Collision Courses

A Sewanee Facebook friend posted he had room in the car for others to join him on his journey to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the murder of Jonathan Daniels in Hayneville, AL.

I was young then, in 1965, but as a Birminghamian I was not unaware of race injustice and hatred. Lucille W., who worked for our family for more than 30 years, had gone on the March on Washington during her annual vacation; my church's curate, also my youth leader, took me, one brother, and a few others to hear Joan Baez give a concert at Miles College, a black institution, after which we drove into a mass demonstration on the way home; when the church vestry threatened to fire that same curate, the rector said they'd have to fire him, too; at the Sunday 11 o'clock service ending the state Episcopal Youth Conference meeting at my church, parish representatives processed with their flags and on seeing two black teens among them, the parishioners in front of me -- acquaintances of my parents -- left, the man muttering something about the "damn n*****s" in his church.

the text below is from Joan Baez's memoir And a Voice to Sing With (the motel's name has been misspelled; it's the Gaston, not Gadston)

But the summer Jonathan Daniels was murdered, I was blissfully unaware of it, spending two months at a then-all-white camp in North Carolina in my eighth year of my version of heaven.

Since then, of course, I have learned these things: Jonathan Daniels, a seminarian, took the shotgun blast intended for a 16-year-old black teenager, one of three companions with whom he walked to the store (another was seriously wounded); his murderer, who worked for the state, was acquitted by a white jury and remained unrepentant throughout his life, spending it in the same small town; a family friend, the Rev. Francis X. Walter, so close that my mother made his first stole as an ordination gift, officiated at Daniels' funeral because no other Episcopal priest would; my brother, Francis's friend, attended that funeral, as did Stokely Carmichael, whom I heard speak at Vanderbilt just two years later.

Here Am I, Send Me: The Story of Jonathan Daniels from Episcopal Marketplace on Vimeo.

It was a time of collision -- when race hatred, a part of this nation's history and present, met commitment and courage among many peoples, including some I knew and loved.

At this year's pilgrimage celebration, another collision occurred: some I know now from Sewanee, some I've known from childhood, and at least one fellow camp counselor (image 4) attended, and all were lucky enough to hear a rousing sermon by Michael Curry, current presiding bishop of the Episcopal church, a sermon delivered in a style Lucille would have recognized as familiar and 1960s white Episcopalians might have found unfamiliar.

No longer a church-goer, I nevertheless admire such men and women who, throughout my life, have modeled commitment to faith through commitment to the other. May we all be victorious.

I Saw Her Once

and over the last weeks of discussion about the Charleston murders and the battle flag, I have been thinking of her righteous indignation and artistry.

A Time to Speak, Again

Beauty in the Margins

I.
Since I started taking daily pictures about seven years ago, I've slowly learned to look beyond what's in the foreground and attend to the margins. Bokeh, I've also learned, is what it's called -- that beautiful fuzziness and blurring that lends richness and color and interest. Here are a few pictures from 2014 to demonstrate what I mean.

II.
In my childhood, black folks disappeared in the margins insofar as white folks were concerned. They weren't seen, just as I once didn't see the full richness of a moment suspended in time by my lens. During my youth and then in my adulthood, all peoples of color have stepped forward to take their places in the foreground, earning legal rights, if not always full respect of some others.

III.
Today, in some counties of my native state (Alabama), gay people are marrying because -- despite the Attorney General's plea to the Supreme Court and the Alabama Chief Justice's objections -- they can. And these folks, too, who have historically been backgrounded have come to the fore.

Judge Michael Graffeo and the first couple he married today

IV.
Beautiful bokeh is as much a part of the whole as a black person or a gay person or a Native American or a handicapped person or a female or anyone else is to the fabric that can make of all of us one beautiful picture of what's possible.

Three Beautiful Things: Dylan Thomas, Hyacinths, Congressman John Lewis and Happy

(inspired by Clare Law's blog found here)

1.  My first poet love, Dylan Thomas, features in today's New York Times in a beautiful article by Ondine Cohane. Like her, I discovered Thomas's poetry in high school. I listened to his voice recordings and read the poems over and over and over again the way some teens today obsess over a song or musical artist. In my junior year, I won the school's poetry contest (think oral interpretation) with "Fern Hill," and those beautiful lines still, all these years later, come quickly to my tongue and mind.

2.  The hyacinths in Abbo's Alley unfold slowly from bud to olive-cream to blue-purple flower, and with them I celebrate the coming of that season that reminds me of the generous fecundity of the world in which I am but a small part. I lay on the "fields of praise" this morning, snapping again and again and again only for the joy of looking.

3.  In my youth, racist terrorists tried to kill Congressman John Lewis, then a Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee activist dedicated to winning civil rights for all those living in the country he calls "The Beloved Community." A hero. A true American hero. A fellow native Alabamian, a man with dignity and faith in our better selves and commitment to doing good, no matter the cost, and joy in living. He dances. He is happy, and he makes me happy. 

Birmingham Fifty Years Ago

In his inaugural address, Alabama Governor George Wallace declared "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!"

At the Melba Theatre, I saw To Kill a Mockingbird, in which two young actors I knew appeared.

Martin Luther King Jr. was arrested and wrote "Letter from Birmingham Jail."

The Children's Crusade helped to make the struggle for Civil Rights a national issue.

I heard Joan Baez in concert at Miles College and sat in an integrated audience for the first time in my life. We held hands and sang "We Shall Overcome." When we left, traffic was diverted because of a major Civil Rights demonstration that began at New Pilgrim Baptist Church.

Governor Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door and was ordered to move by General Henry Graham, soft-spoken father of a childhood friend. I watched them on live television.

Our housekeeper Lucille attended the March on Washington where Martin Luther King Jr delivered his "I Have a Dream" speech, which I watched on live television.

Four black girls were murdered in the Sixteenth Street Baptist Church bombing and two black boys were later shot dead. A childhood neighbor sculpted the memorial dedicated on the anniversary this year.

President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas on November 22.

My mother died on December 3.

engagement photo

Historic Inauguration

I have watched television all day long, including now as I write this post. I am seeing something I thought I'd never witness, the inauguration of an African American President. This is a day worth celebrating because it represents the renewed promise of the principles underlying our democracy and of our motley population.
For those who worked in the Civil Rights movement and for those who witnessed, as I did, the horrors of legal apartheid in this country, today is one we'll never forget. Raised in Birmingham in the 1950s and '60s, I went to segregated transportation stations and sat on the "Whites Only" side; I enjoyed Kiddieland and the Alabama State Fair, which black children didn't; I remember the march on Selma and the bombings and demeaning slurs; after sitting in my first integrated audience at Miles College to hear Joan Baez, our group found ourselves stalled on the way home by the Miracle Sunday march toward downtown; I had lengthy conversations with the woman who cooked and cleaned for us about race and about her trip to D.C. for the March on the Washington; and I lost my faith when at church the couple in front of me walked out when black teens walked in, the man muttering "Nigger." I was a child of white privilege living safely in a suburb, but I hated the system and the government that upheld it.

I am proud to say that in this Presidential election I voted for the first serious female candidate in the primary and for the new President in November. I am even prouder to be a witness to the outpouring of joy in our election of a man who, as one bystander said on TV today, carries the blood of all the continents.

He is the American story in one person.

What a day.