buy a loaf of bread for 5 cents. It was not the best grade of food but it did keep people from going hungry. It was upgraded as time went on and lost some of the stigma of being poortown. Hope you find this interesting.”

Without the internet, blogging, and so on, we could never make these kind of connections.  And I was able to put our local Dust Bowl historian Doris Weddell in touch with Judy.  Wonderful.

Alice Walker and the Fannie Lou Hamer Statue Fund

You know that cause that I keep begging people to donate to?  Even $10?  We got a big boost the other day when Alice Walker (The Color Purple) made a $10,000 donation.  Gloria Steinem is on board as an honorary board member and she will make a like contribution.  It’s so easy – just click on this link for fannielouhamer.info; click on the NBUF button, and donate even a small amount.  Then feel good that you’ve honored someone who was willing to die if need be so everyone could exercise the right to vote.

If you want to learn more, click here.  Take ten minutes and watch a documentary my granddaughter made when she was in 7th grade.

Besides, as a committee member, I have to be bringing in some donations.  Help!

The first party in the new house


More like a lunch than a party, but I had my parents over for lunch today so they could see the house as it’s shaping up.  My husband went and picked them up.  My sister and her husband came also, and we had a lovely lunch in the backyard.  Beautiful day.

Stay tuned for more thoughts about moving and pictures from The Bellmore, a new underground (literally) art gallery in Bakersfield.  Plus – I damage another camera.


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#CED2010 Check-in: Bodies of Water, Graceful Bodies, and Pants on the Ground


2010
01.17

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Posted in Art, Photography | 1 Comment »

Thanks for reading Putting Your Body on the Line

Before I begin today’s post, I want to say thank you to everyone who read and forwarded my last post - Putting Your Body – and Life – on the Line.  Over 300 people have clicked on the link to the video in just a few days – I don’t know if they’ve watched the entire 10 minutes, but they’ve at least looked.  And maybe a few donations will have trickled in to the Fannie Lou Hamer Statue Fund. I know it’s a tough time to ask for money, especially when we’ve all just donated to Haitian relief.  I sent a donation to Doctors without Borders, an organization that is already established in Haiti and certainly critically needed right now.  But I think we can all squeeze out just a little bit more, especially with the stark reminder Haiti has given us of just how lucky we are.  Tomorrow morning Ali and Allie, the two seventh-graders who made the video (they are now in tenth grade) will be showing it at the Martin Luther King Community Breakfast and later at the youth luncheon.  I’m really proud of them.  Especially in this photo, which was on the last post:

Mississippi Civil Rights Veterans with Ali and Allie

They are centered in this photo taken in Mississippi at the Mississippi Civil Rights Veterans Conference.

Pants on the Ground

One more item before today’s post.  Did everyone watch Pants on the Ground?   The American Idol audition of 62-year-old “General” Larry Platt who wrote this little ditty because he was tired of seeing kids with their pants hanging around their knees?  It turns out he’s a civil rights veteran who marched with Martin Luther King and others!  I love this guy.  We’re all going to be singing Pants on the Ground, and there are some terrific remixes out there already.

Graceful Bodies, Bodies of Water

We finally made it to today’s post!  Still working with the Creative Every Day theme of Body, I extended the theme a bit to bodies of water.  Leah said we could interpret it broadly!  I’m fascinated with water – the patterns in water, colors, and I’ve been wanting to do a collage using water.  One thing led to another, and I came up with this.

I painted the background on canvas using acrylic paints.  The rectangles and squares are from photos taken in Mazatlan, Pismo Beach, Cambria (both in California) and a fountain at Disneyland.  Most of the paper is glossy but some, such as the long strip on the bottom, is Epson Velvet Fine Art Paper (I do all my printing myself).  I got all that arranged to my satisfaction – after several days of looking, walking away, changing something, etc. But I needed a focus and grabbed that Japanese Print book we were discarding.  I have a feeling that a whole series of collages is going to come out of this book.  So I found the perfect images in color and shape, and they lent such grace to the collage.  So we have Graceful Bodies, Bodies of Water.

I am particularly fond of this because it reminds me of some of the quilts my mother has made.  Hers from cloth, mine from water (figuratively).  It’s very poignant to think of my 86-year-old mom and her quilts as she still goes out to the studio and moves around blocks of cloth, but her memory isn’t there anymore and she can’t sew or quilt.  None of us are sure, but I don’t think she realizes that she doesn’t actually quilt as she’s moving around cloth and planning what to do next.  So in the best scenario, she’s still getting pleasure from it.  For the rest of us, it’s quite poignant.

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Putting your BODY (and Life) on the Line Every Day


2010
01.14

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The above collage was done in tribute to what I’m about to write.  I took the photo of the woman on a bus in Mississippi.  The background is a jellyfish from the Monterey Bay Aquarium.  I called it Breakthrough, part of my Muse series.   The rest of that series is posted on my art gallery.

