A Bright Epiphany Light Phillis Wheatley

Statue of Phillis Wheatley on the Boston Women's Heritage Trail

 

"On being brought from Africa to America":

Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
"Their colour is a diabolic dye."
Remember, Christians, Negroes, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.

That was one of the first poems written by Phillis Wheatley, the first published African American poet. 

The internalized oppression makes me weep every time I read it.

Born in West Africa - either in present day Gambia or Senegal - in 1753, Ms. Phillis was was sold by a local chief to a visiting trader, who took her to Boston in the then British Colony of Massachusetts on July 11, 1761,^[on a slave ship called The Phillis. She was seven or eight years old.

After she arrived in Boston, Ms. Phillis was bought by the wealthy Boston merchant and tailor, John Wheatley, as a slave for his wife Susanna. She was named after the slave ship that took her from her homeland, and was given their surname. Her birth name is not recorded in history.

It was common in those days for people to know the birth date, place and pedigree of their cattle and horses and even their house pets, but not of the humans they held in bondage. 

The Wheatleys' 18-year-old daughter, Mary, was Ms. Phillis's first tutor in reading and writing. Their son, Nathaniel, also tutored her. John Wheatley was known as a progressive throughout New England; his family afforded Ms. Phillis an unprecedented education for an enslaved person, and one unusual for a woman of any race at the time.

When she was 11, she began corresponding with preachers and friends. By the age of 12, Ms. Phillis was reading Greek and Latin classics in their original languages, as well as difficult passages from the Bible. At the age of 14, she wrote her first poem, "To the University of Cambridge [Harvard], in New England," complete with classical Greek references.

In that poem, she encourages Harvard students to be grateful for their privileges and to live virtuously. The poem wasn't published until 1773. Ms. Phillis would encounter great difficulty in getting her work published, even though the Wheatleys promoted her enthusiastically.

At first, publishers in Boston had declined to publish her poetry, doubting that an African slave was capable of writing such excellent poetry.

Ms. Phillis was forced to defend herself and her integrity in court in 1772. Indeed, she was defended in court by several prominent people, including John Hancock, as well as the Mayor of Boston and the Lt. Governor and Governor of Massachusetts, who all had read her work, examined Ms. Phillis, and verified its authenticity.

They even signed a statement which exonerated her.

In 1773, Susannah Wheatley sent Ms. Phillis to England. Even though Phillis’s fame was growing, Susannah felt she would have a better chance of publishing her poems in England. 

 She sent Ms. Phillis, escorted by Susannah’s son, Nathaniel, to London where she met many important figures of the day.

Influential people in London were very interested in her poetry and many became her patrons. Her collected works, ‘Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral' was published in London in 1773. This publication brought Ms. Phillis fame in both England and in the American colonies. She included the signed statement from her case in court in the preface of that book.

Unfortunately, shortly after her arrival in London Ms. Phillis learned that Susanna Wheatley had become gravely ill. Phillis returned immediately to Boston and in 1774 Susanna died.

Ms. Phillis was freed but stayed on with John Wheatley until he died in 1778. Her freedom meant she had lost her patrons and even though she had written a second volume of poems in 1779, she could not get them published. Fortunately, some of her poems from the second volume were later published in pamphlets and newspapers.

While none other than George Washington praised her work, Thomas Jefferson, in his book Notes on the State of Virginia, was unwilling to acknowledge the value of her work or the work of any black poet. He wrote:

Misery is often the parent of the most affecting touches in poetry. Among the blacks is misery enough, God knows, but no poetry. Love is the peculiar oestrum of the poet. Their love is ardent, but it kindles the senses only, not the imagination. Religion indeed has produced a Phyllis Whately but it could not produce a poet. The compositions published under her name are below the dignity of criticism.

Jefferson was not the only noted, Enlightenment figure who held racist views. Such luminaries as David Hume and Emmanuel Kant likewise believed Africans were not fully human.

Unfortunately, her poetry has earned her controversy and criticism from Black scholars as well, seeing her work as a prime example of "Uncle Tom Syndrome," and believing that this furthers this syndrome among descendants of Africans in the Americas.

Others have argued on her behalf, citing that her work was used successfully by abolitionists as evidence of the intellectual and creative capacities of African descendants. Henry Louis Gates asked "What would happen if we ceased to stereotype Wheatley but, instead, read her, read her with all the resourcefulness that she herself brought to her craft?"

