Putting a Price on History

 Greetings Reader!  Some time back I wrote about how a historic photo of Harriet Tubman was being auctioned by a major dealer.  Happily, the photo, along with other items in the album, was jointly purchased by the Smithsonian and the Library of Congress, you can read about it here https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/smithsonian-library-of-congress-rare-1860s-photo-harriet-tubman-180962818/. 

Can history be rescued again?  This time, it is a humble document--a ledger showing signatures of people who received a piece of mail while incarcerated.  Who's signature?  Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Where and when?  The Birmingham Jail in 1963.  Yes, the place where Dr. King wrote "Letter from a Birmingham Jail."  You can read a draft of it and hear him read it here:  https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/king-papers/documents/letter-birmingham-jail

Fine Books magazine, which brought my attention to this sale, introduces it with the following statement "Black History Month, observed annually in February, recognizes the African-American struggle for freedom and key events that empowered the Civil Rights Movement. In honor of Black History Month and the legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Hake’s will open its February 24-25 auction with a unique and highly important testament to the great civil rights leader’s courage and resolve. Never before seen publicly, the lot consists of four logbook pages from the Birmingham Jail, hand-signed 12 times by Dr. King during his 1963 incarceration."  Really?  Profiting from the record of incarceration of Dr. King is "in honor" of Black History Month.  These words are posted here:  https://www.finebooksmagazine.com/news/mlk-signed-birmingham-jail-logbook-offered-hakes-feb-24-25-auction

So let's look at the auctioneer's listing, which is here:  https://hakes.com/Auction/ItemDetail/244390/LETTER-FROM-A-BIRMINGHAM-JAIL-MARTIN-LUTHER-KING-MULTI-SIGNED-BIRMINGHAM-JAILHOUSE-LOGBOOK-PAGES

The auction link doesn't make a claim about this sale being "in honor" of anything so I'm not sure where Fine Books got that idea, of if there is a printed catalog I haven't seen linked stating this.  Auctioneer Hake's does provide the provenance of the ledger, stating "The oral history passed down through the consigning family states that these pages were salvaged by a jail employee who was instructed to destroy the ledger but had the foresight to preserve these pages, eventually passing them to the family's history buff patriarch where they have been held until now. This offering marks not only their first appearance in commerce but their first public display."

Foresight to preserve the pages...mmhmm.  And proffer them up for sale in the year 2021, in the immediate months after the protests over the killing of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor?

So Internet, let's do this.  These papers documenting how Dr. King was able to stay in touch and communicate with the Civil Rights movement must be preserved at a location that can make digital copies part of the available worldwide curriculum and preserve the physical copies in the highest archival state.

Heading over to social media to start making some noise about this.  Look for me @Bookcharmer on twitter and signal boost if you can. 

The angry archivist Bookcharmer 

The Country of John Lewis

Good morning.

Taking the morning to watch the funeral of Congressman John Lewis, right now watching the broadcast on NBC, where right now Jon Meacham is speaking and in his praise for Lewis has just said "This is not sentimentality, this is history."

We are fortunate that so much documentation about John Lewis exists across so many formats, including his autobiographical works and his writings.  This morning brings news that

I'm ready for catharsis this morning, to weep for the people who have been dishonored and whose lives have been stolen by hate and racism. 

The church bells are ringing now as people enter the church. 

The service is beginning now in Ebenezer Baptist Church, spiritual home of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. The pastor already has the entire group of people attending on their feet applauding for Lewis. 

Can you imagine the joyful reunion Lewis will have on the other side? 

Rev. Bernice King is speaking now, speaking to the country, to the world, from the church where her father preached.

Jennifer Holliday is singing now and the broadcast is showing footage of people gathered outside the church. People inside are lifted to their feet at the power of her voice. 

Rev James Lawson Jr. is welcomed to the speaker's place with applause. He is giving a master class on the history of the Civil Rights Movement and his voice becomes a towering presence as he calls for honoring Lewis by fulfilling the promises of the Constitution.  He calls for us to be loud as long as women and children are in poverty, as long as our country continues to be violent, as long as our economy is shaped by plantation capitalism. 

A message from Former President Carter is read.  Kathleen Bertrand is singing and raising the audience.

