Review: Chevy Chase: A Home Suburb for the Nation’s Capital, by Lampl & Williams

    This excellent book, part of my reading as I created the singing walking tours of DC which went into my book Stayed on Freedom’s Call,

StayedOnFreedomsCallGoodReads

was coauthored by Elizabeth Jo Lampl and Kimberly Prothro Williams, adn published by Maryland-National Capital Park and Planning Commission, the Montgomery county historical preservation commission, and the MD Historical Trust Press.  It covers the history of Chevy Chase, which is the immediate across-the-border neighbor of upper North West DC, as you go up Connecticut Avenue, which is the main drag of the city, as far as I am concerned, since that is where I spent my earliest summers with my Grandma Marie at what we called ‘the old folks home’ -which was really just an apartment building set aside for the elderly by the DC Housing Authority.  Like CC, which is about a twenty minute walk north of that part of Connecticut Avenue, the entire neighborhood, or both of them, rather, are reasonably quiet, but as soon as you cross the city line into Chevy Chase, you get much more shade, from many more trees. It seems that a Col. Belt (for Beltsville, MD?) got a land grant in 1725 (his house apparently stood about 500 yards se of CC circle) for the entire area.  There were three main plantations (CC, No Gain, and Hayes Manor).  It seems that the area was chosen as a suburb in 1885, by the CC Land Co. The breezes made it cooler in summer, which is important in DC.  In 1862, Congress charters the Washington and Georgetown Railway (yes, G’town was part of the District, but it is so hard to get to that even now it feels like a different city…) to run three horse-drawn streetcar lines from the LeDroit Park and Mt. Pleasant neighborhoods up “immediately beyond city limits.”   That gets us the first streetcar neighborhood or suburb.  Then, in 1873, the B & O steam rail line crossed Montgomery county into DC, which opened up Upper Montgomery county to forming the new ‘rail road suburbs’ (which are now near the ends or at the extended ends of the Metro lines, like Takoma Park).  The electric trolley comes along in 1888 to Richmond, VA, then to DC and forms more suburbs in Montgomery County.

     At about this point, behind the scenes over three years, from 1887-1890, Francis Newlands begins secretly buying land, and in June of 1890, the CC Land Co. goes public.  Then, he and architect Frederick Olmstead start planning separate business and dwelling areas with non-grid streets, larger parks, and water so pure that District residents took the street car to bring water home to DC.  [Gee wiz, no change there from our horrible water quality back in the 1980’s huh? -Shira comment]

   The lack of stores was made up for by delivery wagons (see who is benefiting from all the extra transportation infrastructure required by their intentional division of businesses from residential areas…).  Then, the CC Land Co. sold lots with building covenants enforcing restrictions, resulting in upscale residents building expensive homes with mandatory levels of frontage, and banned businesses in all residential suburbs.

   In the 1930s, GM completed the catastrophe by starting to systematically buy up streetcar companies, and replace the streetcars with buses.

Lovely.  So that is how the end begins.

Let’s Do Better.   Please.

Shira

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Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

aka Shira, or:

ShiraDest

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Review: The Guide to Black Washington

    This this is a book with several authors, Sandra Fitzpatrick, Maria R. Goodwin, and Adele Logan Alexander,  that I referred to extensively while I was writing Stayed on Freedom’s Call: Cooperation Between Jewish And African-American Communities In Washington, DC, to fill out background information from the Black-Jewish community cooperation tours I’d created in 2010.