Shortly after the death of John Wheatley and her emancipation, Ms. Phillis met and married John Peters, an impoverished free black grocer. They lived in poor conditions and two of their babies died.

John was imprisoned for debt in 1784. With a sickly infant son to provide for, Ms. Phillis became a a scullery maid at a boarding house, doing work she had never done before. She developed pneumonia and died on December 5, 1784, at the age of 31, after giving birth to a daughter, who died the same day as her.

It is never easy to be "the first" in any category but it certainly helps when one is to the position born. That would seem to be so for Ms. Phillis Wheatley. In her very short life with its tragic ending - too soon! - she was able to open minds and hearts to her full humanity and so, the possibility of the full humanity of others - including that of her oppressors.

Her life and her work demonstrated that art in all of its forms - poetry, literature, music, sculpture, pottery, fabric - is able to cross boundaries and cultures and languages and weaken the stronghold of prejudice and bigotry, even while bearing its unbearable burdens. 

I hope something good happens to you today.

Bom dia. 

Three Black Women of Literacy: Harriet Jacobs, Susie King & Septima Clark

The other night, I stumbled on a staggering statistic for Americans. According to the National Literacy Institute, 21% of Americas are illiterate.

Let that sink in. Twenty-one percent - a figure approaching one quarter of Americans - can not read. 

Oh, but it gets worse.

* 54% of adults read below a 6th grade level. 

* 20% of adults read below a 5th grade level  

* 34% of adults who lack literacy proficiency were born outside the US

Let me put that into perspective for you.

According to most readability assessments, The New York Times is considered to be at a roughly college level reading level, often estimated around a 12th-grade reading level. The reading level The Washington Post can vary, but it is estimated to be around a 10-12th grade reading level. The Los Angeles Times generally falls around a 10th grade reading level. The Boston Globe is generally considered to be written at a college reading level.

According to readability analysis, Fox News generally falls around a 7th-8th grade reading level. The National Enquirer is generally considered to be around 6th grade. Most "local newspapers," depending on their location, aim for a reading level around an 8th to 11th grade level with many considering the average to be around an 8th grade level.

Let the reader understand.

There's good news and bad news: The good news is that The NY Times has a much higher circulation rate than The National Enquirer. The bad news is that The Fox News Channel is the most-watched television news station for the past 23 consecutive years.

Here are some other concerning statistics from the Barbara Bush Foundation:

20% of high school seniors can be classified as functionally illiterate at graduation

70% of prisoners in state and federal systems are illiterate
85% of all juvenile offenders rate as functionally or marginally illiterate
43% of those with the lowest literacy skill live in poverty.

Let me also add this: According to recent data compiled by Pew Research, approximately 56% of people incarcerated in the US are people of color, with Black Americans being disproportionately represented in the prison population, making up around 32% of the incarcerated population despite representing a smaller percentage of the overall US population.

If you hear alarm bells going off as you consider of present administrations' fervent, passionate goal to dismantle the US Department of Education, you may, in fact, be "woke".

Harriet A. Jacobs

You may also understand why literacy has been a passionate goal of the Black Community. I want to lift up and celebrate and call the names of three women who have been heroes of this movement. These women fought against incredible odds to teach themselves how to read and write and then, became fiercely committed to making sure others were literate. They understood that literacy was one of the keys to liberation. Their clue was that their slave owners were fiercely committed to keeping them illiterate.

This is taken from the Barbara Bush Literacy Foundation:

In 2020, three Black women of literacy

Harriet A. Jacobs (1813-1897)
Susie King Taylor (1848-1912)
Septima Poinsette Clark (1898-1987)

were inducted posthumously into the Reading Hall of Fame. All three contributed to the quest of literacy for African Americans, specifically in the area of adult literacy.

‣ Harriet Jacobs was born a slave in North Carolina in 1813. In her autobiography, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, she details life in slavery and her daring escape. Having been taught to read by her owner’s daughter, one story she shares is of helping another older slave learn to read. Once she obtained her freedom, she taught former slaves to read and write at Freedmen’s Schools. Her work also involved family literacy—in many cases, children and their parents would learn together.

