A recent story on Democracy Now! features Bernice Johnson Reagon, SNCC Freedom Singer member and founder of the group Sweet Honey in the Rock, discussing Odetta and her impact on the Civil Rights Movement and folk, blues and and roots music. Broadcast also features Odetta in her own words.
To listen go here.
I found out about this online petition, authored by Quincy Jones, on the Public Folklore Listserve.
More information can be found at the Chronicle of Philanthropy’s Government and Policy Watch section of their webpage here.
I am curious, whose memory do you carry in your life? Whose life and attributes do you think about when you contemplate the folklorist, activist, cultural worker type person you want to be?
Let me explain why I am so curious about this.
Due to the illness and recent loss of my dear and wonderful mother, it’s been over two months since I have really posted any new writing to this blog. Since my mother’s death over a month ago I continue to spend a lot of time thinking about who she was and the legacy of perseverance, hope, courage and love she left for all of those who knew her. My mother was a woman who gave everything to what she believed in, namely that people are sacred and deserving of love and hope. I feel so honored I was able to care for her and spend the last few months of her life listening to and learning from her. As I try to figure out how to move forward, I wonder how I can incorporate her memory and spirit into my daily life.
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Here are two upcoming opportunities for those interested in human rights education and organizing.
New Tactics in Human Rights Education online discussion to be held Nov 19th- 25th (only one day left)
New Tactics in Human Rights Education
And Decemeber 5th-7th Highlander will be hosting a workshop on popular education and organizing as part of their Social Change Workshop series. There is limited space still available. Highlander is located in New Market, TN, near Knoxville:
I found out about this from a fellow folklorist on a folklore list serve. I thought many would find it informative and interesting. This is not a partisan statement.
The last few days I have been very upset about Palin’s comments about community organizers.
I feel her comments reflect she has no respect for everyday citizens who work to make this world a more just place. I firmly believe community workers and grassroots activists are the heart of a democratic nation.
I found this article last night and encourage everyone to read it and pass it on.
As folklorists, we too are community organizers. Some of us may be overt activists and some of us not. But we are all community service workers, and I believe we can not stand for having those in power mock our democratic struggle. I encourage everyone to talk to your family, your neighbors, your friends, about the importance of community work. We can not afford a leader in office who does not understand the value of everyday citizens working for change. It’s unacceptable.
Social Justice educational publishers and organizations Rethinking Schools and Teaching for Change have published a middle and high school history curriculum based on Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. A copy is available for free download here. To download a free copy you must agree to respond to a survey and provide feedback after completing the book. You need not be a middle or high school teacher to download a copy.
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This very important film was produced out of Appalshop’s hiphop radio program, Holler to the Hood.
The film synopsis reads:
Up the Ridge is a one-hour television documentary produced by Nick Szuberla and Amelia Kirby. In 1999 Szuberla and Kirby were volunteer DJ’s for the Appalachian region’s only hip-hop radio program in Whitesburg, KY when they received hundreds of letters from inmates transferred into nearby Wallens Ridge, the region’s newest prison built to prop up the shrinking coal economy. The letters described human rights violations and racial tension between staff and inmates. Filming began that year and, though the lens of Wallens Ridge State Prison, the program offers viewers an in-depth look at the United States prison industry and the social impact of moving hundreds of thousands of inner-city minority offenders to distant rural outposts. The film explores competing political agendas that align government policy with human rights violations, and political expediencies that bring communities into racial and cultural conflict with tragic consequences. Connections exist, in both practice and ideology, between human rights violations in Abu Ghraib and physical and sexual abuse recorded in American prisons.
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I recently saw this exhibit at the National Museum of the American Indian in D.C. The artist, Nora Naranjo-Morse, who is a Santa Clara Pueblo, is the first Native American woman to make an outdoor sculpture in D.C. What amazed me most about these beautiful sculptures is they will eventually be worn away by the wind and rain, thus purposefully eroding over time.
You can listen to the podcasts about this exhibit here.
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Just the other day my friend Dr. Kristin Dowell, an anthropologist who works with Native American communities, suggested I look into a project called Native Seeds, a seed bank and cultural memory bank based in the southwest. It am so excited about the information that I had to post about it.
Native Seeds
Started in 1983, this organization was one of the founders of RAFT (Renewing America’s Food Traditions ), and safegaurds seeds native to Native American communities in the southwest. What’s even more amazing is not only do they safegaurd the seeds, they also maintain what they refer to as a Cultural Memory Bank. Their website explains it this way:
“In the late 1990s, NS/S undertook to expand our seed bank efforts to include a cultural component, integrating cultural information – the agricultural practices, stories, songs, and recipes associated with specific crops in the seed bank – with our existing database of collection information. In effect, we would combine the geneticist’s concern for conserving unique traits of a crop with a folklorist’s concern for conserving oral history about the crop.”
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