On P. 36, the DC Jail, the second one, from 1839-1874, was a Federal jail, not the City jail as we know it today, on Judiciary Square, and was used as a slave warehouse.  This was documented in 1815 by Jesse Torrey: “kidnapped freemen … transportation to the slave regions.”  Anyone arrested had to “prove free status & pay for stay” until by the late 1820s even the government was noticing, when PA Rep.  Charles Miner charged them with “gross corruption” -important to remember so that nowadays we do not allow government facilities to effectively become private warehouses, thus subsidizing those businesses.  There is also an interesting note about the “Back to Africa” movement society beginning in 1817, but my notes cut off there, and pick up several pages in my notebook later.  A bit confusing, to say the least.  Reminds me of the rather chaotic state of things for me back at that time.  I’m glad that I managed to hang on to this notebook, and now have the time to redact these notes and try to get them into some sort of order.  I recall being very moved by the work of Anthony Bowen, whom I had never even heard mentioned as I attended the most prominent historically Black academic high school, Dunbar, which had been The M Street School, the feeder to Howard University.  Bowen started the first YMCA open to Colored youth in the District, he was a conductor on the Underground RailRoad, and he served with John F. Cook, Jr. and the Rev. Henry McNeal Turner, eventually also becoming a recruiter for the 1st US Colored Troops (noted as a 1st USCT recruiter, so likely a recruiter for that particular regiment from DC).  Pages 46-8 note the locations of several private slave jails and slave pens in DC.  In a fascinating note for those of us who grew up shuddering with dread at the state of the projects at Berry Farms, by the late 1980s, the authors note that Anacostia and Berry Farms began as a commitment to self help at the end of the Civil War.  So the Black community has not gone down due to our own depravity, as we have always been told, but rather due to a deliberate lack of resources, I must say, but back to the book review.

     By page 115, we come to Griffith Stadium: 1924 Giants v. Senators was considered a big game, apparently, for the white players, but when the Senators were away, and the Grays (DC’s Negro Leagues baseball team), pulled 28k fans to the Senators 3k fan!  The Redskins, whom we grew up calling the Deadskins until they won two back to back Superbowls, came to DC in 1937, and in 1963 they got RFK stadium, and finally had to integrate.  The Howard theater, please note, was always integrated, in stark contrast to The National Theatre, whose odious practices, like hiring “spotters” from the Black community, as Constance Green notes in her 1967 book  Secret City: A History of Race Relations in the Nation’s Capital, were well known.  Many more notes that I simply haven’t got time to enter:

     There is much much more, about the Strivers’ Section, The Gold Coast, Georgetown before it gentrified in the 1970s, Mt. Zion UMC (my grandma Marie’s church) as the oldest Black church in DC, Yarrow Mamout’s home and history, and the old Slave Quarters, all in G’town.  I found this book very helpful, in conjunction with several other little know books on DC, for uncovering histories that are rarely spoken of these days, particularly, I believe, with regard to The Washington Grays, DC’s Negro League team.  My notes end with a reference to a Resurrection City protest encampment on The Mall of which I now have no recollection, unfortunately, so I will clearly have to read this book again, one day.

Highly recommended. …

Shira

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1.) Share your thoughts, please.

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

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     Thoughtful Readers, please consider reading about #ProjectDoBetter.  This review is my way  of contributing to this project. Let’s Do Better.

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

aka Shira, or:

ShiraDest

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Review: The Jews of Washington, D.C.: A Communal History Anthology by David A. Altshuler, ed.

     First, our usual SoL Saturdays PSA reminding Cooperators to share with friends and neighbors on your local consumer protection laws.

Now, the review.

      This book  has a far more narrow scope than Garfinkle’s more recent (and more comprehensive) work,  The Jewish community of Washington, D.C.      But, this book is also still essential to understanding relations between communities in the District.  From the first recorded Jewish person in DC, in 1795, to Captain Jonas P. Levy (on page 14)’s opposition, in the 1850s, to a treaty on POW rights that left out Jews, to the YMHA, to the JCC, DC has an interesting Jewish history.  Especially the history that surounds a little know group mentioned on page 249: the Sons of Israel Fraternity.   In 1857, they protest an anti-Jewish Swiss treaty, about which I’d like to learn more, if any fellow researcher has the time to look up for us.  Unfortunately, my notes from 2010 leave off here, from this book, after mentioning several synagogues and Albert Small, a very well-known personage in the DC Jewish community.  This book was one of the many that I read in 2009, 2010, and 2011 while creating walking tours meant to illustrate the cooperation that had been quite strong between several different communities in DC, and which  led to my further writings about those tours, DC, and how we can start to  rebuild community cooperation today.