Susie King Taylor

‣ Susie King Taylor was born a slave in Georgia in 1848. She was taught to read and write by a freed woman, going to school each day “with our books wrapped in paper to prevent the police or white persons from seeing them.” (King, 1902, p.5). She was the first African American teacher in Georgia and taught children and adults at a Freedmen’s school. A published author, she related her stories of the Civil War and teaching adults in her book, Reminiscences of My Life in Camp with the 33d United States Colored Troops Late 1st S.C. Volunteers: “I had about forty children to teach, beside a number of adults who came to me nights, all of them so eager to learn to read, to read above anything else.” (King,1902, p.11).

‣ Lastly, born in 1898 in South Carolina, Septima Poinsette Clark was a teacher and Civil Rights activist. Known as an innovative teacher, she used “real world” materials in her
teaching and tied her teaching to voting rights. She helped start Citizenship Schools for Black adults and led the Voter Registration Project from 1962-1966. She retired in 1970, after having an enormous impact on voter registration in the south—over a million African Americans had registered to vote. In 1979, she received the Living Legacy Awardfrom President Jimmy Carter. Her published works include Echo in My Soul and Ready From Within: Septima Clark and the Civil Rights Movement.

 

Septima Poinsette Clark

Years ago, at a General Convention in some city, a long, long ago, it was my privilege to serve on the Urban and Social Justice Committee (I think it was, then, Committee 25). One of the hearings of that committee was on the Industrial Prison Complex.

I remember with a kind of intense clarity the testimony of a woman, an Episcopal Priest, who had served as a Prison Chaplain, on Death Row as part of the Texas Prison System, which has the dubious distinction of having the highest number of executions in America. (Note: Alabama has a high death sentencing rate due to judges overriding jury verdicts of life to impose capital punishment. Since 1976, Alabama judges have overridden jury verdicts 112 times.)

She said that, as she heard the confessions of the inmates before their executions, they expressed three consistent "wishes":

"I wish I had been able to read."
"I wish I had never started drugs."
"I wish I had a family."

She added, solemnly, clearly, and passionately, "I don't think I've ever heard a clearer vocational call to the churches. We can start literacy programs. We can start drug addiction prevention programs. We can be a safe haven, a sanctuary, a family, for God's children."

I felt convicted by her testimony. Still do. In two congregations I've been privileged to serve, I have made sure we had Literacy Programs. In several churches, I gave my full support to the ESL Programs already in existence. No, it wasn't enough, but it was something.

Wherever you are, please do whatever you can to further the cause of literacy. Education - even in its most basic elements of Reading, Writing and Arithmetic -  is the key to liberation. The relationships formed between teachers and students are transformative.

Please follow the path illuminated by the three bright lights of these Stars of the Epiphany: Harriet Jacobs, Susie King and Septima Clark.

Don't know what to do about the oppression of the current, cruel fascist regime? Pleading for mercy was a good, indeed noble, start. Unfortunately, it fell on intentionally deaf ears.

I've got three suggestions as the next steps in the Christian Pilgrimage to act justly, love mercy and walk humbly: Literacy Programs, Addiction Prevention Programs and Supporting At-Risk Families.

I hope something good happens to you today.

Bom dia.

The Women of Black History Month: Paging Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler

Good Wednesday morning, good pilgrims on the path of The Remains of The Epiphany Season. There's so much in the news that is deeply disturbing but none more than the fact that there's a serious outbreak of measles (MEASLES, for God's sake), in Texas, there are children who are seriously ill and in hospital, and the Head of Health and Human Services is a committed immunization conspiracy theorist with a dead worm in his head.

Somewhere in my growing up in Massachusetts, I remembered learning that the first Black woman to be a doctor lived and worked in my home state. I remembered her name was Rebecca but that's all I could remember. I finally found her, last night, and I thought today would be a perfect day to introduce her to you, if you've not already met.

Please meet Dr. Rebecca Lee Crumpler, born in 1831 in Delaware, to Absolum Davis and Matilda Webber. Very little is known about her life. Indeed, I did not know of her Delaware roots.

An aunt in Pennsylvania, who spent much of her time caring for sick neighbors and may have influenced her career choice, raised her. Why? It could be any number of reasons but there were lots of lynchings in those days in Delaware. So were untreated diseases among people of poverty, especially poor Black farmers and sharecroppers.

In any event, life expectancy was not long if you were poor and Black.

By 1852 she had moved to Charlestown, Massachusetts.After attending the prestigious Massachusetts private school, West-Newton English and Classical School, she worked as a nurse for eight years (because the first formal school for nursing only opened in 1873, she was able to perform such work without any formal training).

