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ChickenBones:
A Journal
for
Literary & Artistic African-American Themes |
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Under the
encouragement of Daddy, Edith moved back from Baltimore to Virginia with
her four children.
Daddy had
a house built for them next to the family house. Robert Lee, her oldest
son, suffered from mental illness.
After his mother’s death, his illness
became worse. He often wondered off without letting family members know.
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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 9
October 4, 1978
Dear Son,
Just a Few lines to let you hear From me. This leave
me doing Very Well. Except that Arthur's in my leg.* I received your
letter Both of them. So glade to hear from you and know you was doing
fine.
As I can see you did Well in School. You say you hope
it would make me proud of you. Yes I was proud of you First. This make
me prouder. I am So happy I dont know what to do. I show it to Sistuh
and Bunk.** They say that was so nice of you. The rest of the family is
well far as I know. David got job at State Farm. Robert Lee Been missing
since August. So he fine Called Susie last week. Say he was in Ohio. We
dont know what part. But Thank God he still alive.***
Listen Lucinda having a Supper on 21 of this Month. I
am suppose to come up. And I Be up on the 19 which is on Thursday. I
guess We Be there By 8pm. So you come over to Lucinda's house. I bring
you Some Food since you got Some Where to keep it. Reason I say come
over Thursday night for Lucinda dont have no room to put it. So I hope
to see you then. We can Talk. So you keep up the good work. So I close
now. Much love Mother.
I see you on the 19th
if it the Lord's Will
You keep Smiling
Commentary
* "Arthur" is a common expression
for arthritis. Mama worked on a concrete floor at Jarratt Motel
as a cook for thirty years. Much of that time she earned $18 a
week; before she retired she made less than $50 a week for six
days work. **I sent Mama my certificate of graduation (B.A.
degree in English) from University of Maryland. That fall I
received a graduate fellowship to continue my studies in the
English Department. For awhile I stayed in Silver Spring with
Madame Meijer’s oldest son, who had a TV repair shop in his
house. I stayed with him several months rent free with free
meals. It became a difficult situation for we had little in
common and then I moved into the basement of a white Protestant
church in Silver Spring. But that did not work either and lasted
only a few months.
These were terrible emotional
times. I had gotten a girl pregnant and she felt the need to
have an abortion. Morally, it made me feel low as a snake’s
belly. But, I suppose, it was the best thing for both of us. I
was in no situation to marry; nor did I have the economic means
for such responsibilities.
***Under the encouragement of
Daddy, Edith moved back from Baltimore to Virginia with her four
children. Daddy had a house built for them next to the family
house. Robert Lee, her oldest son, suffered from mental illness.
After his mother’s death, his illness became worse. He often
wondered off without letting family members know of his
whereabouts. He eventually ended up in Texas in the 1980s where
he was locked up in an institution permanently. Some say he
threatened to assassinate then President Ronald Reagan and
people in authority took him seriously. In a Texas institution
Robert Lee was beyond our reach and we were powerless to help
him further. We remember him dearly, but for most of us he has
passed into the realm of the dead.
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Super Rich: A Guide to Having it All
By Russell Simmons
Russell Simmons knows firsthand that
wealth is rooted in much more than the
stock
market. True wealth has more to do with
what's in your heart than what's in your
wallet. Using this knowledge, Simmons
became one of America's shrewdest
entrepreneurs, achieving a level of
success that most investors only dream
about. No matter how much material gain
he accumulated, he never stopped lending
a hand to those less fortunate. In
Super Rich, Simmons uses his rare
blend of spiritual savvy and
street-smart wisdom to offer a new
definition of wealth-and share timeless
principles for developing an unshakable
sense of self that can weather any
financial storm. As Simmons says, "Happy
can make you money, but money can't make
you happy."
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1493: Uncovering the New World Columbus
Created
By Charles C. Mann
I’m
a big fan of Charles Mann’s previous
book
1491:
New Revelations of the Americas Before
Columbus, in which he
provides a sweeping and provocative
examination of North and South America
prior to the arrival of Christopher
Columbus. It’s exhaustively researched
but so wonderfully written that it’s
anything but exhausting to read. With
his follow-up,
1493, Mann has taken it to a
new, truly global level. Building on the
groundbreaking work of Alfred Crosby
(author of
The Columbian Exchange and, I’m
proud to say, a fellow Nantucketer),
Mann has written nothing less than the
story of our world: how a planet of what
were once several autonomous continents
is quickly becoming a single,
“globalized” entity.
Mann not only talked to countless
scientists and researchers; he visited
the places he writes about, and as a
consequence, the book has a marvelously
wide-ranging yet personal feel as we
follow Mann from one far-flung corner of
the world to the next. And always, the
prose is masterful. In telling the
improbable story of how Spanish and
Chinese cultures collided in the
Philippines in the sixteenth century, he
takes us to the island of Mindoro whose
“southern coast consists of a number of
small bays, one next to another like
tooth marks in an apple.” We learn how
the spread of malaria, the potato,
tobacco, guano, rubber plants, and sugar
cane have disrupted and convulsed the
planet and will continue to do so until
we are finally living on one integrated
or at least close-to-integrated Earth.
Whether or not the human instigators of
all this remarkable change will survive
the process they helped to initiate more
than five hundred years ago remains,
Mann suggests in this monumental and
revelatory book, an open question. |
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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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If you like this page consider making a donation
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Negro Digest /
Black World
Browse all issues
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1965
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Enjoy!
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The Death of Emmett Till by Bob Dylan
/
The Lonesome Death of Hattie Carroll
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Only a Pawn in Their Game
Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson Thanks America for
Slavery /
George Jackson /
Hurricane Carter
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The Journal of Negro History issues at Project Gutenberg
The
Haitian Declaration of Independence 1804
/
January 1, 1804 -- The Founding of
Haiti
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update 30 December
2011
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