Shira

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Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

  Shira

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Thoughtful Thursdays, Stayed on Freedom’s Call Page 50/50, and Endings

       How does community complete a project?  Generally with a feast of some sort.  To end this project, I leave you with the feast of tradition from both the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and from Rabbi Hillel.    That of community.

     I wrote this book in the belief that community cooperation is important.  I hope, as we come to the end of my book, Stayed on Freedom’s Call, that this journey has been a valuable one for you (last week was Page 49…):

” …      Ending the discrimination faced by both the Jewish and African American communities required the resources of all of the members of these combined communities. Members of both communities cooperated to end the dual disgraces of both antisemitism and segregation, quietly at first, and then more openly. Beginning in the earliest part of the 20th century, moving into the beginnings of radical protest in the 1930s, and then culminating in the massive non-violent protests led by SNCC, the SCLC, and others, including many famous Jewish and African-American activists of the 1960s. Mobilization within both communities worked to overcome obstacles faced by members of both communities.  As individuals realized that when one does not stand for others, soon there will be no one to stand for you. Is this, perhaps, the idea that the Rabbis meant to convey when they said that all of Israel was responsible, one for one another?   For, only by cooperating both as individuals and as communities can we hope to achieve the goal which Dr. King and Rabbi Hillel before him, two men of peace and cooperation, inspired for future generations.

      “

    So,  Page 49 was last week, and this brings us to the end of this book (the remaining pages are references).  Thank you for reading this last page. 

     Next Thursday will feature a guest post, and then we will begin our Thoughtless Thursdays series…

Action Prompts:

1.) 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.   (You can download the entire book for free here from The ShiraDest webpage…)

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

***************** 

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through the more traditional method, via lesson plans, but holistic:

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Shira

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Thoughtful Thursdays, Stayed on Freedom’s Call Page 49/50, and Intersections

       How does community intersect?

     I wrote this book in the belief that community cooperation is important.  I hope, as we come to the end of my book, Stayed on Freedom’s Call, that this journey has been a valuable one for you (last week was Page 48…):

” …friends or members of my family say “But by the grace of God, there go I.”

It was generally spoken in reference to another member of the community who may have been showing various signs of the stress under which many of us labored, but were somehow usually able to hide. Individuals in difficult situations were expected to attempt to bear up under the strain as best they could, but could also generally count on some level of support in return from others in the community. There was a feeling that all members of the community were responsible for taking care of one another, to a certain extent.

These similar ideas, that community must not be abandoned, and that anyone could experience periods of tremendous difficulties, bind the Jewish and African-American communities ideologically and culturally. Yet, it is also in the spaces between communities, where we cross cultural and ethnic boundaries to live out our shared values and both defend one other and our mutual principles, that we find and strengthen our shared cultural resources. Our shared ideals of liberty and justice for all find firm footing in our shared values of equal human dignity, equal opportunity, and mutual interdependence. For this reason, Dr. King called for a Universal Basic Income for all American citizens, as he pointed out in his last book, published shortly after his
assassination, that without equal economic and political justice for every community, our world can only descend into chaos.

      “

    So, it turns out that I might have needed to explain a bit more, on this page, about something, but what?

Page 48 was last week, next week will be Page 50, our last page…

Action Prompts:

1.) 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.   (You can download the entire book for free via the main menu, above, from The ShiraDest writings page…)

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

***************** 

Click on the ShiraDest blog menu to read, if you like:

Narrative and Prose Nonfiction,     

Holistic High School Lessons,

           or Historical Fiction Serial Stories

Thoughtful Readers, if you are on so inclined, please consider sharing   #ProjectDoBetter.

Shira

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Thoughtful Thursdays, Stayed on Freedom’s Call page 48, and Community

       How does community connect us to humanity?

     I wrote this book in the belief that community is important.  I hope, as we come to the end of my book, Stayed on Freedom’s Call, that this journey has been a valuable one for you (last week was Page 47…):

” …

         We have finished the synthesis that tells the story of Black-Jewish community cooperation in our nation’s capital, but the book is not closed.