In 1860, she was admitted to the New England Female Medical College. When she graduated in 1864, Crumpler was the first African American woman in the United States to earn an M.D. degree, and the only African American woman to graduate from the New England Female Medical College, which merged with Boston University School of Medicine in 1873.

In her Book of Medical Discourses in Two Parts, published in 1883 and one of the very first medical publications by an African American, she gives a brief summary of her career path:

"It may be well to state here that, having been reared by a kind aunt in Pennsylvania, whose usefulness with the sick was continually sought, I early conceived a liking for, and sought every opportunity to relieve the sufferings of others. Later in life I devoted my time, when best I could, to nursing as a business, serving under different doctors for a period of eight years (from 1852 to 1860); most of the time at my adopted home in Charlestown, Middlesex County, Massachusetts. From these doctors I received letters commending me to the faculty of the New England Female Medical College, whence, four years afterward, I received the degree of doctress of medicine."

Dr. Crumpler practiced in Boston for a short while before moving to Richmond, Virginia, after the Civil War ended in 1865. Richmond, she felt, would be

"a proper field for real missionary work, and one that would present ample opportunities to become acquainted with the diseases of women and children. During my stay there nearly every hour was improved in that sphere of labor. The last quarter of the year 1866, I was enabled . . . to have access each day to a very large number of the indigent, and others of different classes, in a population of over 30,000 colored."

She joined other black physicians caring for freed slaves who would otherwise have had no access to medical care, working with the Freedmen's Bureau, and missionary and community groups, even though black physicians experienced intense racism working in the postwar South.

"At the close of my services in that city," she explained, "I returned to my former home, Boston, where I entered into the work with renewed vigor, practicing outside, and receiving children in the house for treatment; regardless, in a measure, of remuneration."

She lived on Joy Street on Beacon Hill, then a mostly black neighborhood. By 1880 she had moved to Hyde Park, Massachusetts, and was no longer in active practice. Her 1883 book is based on journal notes she kept during her years of medical practice.

I am delighted to learn even this little bit about Dr. Crumpler and feel pleased to know of her Delaware and Massachusetts connections. I can't tell you how often I walked on Joy Street in Boston, having been the former home of the Diocesan Offices, which moved in 1988 after 100 years to Tremont Street, adjacent to the Cathedral. 

It feels a privilege to have walked the same neighborhood where Dr. Crumpler lived and tended to those who were sick and had no other means of care. Next time I'm in Boston, I plan to visit her former residence and say a prayer of thanksgiving for her life.

I pray today that her spirit hovers over and informs the other former resident of Massachusetts, that the decisions he makes for the millions of people in his care will be wise, founded on good science and ethics, and devoid of political influence.

Not a dream. It's actually what all of his predecessors have done.

I hope something good happens to you today.

Bom dia.

Black History Month: Dorothy I. Height

Good Tuesday morning, good pilgrims on the way of the remains of The Epiphany Season. Facebook continues to treat me like some heinous criminal. I have been placed in a solitary dungeon without light or heat, denied food or water. Apparently, I've been "scrubbed" from its pages - not just my FB page but all shared posts and even my comments on other people's pages.

Never mind. I have my trusty old blog and today I get some help to start my Substack Column. Stay tuned. I do miss reading your posts on your Facebook pages, but I continue to file 5 appeals per day on "report a problem" to Instagram (I just follow directions). Let's hope this is settled soon.

Meanwhile do NOT respond to any "friend" requests from me. Well done, then. Onward.

Today, I want to lift up and celebrate and call the name of one of the saints who now dwells in Light Eternal, having been a bright light for justice and equality while here on earth.

Dorothy Irene Height was born on March 24^th, 1912 in Richmond, Virginia, the daughter of a building contractor and a nurse. She grew up in Rankin, Pennsylvania where she attended racially integrated schools. During and after college, she lived and worked in New York City.

She would grow to become a leader and an activist, hailed as "the godmother of the Civil Rights Movement," and one of the few women to have a seat on the speaker stage at the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom.

An excellent student, Ms. Dorothy won a full scholarship to college. In 1929, she was admitted to Barnard College but was not allowed to attend because the school said it had "already met its quota" for African Americans. Instead, Height went on to graduate from New York University where she received a bachelor’s in education and master’s in psychology.

Her first job was as a social worker in Harlem, New York. She later joined the staff of the Harlem Young Women’s Christian Association (YWCA). In no time, Height became a leader in the local organization. She created diverse programs and pushed the organization to integrate YWCA facilities nationwide in 1946.

