Who By Fire: Connaître le Personnage d’M. / Meet the Character M.

My Work In Progress: Who By Fire: I Will -Book 1, is part of a historical fiction series. I’d been planning to set up a blog for the novel, with each major character posting every so often, but am not sure if there is interest, so I’ll start with just letting a few characters from Who By Fire introduce themselves briefly. Like this:

Bonjour, je m’appelle Martin, ici aux États-Unis , mais j’ai plusiers noms, a vrai dire. Donc, c’est plus facile, je suppose, qu’on m’appelle tout simplement “M.”

Hello, I am called Martin, here in the US, but I have many names, to be honest. So, I suppose it is best if we simply call me “M.”

Our dear M. is a man of few words, in general. 🙂

Progressive Jewish abolitionists befriended and struggled beside members of the Black community over the years in the United States, even during the period of chattel slavery.  M. is one such man standing with both Free People of Color like our hero’s particular friend, and also with enslaved people. Since today is French Fridays, he chose to introduce himself in this language of the world, from 1838.

I’d planned to start drafting in time to finish 100k words of a 1st draft as part of NaNoWriMo last year, but Do Better took precedence. I’m starting #WhoByFireIWill drafting again, still working out the various character voices.

I am currently outlining the scenes as a historical urban portal fantasy, sub-genre of either suspense or thriller.

I began writing this historical portal fantasy novel in June, 2020, when certain characters would not let me alone, and my ancestors seemed to demand that I write. I can add notes and questions as they arise here, if they will seem interesting to fellow writers, such as my question from 23 September, 12020: was there a public library in 1838 Baltimore, and could Jewish or Colored people use it? -Working in a way to reference a classic, like the 1001 Nights, which would have been known in 1838…

Lucy, the -Protagonist’s Wife (J. Bell’s The Quadroon: Public Domain image from NYMet…)

Who by Fire: I Will is a historical fantasy novel cycle trilogy, I currently expect.

Working Cover for historical fantasy WiP

Tagline:

  “Forever is a very long time.”

Logline:

To save his son, a desperate escaped slave must make a choice, but the price is eternally high.

The hero (aka the Protagonist) is an escaped slave, who dreams of buying his wife Lucy’s freedom and moving North with her and their son.

His particular friend is a Free Person of Color, one of the main characters, devoutly Christian, who teaches at night, and dreams of visiting Damascus as part of his Pilgrimage to the Holy Land, before he dies.

Progressive Jewish abolitionists befriended and struggled beside members of the Black community over the years in the United States, even during the period of chattel slavery.  M. is one such man standing with both Free People of Color, like our hero’s particular teaching friend, and with slaves.

As the work evolves, I may post articles from the point of view of different characters. Let me know if you, Dear Readers, would be interested in such posts, and I shall write them for you!

Action Items in support of empathy and hope that you can take right now:

1.) Share two different reasons to write your own novel, or write your Grandmother‘s story, even if it’s not in novel form.

2.) Share your thoughts on how you plan to get started on that writing work,  perhaps with the help of a book on how to write, or as an update on your GoodReads reading,

3.) Write a book, story, blog post, or tweet that uses a bit of that work.

Dear Readers, have you any additional ideas toward learning, especially multiple #LanguageLearning as part of on-going education and empathy-building, to #EndPoverty, #EndHomelessness,  #EndMoneyBail & achieve freedom for All HumanKind?

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

Click here to read, if you like:

B5, Hakan:Muhafiz/The Protector,  Lupin, or La Casa de Papel (Money Heist) reviews

Holistic High School Lessons,

           or Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction

Thoughtful Readers, please consider following   #ProjectDoBetter.

Shira

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

Forgotten Black History: First Black American Unit Commander -in Spain

This gets nearly no attention that I’ve seen, in Black History:

     They went to fight for the Spanish Republic, and for equality.  A friend from my synagogue in Albuquerque, NM, mentioned, speaking of a TV episode about the Spanish Civil War, her personal connection to this war:

–

As we discussed my all time favorite show, El Ministerio del Tiempo (sorry B5!!), a friend recently told me that one of her relatives had fought in the Spanish Civil War as part of the Lincoln Brigade which turned out to have been known officially as the Lincoln Batallion.

Looking into the history of the Lincoln Batallion, I found, among others, Oliver Law, a Black man who had to leave the USA to become the first African-American in US history to command a military unit (not counting NCOs during the US Civil War like Robert A. Pinn, who picked up the standard and command after the deaths of all of his officers), during the Spanish Civil War.

In total, one Black woman and 54 Black men volunteered from the United States, where they were treated with disdain, to fight racism and oppression on the other side of the Atlantic. They hoped to change things back home in the US, and they were following the calling of their consciences, to fight racism and oppression where they could: in Europe.  For Tom Page, it was the first time he was treated with human dignity, and for Salaria Kea, the only Black woman to volunteer, it was a dashing of hopes upon returning home.  But for all, it was honorable service to humanity.

