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Letters of an Abiding Faith:
Legacy of a Slave's GrandDaughter to
her Son
written by Ella Lewis to her Son
(Rudolph Lewis)
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Letter 2
February 26, 1976
My dear Son,
I received your sweet letter. I sorry if Bunk said
Something to upset you.* But I was sick that day. She wrote that letter
Doc you know. You are my Son no matter what no Body Say. I love you and
you know that. Because I try to do Every thing you ask me to. Haven't I
raise you from 3 months old. You just like my own child. Altho I diden
give birth to you. But it no different in my Book. You are my son.**
I glade to hear from you any time. Please dont feel
that way Because Mother love you. Doc dont wary. If I live you get your
share of my land.* Of course your daddy place never was changed.* So
nothing I can do about that. I sorry you feel that way. But nothing have
changed with me. You can believe that. Doc without a doubt you know I
love you. I own you as my son, no grand Son.*
I got to go to the doctor tomorrow. I having a little
female trouble. I rite you and tell you what the Doctor Say.
So from now on I rite you for my self. I realize you
cant get up and come when you want. As long as I can keep in touch with
you. I know you got to work and go to school, too. Because Lucinda can
rite often I always ask her about you. So whether you rite or not I
still keep in touch with you.
I don't care what any one of them say I know where I
and you stand. Just over look that. Please just think of the happy time
we had together. So Bye now. Love to your girl friend.
From your Mother
to my Son Rudolph
much love
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Commentary
Ella’s youngest daughter Annie, called "Bunk,"
wrote the letter. Some of the sentiments were Annie’s though
the letter was signed "Mother." It felt a bit awkward.
**I was raised as a son and Mama thought she had adopted me. But
at Daddy’s death, in the mourning line, Norman, my cousin,
raised questions about the legality of my status, whether I was
indeed a son, or merely a grandson. When Mama retrieved the
"adoption" papers, it was discovered that they were
papers that officially only changed my surname to Lewis. So I
had no legal status with respect to Daddy’s property.
This
situation of inheritance is a recurring theme throughout the
letters. Daddy died without will and thus the house and land
devolved to his daughters rather than his wife Ella. I raised
the point of "intent" but some refused to recognize
that argument. Mama also owned land inherited from her father
TeeJay and also from her mother Laura (see Introduction). Mama’s
nickname for me was "Doc"; like a doctor I was
"slow in coming." This signification I only learned a
few years ago at a family reunion. I had believed for years that
it meant I was as smart as a doctor. Misunderstanding can
sometimes be as important as knowledge in shaping character and
destiny.
Letter
1 < > Letter
3
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Sex at the Margins
Migration, Labour Markets and the Rescue Industry
By Laura María Agustín
This book explodes several myths: that selling sex is completely different from any other kind of work, that migrants who sell sex are passive victims and that the multitude of people out to save them are without self-interest. Laura Agustín makes a passionate case against these stereotypes, arguing that the label 'trafficked' does not accurately describe migrants' lives and that the 'rescue industry' serves to disempower them. Based on extensive research amongst both migrants who sell sex and social helpers, Sex at the Margins provides a radically different analysis. Frequently, says Agustin, migrants make rational choices to travel and work in the sex industry, and although they are treated like a marginalised group they form part of the dynamic global economy. Both powerful and controversial, this book is essential reading for all those who want to understand the increasingly important relationship between sex markets, migration and the desire for social justice. "Sex at the Margins rips apart distinctions between migrants, service work and sexual labour and reveals the utter complexity of the contemporary sex industry. This book is set to be a trailblazer in the study of sexuality."—Lisa Adkins, University of London |
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Salvage the Bones
A Novel by Jesmyn Ward
On one level, Salvage the Bones is a simple story about a poor black family that’s about to be trashed by one of the most deadly hurricanes in U.S. history. What makes the novel so powerful, though, is the way Ward winds private passions with that menace gathering force out in the Gulf of Mexico. Without a hint of pretension, in the simple lives of these poor people living among chickens and abandoned cars, she evokes the tenacious love and desperation of classical tragedy. The force that pushes back against Katrina’s inexorable winds is the voice of Ward’s narrator, a 14-year-old girl named Esch, the only daughter among four siblings. Precocious, passionate and sensitive, she speaks almost entirely in phrases soaked in her family’s raw land. Everything here is gritty, loamy and alive, as though the very soil were animated. Her brother’s “blood smells like wet hot earth after summer rain. . . . His scalp looks like fresh turned dirt.” Her father’s hands “are like gravel,” while her own hand “slides through his grip like a wet fish,” and a handsome boy’s “muscles jabbered like chickens.” Admittedly, Ward can push so hard on this simile-obsessed style that her paragraphs risk sounding like a compost heap, but this isn’t usually just metaphor for metaphor’s sake. She conveys something fundamental about Esch’s fluid state of mind: her figurative sense of the world in which all things correspond and connect. She and her brothers live in a ramshackle house steeped in grief since their mother died giving birth to her last child. . . . What remains, what’s salvaged, is something indomitable in these tough siblings, the strength of their love, the permanence of their devotion.—WashingtonPost |
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The White Masters of the
World
From
The World and Africa, 1965
By W. E. B. Du Bois
W. E. B. Du Bois’
Arraignment and Indictment of White Civilization
(Fletcher)
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Ancient African Nations
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
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