Those who are inspirations have often been inspired by others. And so it was that, during a chance encounter with renowned Black educator and consultant to President FD Roosevelt,  Mary McLeod Bethune, that she was inspired to begin working with the National Council of Negro Women (NCNW).

Through the NCNW, Height focused on ending the lynching of African Americans and restructuring the criminal justice system. In 1957, she became the fourth president of the NCNW. Under her leadership, the NCNW supported voter registration in the South. The NCNW also financially aided several civil rights activists throughout the country. Height was president of NCNW for 40 years.

Ms. Dorothy's oratory and organizational skills were legendary in the Civil Rights Movement. Indeed, her advice and counse were sought after by Eleanor Roosevelt, Dwight D. Eisenhower, and Lyndon B. Johnson.

She was an integral part of the organizing team with Bayard Rustin to bring the March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom from dream to reality, serving as one of "The Big Six" organizers. Anna Arnold Hedgeman of the National Council of Churches was the lone woman to serve on the event's administrative committee.

However, neither woman was invited to speak, despite Ms. Dorothy's skills as a speaker and a leader. In fact, originally no women were included on the program at all. Ms. Dorothy and Ms. Anna were persistent and, eventually, the men were persuaded to allow Myrlie Evers to speak during the program and present the other women to be honored during the “Tribute to Negro Women Fighters for Freedom.”

Ultimately, many other women were included on the speakers list, including actresses and activists Ruby Dee, Lena Horne, and Josephine Baker, along with Rosa Parks and Daisy Bates, NAACP chapter president and an advisor to the Little Rock Nine.

Thanks to Ms. Dorothy and Ms. Anna, the honored women included Parks, Bates, Evers, Diane Nash, Elvira Turner, widow of assassinated NAACP activist Herbert Lee; and Gloria Richardson, cofounder of the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee.

Ironically and sadly, due to traffic delays en route from the airport, Ms. Evers missed her speaking slot and never made it to the stage.

The morning after The March, Ms. Dorothy assembled female leaders at a meeting called “After the March—What?” to discuss lessons learned from the event and plot their course forward. At the meeting, lawyer Pauli Murray delivered remarks criticizing the exclusion of women from the Lincoln Memorial program.

The group reached a consensus that future activism needed to focus on both gender and racial equality, heightening momentum for the women’s empowerment movement to come.

Ms. Dorothy later wrote that the March on Washington event had been an eye-opening experience for her. Her male counterparts "were happy to include women in the human family, but there was no question as to who headed the household," she wrote. Height joined in the fight for women's rights. In 1971, she helped found the National Women's Political Caucus with Gloria Steinem, Betty Friedan and Shirley Chisholm.

In 1994, President Bill Clinton awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom. In 2004, President George W. Bush gave her the Congressional Gold Medal. She later befriended the first African American president of the United States, Barack Obama, who called her "the godmother of the civil rights movement."

Dorothy Height died in Washington, D.C., on April 20, 2010. She was 98 years old. Appropriately, her funeral was held at the Washington National Cathedral.

I confess that I did not know much of anything about Ms. Dorothy until I started doing my own research and investigation about some of the Bright Lights of women in the Black Community. That is not a reflection on the goodness or effectiveness of the work of Ms. Dorothy but the fact that, as one of my elementary teachers used to say, my "education has been sadly neglected."

I'm trying to change that, at least for myself. Black History Month is a wonderful opportunity to learn that Black History is American History which connects us to the many injustices that have been done to people of color and ethnicity, women and gender identity, sexual orientation, and class or economic status - and all in "the land of the free and the home of the brave."

As Ms. Dorothy Height was inspired by Ms. Mary McLeod Bethune, may we be inspirations for each other to bring an end to all prejudice and discrimination in any form, by anybody, anytime, anywhere.

I hope something good happens to you today.

Bom dia.

FaceBook Suspension

Good Monday morning, dear pilgrims of the remaining days of The Season of The Epiphany. It seems that while Facebook might be okay with celebrating every last beam of Light, they are not okay with celebrating Black History Month - especially those that lift up and honor Black Women and Drag Queens, after we've been explicitly told by The Commander In Chief that we're not supposed to do that.

We're not supposed to be "woke". It's much better for them when our eyes are closed or we're looking the other way. 