From shared history and shared cooperation can and must come renewed cooperation, trust, and dedication to building a world in which all people, of every race and
creed, can prosper and live up to their full potential. The rabbis felt it essential that a person not separate himself from the community.

But the question is, what is so important about community?

My experience in converting to Judaism has shaped many of my ideas about the world, and in particular, about the role of community in shaping our world, socially. I find myself coming to understand that, despite my personal feelings about someone who is also a member of my community, the fact that that person is a member of my community entitles him or her to something from me, whether it is my acceptance, my patience, or my invitation to a community event. I am required to give that person some acknowledgment that we are linked by certain principles, share certain crucial values and that like him or not, as long as he or she accepts my personal boundaries, I cannot exclude that individual simply on the basis of arbitrary personal dislike or taste.

Likewise, in the African-American community, my community of origin, I often heard
48  …

      “

    So, it turns out that I might have needed to explain a bit more, on this page, about something, but what?

Page 47 was last week, next week will be   Page 49/50, our last page …

Action Prompts:

1.) 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.   (You can download the entire book for free just above, from The ShiraDest website main menu…)

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

***************** 

Click on the menu above to read, if you like:

Narrative and Prose Nonfiction,     

Holistic High School Lessons,

           or Historical Fiction Serial Stories

Thoughtful Readers, if you are interested, please consider sharing   #ProjectDoBetter.

Shira

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Thoughtful Thursdays, Stayed on Freedom’s Call page 47, and Song

       How do melodies help keep us going, and even connect us to community?

     I wrote this book in the belief that song is a powerful way to help bring people together, and that remembering the stories around those songs can help us learn from our history.  I hope, as we come to the end of my book, Stayed on Freedom’s Call, that this journey has been a valuable one for you (last week was Page 46…):

” …  7.   Washington Ethical Society: 7750 16th Street NW

Proudly built in Shepherd Park specifically because it was an integrated neighborhood. This humanist congregation is part of the history of Civil Rights, and the present of community cooperation.

Sometimes you can hear folks standing outside the building, next door to the former home of NAACP lawyer Frank Reeves, singing:

“I woke up this morning with my mind,
stayed on Freedom… ”

8. Tifereth Israel Congregation: 7701 16th Street, NW

The shul stayed, and is helping to Repair the World, one step at a time down Georgia Avenue. Now we finish up the tour looking down 16th Street, toward the White House if we could see that far along what was once the nation’s Prime Meridian, and we close with a niggun, a melody that both soothes and recalls hope, as we recall the ideals which inspired men two centuries ago to found a nation predicated on the fundamental equality of all men.

“Yai daaiii dai daii, yai daaiii dai daii,
yai daii dai dai dai daii daiii aaayyyii…”

47

      “

    So, it turns out that I might have needed to explain a bit more about niggunim?

Page 46 was last week, next week will be Page 48 …

Action Prompts:

1.) 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.   (You can download the entire book for free  from The ShiraDest webpage menu…)

2.) Write a story, post or tweet that uses those thoughts.

***************** 

Click here to read, if you like:

Narrative and Prose Nonfiction,     

Holistic High School Lessons,

           or Historical Fiction Serial Stories

Thoughtful Readers, if you are able, please consider sharing   #ProjectDoBetter.

Shira

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Thoughtful Thursdays, Stayed on Freedom’s Call page 46, and Local Legends

       How do you hear the local legends in your neighborhood?  How do you know if they are right?

     I started my own walking singing tour company in the belief that legends were 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 45…):

” … the 1980’s, when the practice was finally prohibited.

“They won’t admit they love us, and so,

how are we ever, to know? They always tell us, Perhaps, Perhaps, Perhaps…”

4. The site of Pomona: 7714 13th Street, NW Shhh.  Don’t tell the local residents, but this was not really the mansion of Boss Shepherd.  Lots of long time residents seem to be sure that it was, but this Victorian era home was actually the home of dry goods merchant D. Clagett. Best to just keep on going, and whistle a happy tune…

“How much is that doggie in the window?

