Thoughtful Thursdays, Stayed on Freedom’s Call page 44, and BlockBusting

       How do neighbors in your town come together?

     I started my own walking singing tour company in the belief that song was a powerful way to help bring people together to learn from our history.  Some of what I learned is in my book Stayed on Freedom’s Call (last week was page 43 and clearing the way…):

” … doctrine of Separate But Equal.  That famous ruling, and indeed the preceding rulings in 1948, set the stage for the protests of the 1960’s necessary to secure enforcement of the rights gained in the court room.

Let us go, now, to Upper Northwest, into the “tree streets” of Shepherd Park where a group of neighbors inspired cooperation across the nation.

Uptown Black-Jewish DC: Shepherd Park

Countering Blockbusting, Creating Integrated Community

        We travel back in time just a little to the turbulent 1960’s to the fight to keep neighbors and synagogues from leaving Shepherd Park, working to build common ground. In three short years, “Boss” paved the streets, but cost the city both its money and its votes.

Many asserted that the Colored 24% of the City’s electorate had much to do with the 1874 loss of Home Rule.

This flower and tree-filled section, where the streets are named for the plants which the man who gave his name to this neighborhood cultivated, has always been an exclusive part of Upper North West.

Page 44  …

      “

    So, it turns out that I might have needed to explain a bit more about housing covenants in Washington, DC, too…

page 43 was last week, next week will be Page and Farther Along 45…

Action Prompts:

1.) What are your thoughts on this page of the book?  (You can download the entire book for free via the  links on the ShiraDest webpage, menu above…)

2.) Share your thoughts on how this page from Stayed On Freedom’s Call helps continuing empathy-building cooperation, and may also  help, or hinder, inclusive thinking.

3.) Write a story, post or a comment here that uses those thoughts.

Dear Readers, ideas on learning, especially multiple LanguageLearning, on-going education and empathy-building, to EndPoverty, EndHomelessness, & achieve freedom for All HumanKind? 

Support our key PublicDomainInfrastructure  & StopSmoking at least for CCOVID-19:
1. PublicLibraries,
2. ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good publictransport

-we can learn from the past Stayed on Freedom’s Call for free,

                  help build a kinder future:  Project Do Better: we can build a Better World

 

Peace     ! שָׁלוֹם

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

ShiraDest pubs

the year, 2021 CE = year 12021 HE

Stayed on Freedom’s Call includes two ‘imagination-rich’ walking tours, with songs, of Washington, DC. New interviews and research are woven into stories of old struggles shared by both the Jewish and African-American communities in the capital city.

Shared histories are explored from a new perspective of cultural parallels and parallel institution-building which brought the two communities together culturally and historically.

Shira Destinie Jones’ work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.