Letter 3

May 11, 1976***

My dear Son,

Just a few lines to give answer to your most kind and welcome letter which I receive a few weeks ago. Some glade to hear from you and know you was doing fine. Please excuse my long delaying in riten as you can see I am a poor riter.

Besides I Been Very Busy lately. In garden. Taking care hogs and chickens and working too. But to day I am off for 2 days so I felt a little like riten. I got 50 Baby Chicks. I got 2 hogs. Also I got a right Big garden keep me pretty Busy. I don't have time for the Boys, ha ha.

I received the jewelry, thanks a lot. It is very pretty. I like it. I had a lovely Mother's day. One of the Best I Ever had. I got a lot of gifts. Lucinda give me shoes and Bag to match. Bunk, Jane, Wanda gave me Birthday stone ring. Robert Lee gave me a dress. Sistuh gave me $5 dollars.*

Kenneth talking about getting married. The weather is some dry down here. Every Body here is doing pretty good. Still working So I dont guess they doing too bad. I went to church heard a nice Sermon. I went to Calvary at Yale, Va.** I hope you are still doing fine in School. Well in the world we have to put God in Front of us Because it nothing we can do without the Lord. So all we can do is pray and hope for the best. As the Song sing, you cant hurry God. We just have to wait no matter how long it take and it is true. So that what we got to do.

I pray for you Every time I say my prayers. I ask Lord to take care you in Every walk of life. But above all you must pray for your self. So you rite when Ever you can. Give my regards to your girl friend.* I close with love.

Your Mother

Ella Lewis

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Commentary 

*Robert Lee, Wanda, Kenneth, and Cleveland were the children of Edith (see Introduction). **Cavalry Baptist Church was in Yale an area on a back road between Jarratt and Sussex County Courthouse. Many thought the people of Yale had a different accent than those of us in Jarratt, though the two communities were only ten miles apart.

***In 1976, my wife Evelyn Duncan, raised in Winston Salem, North Carolina, and I divorced. I met her in Baltimore while she was working for Local 1199, a health care workers union, as Fred Punch’s secretary. At the time of divorce she was pregnant with a West Indian man’s child. During this time, I was dating a Norwegian woman named Astrid Garatun. 

That same year I began my studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. My mentor Dr. Max Wilson, a Haitian and professor of philosophy at Morgan State College, arranged for me a scholarship while I was working as a porter at Maryland General Hospital. I had been living since 1965 in Baltimore  throughout the city in Negro communities, eastside and westside.

Letter 2 < > Letter 4

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Ella Jackson Lewis (August 11, 1910--December 28, 2009) Makes Her Transition

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The New Jim Crow Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness By Michele Alexander Contrary to the rosy picture of race embodied in Barack Obama's political success and Oprah Winfrey's financial success, legal scholar Alexander argues vigorously and persuasively that [w]e have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it. Jim Crow and legal racial segregation has been replaced by mass incarceration as a system of social control (More African Americans are under correctional control today... than were enslaved in 1850). Alexander reviews American racial history from the colonies to the Clinton administration, delineating its transformation into the war on drugs. She offers an acute analysis of the effect of this mass incarceration upon former inmates who will be discriminated against, legally, for the rest of their lives, denied employment, housing, education, and public benefits. Most provocatively, she reveals how both the move toward colorblindness and affirmative action may blur our vision of injustice: most Americans know and don't know the truth about mass incarceration—but her carefully researched, deeply engaging, and thoroughly readable book should change that.—Publishers Weekly

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Ancient African Nations

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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan  /  The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll  /  Only a Pawn in Their Game

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update 31 December 2011