Xerrnona Clayton is speaking now.  She is sharing the story of how she was the matchmaker for John Lewis and his wife Lillian and it is like hearing a cherished family story.

William Campbell, former mayor of Atlanta is speaking now, reflecting on the first time he met Lewis.

Jamila Thompson, Lewis' Deputy Chief of Staff is speaking and her voice is thick with grief.
But in recounting what is what like to work with him, says with a huge smile "He was always in our business." Sharing the spirit and energy of being around him, and sharing the names of staff who worked with him for many years.  Sharing his work ethic and legendary memory and that she has saved the voicemail messages from him on her phone.

I'm going to stop chronicling for now because I know Obama will be on soon and I'm going to give my full attention to the rest of this powerful service.

Lewis wrote an essay published in the NY Times today that concludes:

"Though I may not be here with you, I urge you to answer the highest calling of your heart and stand up for what you truly believe. In my life I have done all I can to demonstrate that the way of peace, the way of love and nonviolence is the more excellent way. Now it is your turn to let freedom ring.

When historians pick up their pens to write the story of the 21st century, let them say that it was your generation who laid down the heavy burdens of hate at last and that peace finally triumphed over violence, aggression and war. So I say to you, walk with the wind, brothers and sisters, and let the spirit of peace and the power of everlasting love be your guide."

Public Art Now

Greetings, greetings.  I write again from my couch, my after hours desk since the armchair is for work hours and the dining table is a carnival of mask sewing and letter writing.  I should give you a proper update on COVID-19 (it's bad) but I can't just now because I've had a question rattling around in my head for a few days and last night my subconscious presented me with an answer.

Right now across the U.S. and parts of the globe, the outrage for how people of color have been treated is manifesting in many ways, including in the form of response to public art, or visual culture if you will.  And it is happening in so many places and in so many ways it is hard to keep track, but most notably the statue in Richmond Virginia of Robert E. Lee has been the spectacular canvas for uncommissioned public art (some call it graffiti) as well as project images at nighttime.  This statue, just this afternoon of July 1, 2020, has been taken down. 

In the past weeks, several public sculptures of conquerors/colonialists/lost causes/racism have been taken down in public acts of protest.  The dialog on social media has been fascinating as people advocate/complain/try to digest/explain.  The comment that has stuck in brain though:  Did you ever learn anything from a statue?  Forgive me poster of this question, I'll try to track you down but I foolishly relied on my ever overburdened brain bank to remember who posed the question.  The question really stuck with me though--I've been mulling it over for a few days because part of the question also involved the aspect of what did you learn from the statue itself, not from any signage or plaques on/nearby? 

So first, shaking down the memory bank.  Sculpture.  Have a seen a sculpture recently?  My most recent specific "going to a sculpture"activity was waaaayy back in early C19 times, before the shelter in place order, when a good friend and I agreed to meet for a walk on a rainy afternoon on a nearby famous campus and she famously said "I'll meet you at the Gates of Hell."  This particular nearby campus is known for being awash in Rodin, so we had plenty of sculptures by him to review, including aforementioned Gates of Hell.

But what did I know of that giant sculpture, and did I really stand to interpret it, before immediately seguing into gossip with my pal and steering her toward what I wanted to see, the Arizona garden?  Reader, I did not.

So I had to work my brain a little harder.   Sculpture, sculpture.  Fountains probably don't count in this in moment, and I've only seen the Trevi fountain in pictures, anyway.  Sculpture....and suddenly I was awake at 2 a.m. and rush of memories came back in surprising detail.

My first year at San Jose State University was luckily the same year that the monumental sculpture of Olympians Tommie Smith and John Carlos was unveiled on campus.   I had not known prior to accepting the position at SJSU that the world famous image of Smith and Carlos and Peter Norman on the medals podium, Smith and Carlos barefoot, each with one hand gloved and raised in protest, heads bowed as the national anthem played, was a watershed image in civil rights and university history.  But I was there that fall day on campus when this huge, literally larger than life sculpture by Rigo23 was unveiled and the two men who had taken their moment of triumph on the world stage to speak for others were there to see it, almost 40 years after.   Interestingly, the presence of the sculpture on the campus was due to student activism--initially when the student athletes, who were part of the famed Coach Bud Winter Speed City track team, returned to campus, they were not warmly welcomed by parts of the community by their actions were defended by President Robert Clark. 