Thanks to the blog Creative Every Day, hundreds of people around the world are focusing artistic efforts around the theme of BODY for the month of January.  We can count ourselves amongst the fortunate – people who have the time to ponder such things as our bodies.  Interpreting the theme broadly, I’ve read wonderful posts on the concept of sin relating to women, new life growing within us, and many profound postings.  Such deliberation is useful and good.  It contributes to new insights in understanding us, which lead to understanding the world and our fellow (wo)man, and then perhaps being able to share that understanding.  Paying it forward with deliberation, ideas, and energy that will make the whole a positive force.

But as I said, we are among the fortunate.  In this post I want to pay tribute to the idea of BODY in its most extreme.  I want to write about Fannie Lou Hamer, a black woman who put her BODY on the line, literally, almost every day of her life in Mississippi during the Civil Rights Movement.  She didn’t have the luxury we have as highly actualized human beings sitting on the top of Maslow’s Pyramid.  She was fighting for us, though – every one of us, every day.  Her BODY was on the line for all of us who believe in equal rights for all.

Born in 1917 on a plantation in Mississippi, Fannie Lou Hamer had 19 brothers and sisters.  In 1962, at the age of 44, Mrs. Hamer learned  from SNCC, the Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee, that she had the right to vote.  She immediately went to the Sunflower County courthouse to register, and upon returning to the plantation, learned she had lost her job and her home. And of course, she wasn’t allowed to register.

Sunflower County Courthouse today

Being black in Mississippi was about as bad as it got.  I learned a great deal about this woman in 2006-2007 when my granddaughter Ali did a History Day project at school.  She was in the 7th grade and along with a friend, another Allie, spent six months of dedication daily, researching and making a ten-minute video about this remarkable woman for the competition.  (History Day designates parameters for projects – videos can only be 10 minutes long, and every year has a theme.)  The theme for that year was Triumph and Tragedy.  And as their coach, I had to be present when they were working in the tech lab, so I spent just about as much time as they did.  The project, however, is theirs and theirs alone.  I advised.  They produced.

Ali and Allie and I were invited to go to Mississippi to present the video at the Annual Conference of Mississippi Civil Rights Veterans.  It was a life-changing moment.  So many people we’d read about and whom I’d been reading about for many years in studying the civil rights movement with students were in that room.  The foot-soldiers, the ones who had the absolute courage, both white and black, to put their bodies on the line while fighting for the right to vote – the most basic right in our society – were there, along with more well-known names.  Many of the Freedom Singers were there, and wow, could they sing.  And they all did quite literally put their bodies – their lives – on the line.  On one occasion, Fannie Lou Hamer was severely beaten, lost the sight in one eye, and walked with a limp thereafter. On another, she was released from jail because of the intercession of Andrew Young, Martin Luther King’s right-hand man at the time, just hours before she and others were to be released from prison at midnight.  In Mississippi, that meant certain death.  Ali and Allie interviewed Andrew Young on the phone and heard that story first-hand.

But she didn’t quit – her BODY took the beating, but her spirit carried on. Seeing so many of these folks made history real and immediate.  The next picture is one of Ali and Allie in Mississippi with Charles McLaurin and Lawrence Guyot – both on the front lines of the movement.  In fact, McLaurin co-founded the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party with Mrs. Hamer and later, when she ran for State Senator, was her campaign manager.

My Ali, Charles McLaurin, Lawrence Guyot, and Allie

A photographer from the Smithsonian, who had been part of the movement, was present and he took the next photo.  They asked Ali and Allie to be in this photo as the future of the movement.  Wow.  I can hardly describe how I felt. I won’t even try.

Mississippi Civil Rights Veterans with Ali and Allie

I mentioned Fannie Lou Hamer’s spirit.  She had a compelling singing voice and used it to keep her spirit and the spirits of those around her focused on the positive and the goal.  Eyes on the prize.

While we were in Mississippi, we went to Ruleville, her home town, and visited the Fannie Lou Hamer Memorial Garden and Gravesite.  She was known for a phrase that she uttered every day and asked be put on her tombstone: I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.

Allie, me and Ali at FLH gravesite

I think it’s important that people remember and understand Fannie Lou Hamer.  We need knowledge of the past to improve the present and plan for the future.  We need examples of the sacrifice and bravery with which people met life – things we haven’t been asked to do on that scale.  At least I don’t think most of us have been asked to risk our bodies every single day from birth.

This link will take you to a page from which you can view the 10-minute video.  I promise it’s worth your time.  It’s my page on a national committee to raise money for a statue of Fannie Lou Hamer to be constructed and placed in the Memorial Garden and Gravesite, which is a stop on the Civil Rights Trail.  If you want to donate, there’s a link on the page to NBUF, The National Black United Fund, which is accepting the donations on our behalf.

But what I really want to do is pay tribute to the idea of BODY in it’s most extreme, and to a woman who was willing to risk her body to do what was right.  Fannie Lou Hamer is a real hero.