I suppose that if The Associated Press can get thrown out of the White House Press Corp because they refuse to play the silly game of calling the Gulf of Mexico the Gulf of America (where the heck did THAT come from?), and told that they are banned because they "publish misinformation" (which is a new level of irony, considering the source), then my little Facebook column celebrating Black Women for 28 days is bound to piss off Mr. Zuckerberger's new MAGA friends.

So my Facebook account has been "suspended". Supposedly, the offense is that I had the incorrect password on my linked Instagram account. Which is beyond odd.

I think that is an indication that I've been hacked.

I have 180 days (which is the way techies say "6 months") to appeal, but I must do it on my Instagram account. But there's no place I can find to do that. Well, not without my Facebook account. Which is supposed to provide a "document" that provides that information. Which I've downloaded but can't open because "there's a temporary technical problem."

I'm not buying any of it. I think I've been hacked.

Yes, I've changed all my passwords but it may be too late for that.

This is what happened after Zuck dismissed his Fact-Check department and, instead, allowed the MAGA Flying Monkeys to "self-monitor and report" offensive posts.

Personally? I think my post celebrating the one and only, the fabulous, Marsha P. Johnson, the drag queen hero of Stonewall, pushed them right over the edge. I can't remember how many times that post was shared but it was a lot.

The MAGA Flying Monkeys weren't having it.

That, and the fact that I have (had?) over 5,000 "friends" and over 2,000 "followers". That was just a few too many "woke" people on their corner of Social Media for them.

So, I don't know how long this "suspension" will last. Long enough for the MAGA Flying Monkeys to decide that I've learned my lesson and will be a good girl. Or, maybe they think I'll open up a new account and start all over again.

Not. Gonna. Happen.

I think this is a good time to get off my butt and start that Substack account I've been meaning to try and figure out how to put it all together. I've had this blog for a thousand years. Well, okay. That's an exaggeration, which I'm prone to, but MAGA calls it misinformation.

My first published post was June 9, 2006. Yikes! 19 years.

Anyway, as that Peter Allen song goes, "Everything old is new again."

Dancin' at church, Long Island jazzy parties
Waiter bring us some more Baccardi
We'll order now what they ordered then
'Cause everything old is new again.

So, back to blogging it is. And, the creation of a new version of the blog - the Substack. Which will be posted on BlueSky, which is the newer, kinder version of Twitter. (Sing it with me, "Everything old is new again." It just has a new name.)

You can find me over there as The Rev Dr. Elizabeth Kaeton @ekaeton.bsky.social

And, if I come off "time out"? Well, I'm not sure. I'll see how life is without Facebook. I suspect there will be some improvements - like my general mood. Enough to cause me to think long and hard about keeping my Facebook account just so I can check in on other folks and see what brilliance you all are up to.

We'll see.

I'm going to keep writing. I don't mean to sound harsh but I have never done it for you or for social media. I do it to keep my own sanity. I do it to give voice to my spirituality. What I post is always the result of my reading and meditating and prayer.

Maybe that shows through. Maybe that's why so many of you were friends or followers. Maybe you recognized the Epiphany Light of which I try to be a follower and a vehicle and wanted to follow and be a vehicle of it, as well.

And, the MAGA Flying Monkeys hate that. Really. Hate. That. They like it dark. And, chaotic. And, confusing. They hate "woke".

Not to worry. I'm not going to stop. I'll just find other ways of posting. The only downside I can see is that you'll have to leave your comments here and my responses won't always be in "real time".

And, if you wish, you can share my musings on your FB page for your friends and followers by sharing the link to this FB page. Or, Substack page when I get it (and get someone to help me set it up). Or share it on your BlueSky account from mine.

Of course, I won't be able to read your posts and musings on your FB page - not for a while, I suspect - but do post them on BlueSky. I'll read them. You can also post a link to your BlueSky postings here, in the comments.

There's more than one way to beat a MAGA Flying Monkey at their own silly, pathetic games.

I hope something good happens to you today.

Bom dia.

 

 

Epiphany XXII: Song in a weary throat

 (Image source: Schlesinger Library, Harvard Radcliffe Institute.)

Good Friday morning, good citizens of The Remains of The Epiphany Season. Today, in Black History Month, I want to lift up, celebrate, remember, and call the name of one of the saints of God and the Episcopal Church, Anna Pauline Murray, better known as the Rev. Dr. Pauli Murray.