Like Delmer Berg, the last surviving American to travel to Spain, 1/3 of the volunteers were Jewish. This was in keeping with a long but little-known tradition of cooperation between the Black and Jewish communities well before the 1960s.  In that sacred tradition, led by Dr. King, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Gandhi and many others, we must continue the cooperation between individuals, families, communities and states that so desperately needs to continue, to move us all forward as a united human race.

May all of their memories be a blessing to us all, and a reminder of Human Cooperation
Zichronam LiVrachah,
Shira Destinie Jones

Read, Write, Dream, Teach !
ShiraDest
March 16th, 12017 HE

–

So, it turns out that Langston Hughes also fought Franco, and lived to tell about it:

“90 African-Americans who took up arms in Spain under the banner of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. … Baltimoreans who read the Afro-American would have learned about the war from its correspondent Langston Hughes.”

Continuing self and pro-bono education (aka Adulting Ed.) is part of Phase I of the Project Do Better  movement and part of increasing cooperation for the common good.  Now, rather than going off to fight, we can help to build:

Action Items:

1.) Share  two more examples of community cooperation.

2.) Share your thoughts on how you feel such cooperation increases the Common Good,

3.) Write a book, blog post or comment to this post that uses this history.

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

Click here to read, if you like:

Science Fiction/Fantasy Shows,  Lupin, or Money Heist (soon)…

Holistic High School Lessons,

           or Long Range Nonfiction, or Historical Fiction

Thoughtful Readers, please consider sharing   #ProjectDoBetter.

Shira

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

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 Internet Archive…)

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

***************** 

Click here to read, if you like:

Science Fiction/Fantasy Shows,  Lupin, LaCasaDePapel, & more…

Holistic High School Lessons,

           or Long Range Plans, & Historical Fiction Serial Stories

 

Thoughtful Readers, please consider examining   #ProjectDoBetter.

Shira

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

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 here from The Internet Archive…)

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 on Twitter, please consider following   #Project Do Better  on Twitter.

Shira

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

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 here from The Internet Archive…)

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 on Twitter, please consider following   #Project Do Better  on Twitter.

Shira

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

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 here from The Internet Archive…)

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 on Twitter, please consider following   #Project Do Better  on Twitter.

Shira

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

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…

Action Prompts:

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

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 tweet that uses those thoughts.

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

Click here 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 on Twitter, please consider following   #Project Do Better  on Twitter.

Shira

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

 

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
(free: https://archive.org/details/StayedOnF…)
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 here 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

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

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

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…):

 

” … 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 45…

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.

3.) Write a story, post or tweet 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

(5 month GED lesson 22 of 67 plans…), and

                                              Babylon 5 review posts, and my historical fiction serial Ann&Anna posts show how story inspires learning…

Stayed on Freedom’s Call
(free: https://archive.org/details/StayedOnF…)
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.

Thoughtful Thursdays, Stayed on Freedom’s Call page 43, and Clearing the Way

     What walks do you recall from your childhood, and did they help you remember to think of all of our stories?  This image comes from a DC non-profit org working to preserve Civil Rights history, and is part of the newer wave of walking tours all around the city.  Look at the fences and signs next time you are out in one of the neighborhoods of your town! 

🙂

     I started my own walking singing tour company in the belief that song was a powerful way to help make this happen.  Some of what I learned is in my book Stayed on Freedom’s Call (last week was page 42…):

 

” … street what with driving on Shabbos and all. But we still keep our history!   And we are all still family!

               “Hevenu Shalom Aleichem…”

8.      Former site of Morton’s Department Store downtown DC location: 7 th and D St, NW

     Imagine that you are seeing, in 1970, the devastated remains of the rioting from 1968. The city still has not recovered, physically nor emotionally, from the shock.

      Mortimer Lebowitz was known to many of his African-American customers as a loyal shop owner, but to the rioters, his was just another store to burn.

        We end our tour, if time permits walking down this far, with a reminder of the loyalty he showed to his customers, and that that cooperation can be renewed.  His stoic belief that the looters did not know him inspires the hope that as we do come to know one another, we can rebuild those bridges, with courage and cooperative purpose. Because the whole world really is one very narrow bridge…

“Kol ha olam kulo, gesher tsar meod…”

     The earlier more private examples of cooperation seen downtown contrasts with the later more publicly known cooperation uptown between the Black and Jewish communities here in the District of Columbia.

     We now take a tour of a neighborhood made famous for the shared activism of the later Civil Rights era, taking off from the 1948 Supreme Court ruling in Hurd versus
Hodge (and Shelley versus Kraemer) which struck down racially restrictive housing covenants, clearing the way for the famous 1954 ruling on Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas which finally did away, legally, with the…

43

      “

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

page 42 was last week, next week will be Page 44…

Action Prompts:

1.) What are your thoughts on this page?  (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 tweet 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: Do Better (was Baby Floors): a Vision of a Better World

 

Peace     ! שָׁלוֹם

Shira Destinie A. Jones, MPhil, MAT, BSCS

Shira

the year, 2021 CE = year 12021 HE

(5 month GED lesson 22 of 67 plans…), and

                                              Babylon 5 review posts, and my historical fiction serial Ann&Anna posts show how story inspires learning…

Stayed on Freedom’s Call
(free: https://archive.org/details/StayedOnF…)
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.