How much can that little doggie be…”

5. Shepherd Elementary School: 14th and Kalmia Rd, NW Dedicated in 1932 as
an all White school, in a neighborhood where the houses had covenants prohibiting
their sale to people of color, and now, it is, 1963. Thirty years later, Bobby Kennedy
is standing here giving an award to Marvin Caplan on behalf of Neighbors, Inc. from his brother the President! They say that the North Washington Neighbors, Inc. chapter was emulated as a model for stabilizing integrated neighborhoods in cities all across the country!

This truly is a time when every one of us can join hands and sing, all together:

“We Shall Overcome…”

6. The Shepherd Playground: 15th and Kalmia Rd, NW

          It is 1948, and frightening changes are about to come. Will the neighbors stay, now that colored families could move in, or will they go?    It is so nice here, close to Rock Creek Park and all of the walking and hiking trails.

“Don’t you let nobody,

Turn you ’round, turn you round, turn you round,

Don’t you let nobody, Turn you ’round,

Walking on the Freedom Trail…”

46 …

      “

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

page 45 was last week,

and

next week will be Page 47, and you can read the next page, or the previous page if you missed it, or, if you prefer, download the entire book for free via my Nonfiction Publications page. …

Action Prompts:

1.) What are your thoughts on this page?  (You can download the entire book for free via the Archive link on the ShiraDest website from the link just mentioned, above this prompt…)

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 book, story, blog post or comment here that uses those thoughts.

*****************

Click on the ShiraDest menu page to read, if you like:

B5, Lupin, La Casa de Papel/Money Heist, or Hakan: Muhafiz/The Protector Reviews…

Holistic High School Lessons,

           or Long Term Nonfiction or Historical Fiction Writing

        Thoughtful Readers, if you are  able, please consider joining and sharing   #ProjectDoBetter.

Shira

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Thoughtful Thursdays, Stayed on Freedom’s Call page 45, and “Farther Along”

       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 44…):

” … 1. The site of Bleak House: Geranium St, NW, between 15 th and 14 th Streets, NW

   It has been here since the year 1870, and now “Boss” Alexander Robey Shepherd’s mansion Bleak House, named for the Dickens novel which he and his wife read
together, is finally being torn down. Now that 1916 has arrived, so have developers who want to subdivide and build houses in this lovely area.   For the “Better Classes,” of course.   What will it be like in forty more years, we wonder?

“Que sera,
sera,

whatever will be, will be…”

2. Marvin Caplan Park: triangle bounded by 13 th Street, Holly St, and Alaska Ave, NW

    Traveling to the year 2009, if he could see this, Boss Shepherd would be rolling in his grave.

When he moved here in 1957, Marvin Caplan saw a problem that he was uniquely suited to solve, having lived among people of color for years, and the next year formed Neighbors, Inc to create a solution.

He continued a tradition, going back at least to 1933 and the sharing of tactics between labor movement and civil rights advocates begun with the New Negro Alliance, of cooperating with fellow advocates for change. He went on to tell the story of that cooperative endeavor,
describing it in his autobiography,

“Farther Along,”   after his favorite song.

How serendipitous!    Here is a group standing in the park singing it right now!

“Farther along,

we’ll know why, oh,

farther along, we’ll know why …

we will understand it all by and by…”

3. Thirteenth Street, North West: 13 th and Alaska Avenues

Welcome to the boundary line.

Thirteenth Street was the unofficial dividing line that the real estate agents used to use when directing customers wishing to purchase a home.

West of 13 th street to 16 th was white, and between

13 th Street and Georgia Avenue was colored, even until…

45 

      “

    So, it turns out that I might have needed to explain a bit more about Negro Spirituals, and the historic Black Churches (like Mt. Zion UMC!!)  in Washington, DC, too…

 Page 44 was last week, next week will be Page 46…

Action Prompts:

1.) What are your thoughts on this page of the book?  (You can download the entire book for free via the Archive link below…)

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.

