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Books By
& About Mary Carter Smith
Mary Carter Smith: African American Storyteller /
The Griot's Cookbook: Rare and Well-Done
Vibes: Experimentation in Co-creation /
Town Child /
Heart to Heart
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Mary Carter Smith
Black
Storyteller
Mother Mary Carter Smith -- Co-Founder
and Spiritual Leader of the National Association of
Black Storytellers (NABS) -- was featured
storyteller at the the First International
Storytelling Festival in Ghana, West Africa
(1999). She's a modern griot who was inspired by
the Black cultural expression of the 1960s and 1970s and
by her concerns for harmony among American ethnic
groups.
A graduate of Coppin State College, Baltimore, MD, she has
done graduate study in drama, speech and oral narration at New
York University, Johns Hopkins University, Rutgers University,
Queens College, Catholic University, The University of Maryland
and Temple Buell University.
As a writer, Mother Mary is included in the 1970 edition of
Poetry
and The Negro (Doubleday). An early book of poetry
is Opinionated (Beacon Press 1966). Her
poetry with the art of Wes Yamaka, John Levering and Sten Nordh
is featured in the book
Vibes (Nordika 1974). Her other
works include
Town Child, poetry for children (Nordika
1976) and
Heart
to Heart (Fairfax 1980) an autobiographical book
of poetry and prose. She co authored
The Griot's Cookbook (Fairfax 1985).
Television experiences include guest appearances on talk
shows throughout the country, as well as video tapings for
educational television. She served as hostess of "Black
Is" WMPB - UHF, Maryland Center for Public
Broadcasting. She has been hostess/producer of "The
Children's Hour" WHUR-FM, Washington, DC. Howard
University aired on Saturday Mornings and is now the "Griot
for the Young and The Young At Heart," WEAA-FM,
Baltimore, Morgan State University and WSTA, St. Thomas, US
Virgin Islands.
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A Brief Bio-Sketch & Chronology of a
Storyteller
A national figure in the field of
storytelling, she often dressed in headpieces and colorful dress and
bracelets. She appeared at numerous Baltimore schools and libraries and
performed at the Smithsonian Institution, the Kennedy Center and on
Nigerian television. Ms. Smith was driven by a
multitude of concerns, not only to please and entertain the crowd in the
best show-biz tradition but to uplift, to instruct, to span the barriers
between peoples. "Mother Mary" was a master storyteller, a griot's griot,
a visionary, a philosopher, a historian, an African folklorist, a poet,
a singer, and a radio personality (host of the program "Griot for the
Young and the Young at heart" on WEAA 88.9 at Morgan State University,
for 25 years)
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1919 (10 February)—
Born near Montgomery, Alabama, Mary Rogers Ward, to Eartha Nowden and
Rogers ward., Ms. Smith grew up in Ohio and West Virginia,
before settling in Baltimore.
1923—Her
mother, Eartha Nowden Coleman, age 22, was shot to death by Ms. Smith's
stepfather in New York City. She was living with her grandmother, Mary
Days Nowden, whom
she called "Mama Nowden," in Youngstown, Ohio.
1932—Her
grandmother died and Ms. Smith came under the care of an aunt, Willie
Nowden McAdory.
1935—Moved
to Baltimore when the aunt lost her sight and was being treated for
blindness at Johns Hopkins Hospital.
1938—Graduated
from Frederick Douglass High School
1942—Graduated
from Coppin Teachers College with a a Bachelor of Science in Education -- supporting herself with a night job at
the
Social Security Administration
1942—Began work with
Baltimore school system as teacher and
librarian.
1946—Married to Ulysses J. Carter, from this
union was born Ricardo Rogers Carter.
1960—Married Elias Raymond Smith
1962—Second
husband, Elias Raymond Smith, dies after two years of marriage. Married
three times—unions with Ulysses J. Carter and Eugene Grove ended in
divorce.
1966—Opinionated
(Beacon Press), poetry book published.
1969—Attended
a poetry reading by actress Joanna Featherstone, whose influence led
her to become a storyteller
1971—Took
a leave of absence in to take up professional storytelling full time
1973—Retired from the city schools system in
to become a full-time storyteller.
1973-74—Griot-In-Residence at Morgan State
College, Baltimore
1974—Vibes (Nordika
1974), poetry book published.
1976—Town Child (Nordika
), poetry book for children published.
1978—Her only child, Ricardo "Ricky," was
stabbed to death by a woman in a bar.
1980—Heart
to Heart (Fairfax ), an autobiographical book of
poetry and prose published.
1982— Co-founded (with Linda Goss of
Philadelphia) the National Association of Black Storytellers Inc., which
aimed to offer more opportunities to African-American storytellers to be
heard. She was a founder of the Griot's Circle of Maryland and Arena
Players.
1983—Mother Mary was named the official
Griot of Baltimore City
1985—Receives the Zora Neale Hurston Award.
1985—Co-authored
The Griot's Cookbook (Fairfax )
1991—Named the official Griot of Maryland.
1994—Proclaimed the "Mother Griot" by the
black storytellers association.
1995—Subject
of a book in a multicultural children's series, Mary Carter Smith,
African-American Storyteller, by Babs Bell Hajdusiewicz.
2004— My Autobiography: A Tale That is Told published.
2007 (24 April)—Dies
at Genesis Eldercare Cromwell nursing home in Towson.
She had been in declining health
since suffering a heart attack in January. The Morgan Park
resident was 88. . . . Internment was at Arbutus Memorial Park
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| To My True Friends
Remember my laughter
Earthy and unabashed
Remember my tears
My cussing
My praying
My changing moods
My ecstasy
My agony
My trying to be honest
Remember me
As I was
As I am
As I will always be
ALIVE
For only with you
Was I most nearly free.
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Colors
Color words don't bother me
Cause what I hear I do not
see
Chinese are not yellow
An Indian is not red
If you think a white child
is white like snow
Something's wrong with your
head
I am not black like leather
Black's just a word that
stands for me
People come in all colors
So color words don't bother me |
Note: The poems above were replicated from
the obituary notice passed out at the funeral of Mary Carter Smith.
See also:
Founders of National Association of Black Storytellers
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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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Blacks in Hispanic Literature: Critical Essays
Edited by
Miriam DeCosta-Willis
Blacks in Hispanic Literature is a
collection of fourteen essays by scholars and
creative writers from Africa and the Americas.
Called one of two significant critical works on
Afro-Hispanic literature to appear in the late
1970s, it includes the pioneering studies of
Carter G. Woodson and
Valaurez B. Spratlin, published in the 1930s, as
well as the essays of scholars whose interpretations
were shaped by the Black aesthetic. The early
essays, primarily of the Black-as-subject in Spanish
medieval and Golden Age literature, provide an
historical context for understanding 20th-century
creative works by African-descended, Hispanophone
writers, such as Cuban
Nicolás Guillén and Ecuadorean poet, novelist,
and scholar
Adalberto Ortiz, whose essay analyzes the
significance of Negritude in Latin America. This
collaborative text set the tone for later
conferences in which writers and scholars worked
together to promote, disseminate, and critique the
literature of Spanish-speaking people of African
descent. . . .
Cited by a
literary critic in 2004 as "the seminal study in the
field of Afro-Hispanic Literature . . . on which
most scholars in the field 'cut their teeth'."
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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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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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updated 11
February 2008
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