But to get back to the statue--to see this representation of the two Black athletes, the details true to life through the use of 3D scanning technology to create the ceramic tiles mounted on a steel frame and the faces made of bronze.  If you look closely at pictures or get to see it in person--what do you see?  It is more than raised fists--it is the button they are both wearing for the Olympic Project for Human Rights, it is also the fact they are barefoot, taking their shoes off to represent the poverty and injustices faced by Black people in the late 1960s.  I know these details because I was there to see the statue unveiled, to hear both men talk about their lived experiences, and then to have it be part of my work life landscape, a gathering place, a destination, a reminder. 

As Maureen Margaret Smith writes in her article "Frozen Fists in Speed City" the sculpture represents many things to many people.  For the University as an entity, the opportunity to show delayed respect to students that went on to become civil rights icons, and in that moment of commitment would lose countless financial opportunities for sports celebrity.  I recommend reading the autobiographies of both John Carlos and Tommie Smith for how they have negotiated their legacy and their current work.

I can't let this discussion go by without mention of Dr. Harry Edwards, whose name I did not know that fall day in 2005, but would come to know in 2016 when this organizer of the Olympic Project for Human Rights came to campus to initiate the process of donating his archives to the SJSU Library.  Nowhere on the sculpture do you see the name Dr. Harry Edwards, but he played a pivotal role not only in this protest but in protests that have happened in the past fifty years where people who use their bodies to play the sports, win the races, make the points are not respected off the field. 

Ok, I'm a little tired and I'm not doing justice to this topic at the moment, revisions to come in the next draft.  But think about it--what have you learned from a sculpture? 



Further reading:
Beyond Bronze https://sjsunews.com/article/beyond-bronze

Smith, Maureen Margaret. "Frozen Fists in Speed City: The Statue as Twenty-First-Century Reparations." Journal of Sport History 36, no. 3 (2009): 393-414. Accessed July 1, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/26405221.

Fifty years later, Peter Norman’s heroic Olympic stand is finally being recognised at home.
https://theconversation.com/fifty-years-later-peter-normans-heroic-olympic-stand-is-finally-being-recognised-at-home-102112

Speech

This post is a reflection and appreciation of a person who has had a tremendous influence on my life, someone I now realize helped to shape my personality and ability to express myself.  I write this because every day on the news, another person of color is violently murdered.  Like the tragedy of Philando Castile, each day a community member is ripped away because of racism, hate and violence, fear and guns.

Who are you taking away?  I write this, and I hope you'll share it, because I owe the way I listen and speak to an African-American women, Mrs. Oglesby.  I'll admit, I'm a little vain about my voice.  No, I can't carry a tune, but I can speak loudly and clearly to a class, calmly and patiently to an individual, crazily and happily to plants and pets and objects.  Like most academics, I am guilty of enjoying the sound of my voice when I'm holding forth on topics dear to my heart, but in this case, I will admit to that vanity because my voice is not just an accident or a gift, it was shaped by a skillful teacher.

The figure in my life that literally shaped me was my beautiful speech therapist, Mrs. Oglesby.  When I was missing some crucial front teeth as a first grader, I had the privilege of getting to spend a couple of hours each week with her and some other lucky students.  We had no idea we were getting additional attention because we couldn't pronounce words properly, getting to spend time with this tall lovely woman was like play.  We colored worksheets, we sang songs about Sammy the Snake, we had one on one time with her when we practiced sounds and words, and at the end, she would take our hand and pour m&m candies into it, making us laugh the whole time.  I had no idea she was teaching me to listen, to pay attention to how taking a breath before I spoke would change what I said or how I said it...I just remembered I adored getting to spend time with this kind and elegant person.

I get up and talk in front of City Councils.  I use my voice to welcome new students to a large school. To give directions to a stranger, or to ask questions I need answers.

And this morning, people standing up for their First Amendment right to assemble and protest are in jail.

What can we do help?

Donate:  https://www.crowdrise.com/baton-rouge-bail-fund

Use social media to support Black Lives Matter.  Speak up.

Be in community.  Whether your place of worship is a church, a garden, a choir, get yourself there and raise your voice.