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

Dear Readers, ideas on learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning, on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & 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
Read, Write

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

          by Teaching and Learning (Lesson Plans offline) in the present, to

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

 

Peace     ! שָׁלוֹם

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

Shira

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.

*****************

Click on the ShiraDest website main menu, above, to read about:

Learning Empathy Through Film and TV Reviews,

Independent or Classroom Learning via Holistic High School and College Algebra Lesson Plans,

           or Learning With Long Range Plans, & Historical Fiction Serial Writing

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BsCs

 

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Review of A Free Man of Color and His Hotel: Race, Reconstruction, and the Role of the Federal Government, Plus A Rant

     Forgot to mention in the update: that is a photo of his Hotel, in the new Featured Image.  This might become more of a rant, but I doubt it.  This book needs more circulation, and Black History needs more attention.  See the book review first (for which I just found my reading notes in my old Research notebook, and have updated the post, May, 2023…):

A Free Man of Color and His Hotel: Race, Reconstruction, and the Role of the Federal Government by Carol Gelderman 

     Here is yet another important book on Black History in DC that I read in 2010, but neglected to review, in the rush to leave DC, and then finish editing Stayed on Freedom’s Call (linked to below, in the .sig…). Gelderman’s book (of which I seem to recall confusing at first with another book carrying a title like ‘The Wormley Hotel’ or such, which likely explains the long title without Wormley’s name for this book…) details the success of a man who rose to importance and wealth in DC, or The Federal City, as it was called before the Civil War, and is generally not spoken about on the DC Tour circuit. That was part of what I tried to include in my walking tours of different parts of the city, and what I really hope has been remembered in the new free walking tours of the various neighborhoods of DC.  After Snow’s Epicurean Eating House closed (remember The Snow Riots, anyone?), and William Wormley’s school was ruined, both left town.  William’s brother James Wormley had been 17 years old at the time of the Snow Riots, and went from hackney carriage, to gold prospecting, to a catering business (1850) next to his wife Anna Elizabeth Thompson Wormley’s confection store on I. St (NW?).  Soon, he had six sets of ‘dining rooms’ and a “pretty octoroon” (a person with lighter skin and straighter hair than a quadroon, like Lucy:  () 

for marriage (no note on the old wife…).  In 1871 he opened his five-story 74-room (57 bedrooms) hotel with dining rooms serving a T. specialty (sorry, cannot read my notes!), and even had an overflow house: “the Branch Hotel” and a carriage to take special guests to his house in Tenleytown!  The Panic of 1873 apparently had little to no affect on his business, as he catered to foreign and rich patrons.  Sent broth to Pres. Garfield after shot, hosted annual Spanish delegation’s Flower Ball, etc.  Died of gallstone surgery in 1884. 

     Ok, now, the mini rant:

I’m shocked by how little I can find of Black History, or of Black Historical Fiction,   in comparison to Regency, WWI, or other types of history on the blogosphere.  Am I just looking in the wrong places, or is the lack of attention to issues concerning BiPoC also here in blog land, too, and if so, how do we address this lack?  This seems to be part of the need ‘to bear witness’ of which Toni Morrison spoke, even if Wormley was not an abused Black woman.  It shows that even our rich men are ignored. 

 

Action Prompt:

      Consider some ideas you may have on how our society can solve the lack of attention to Black issues, not to mention homelessness, and child abuse, starting right now.  Share them with us in the comments, here, please, and write a story, or article, that uses those sources and your 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 a little while:
1. #PublicLibraries,
2. #ProBono legal aid and Education,
3. #UniversalHealthCare, and
4. good #publictransport

Read, Write a book, like Stayed on Freedom’s Call, that you want to read that does not yet exist…

         by Teaching and Learning (free holistic GED Lesson Plans) in the present, to

                      We can  Do Better: a Vision of a Better World to create a kinder future

 

   and  Babylon 5 review posts, from a Minbari Ranger’s perspective: story inspires learning, and historical fiction can also inspire courage, right Willow?

Toward Peace,

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

originally written in the year, 2021 CE = year 12021 HE and updated in 12023 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.

Please leave a review, if you can, here!  

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

Shira