I remember the first time I heard her name. It was 1989 and I was helping out in the little church where she had last been Vicar, Church of the Holy Apostles, Baltimore, MD. She had died of pancreatic cancer in 1985 and the people there were still deeply grieving her loss.

It was after mass and I was hanging out in the sacristy with the Altar Guild. I've learned, over the years, that the "small talk" you make with the Holy Servants of the Altar can tell you big things about the church and Her people.

"She was a force of nature," one of the Altar Guild Ladies said, with unmistakable sadness as she filled a cruet with water at the sink. "A real force of nature. The Holy Spirit just hung around her bony shoulders like Superman's cape."

She began to rattle off her accomplishments. "Oh sure, you heard all about those lunch counter sit-ins that the NAACP organized? Huh! Well, Mother Pauli was doing that in DC years -Decades! - before it occurred to The Boys that it would be a good strategy for a non-violent demonstration."

She shook her head and sighed, "That was just the first of a lot of firsts. First Black woman law school graduate at Howard University, first Black person to earn a JSD (Doctor of the Science of Law) degree from Yale Law School, first Black woman ordained as an Episcopal priest."

She laughed, "You didn't want to say 'no' to Mother Pauli. Huh! She'd just find a way to do it anyway, even if she never got credit for it." She dried her hands and said, "I'll bet you didn't know that she wrote the legal argument for Thurgood Marshall's Brown v Topeka Kansas Supreme Court case that stopped segregation - well, made it illegal, anyway."

I later learned that Murray’s 746-page book, “States’ Laws on Race and Color,” written in 1948, was a definitive work used for decades by jurists and civil rights activists. Marshall called Murray’s book “the bible for civil rights lawyers.”

Her name was also listed as a co-author on the brief argued by Ruth Bader Ginsburg in 1971 in Reed v. Reed. Years later Ginsburg said, “We knew when we wrote that brief that we were standing on her shoulders.”

"You know," I said, "with all due respect, I went to a very progressive seminary in The Episcopal Church. I'm sorry - I apologize - but, I've never heard of this woman before."

"Hmph," she said, looking me right in the eye with steely brown eyes, like a mother about to teach her child an important lesson in life. She shifted her ample weight, tilted her head to one side, slung her cleaning cloth over her shoulder, and said, her voice dripping with sarcasm, "I wonder why that is?"

I got it. Instantly. But, I didn't know just how deep that prejudice ran. It was one of the first times I was aware of the importance and the impact of "intersectionality" and the complexity of issues that make up our total identity.

"You gotta read her book, "Proud Shoes." More people need to. But they won't. Nobody cares. Well, none but Jesus."

"Look," she said, "up there on the shelves. See it? You can't have it - not even borrow it - but they have several copies at the Baltimore Public Library. Some of us made sure of that. And, right next to it is her other book. See? "Song in a Weary Throat". Get that one, too, when you're at the library."

As I looked at the shelf, not only were her two books there but also a few books of her poetry. There was also a three-ring binder of some of her sermons and a pamphlet she, Pauli, had put together which provided instructions on how a poor, inner-city congregation could make its own Afro-centric vestments out of sheets and pillowcases and napkins, trimmed with Kinte cloth.

As I remember, there were also handwritten notes of things Pauli felt were important to include, like the name and contact information of the woman in Baltimore who could get Kinte cloth for you inexpensively.

I realized that that bookshelf was a little shrine in memory of Mother Pauli. There were several books and religious symbols - mostly African-themed - that had probably been in her office and left by the family as keepsakes for the congregation.

She moved closer to me and, as she spoke, I felt her hand at my back. I knew that not only did this woman think that "Mother Pauli" was important enough for her to take the time out of her day to teach this newly ordained White girl something about this Giant of Justice, but she also thought I was worth it.

I got the clear sense that this woman was telling me parts of the story of Pauli Murray in the hopes that I might be inspired - or, at least curious - to know more. And maybe, just maybe, I would be able to tell people about her and the work she had done, so that Pauli would eventually earn her place in history.

I felt awash in gratitude but I also understood the responsibility I was being given. I've tried very hard, all these many years later, not to let her down. What I didn't know - couldn't know at the time - was the resistance I would get from people who would rather just let her name collect dust like the books on the shelves in the sacristy of that old, inner-city Episcopal church.

Back in the day, nobody said the word "lesbian". Even gay men and lesbian women had a hard time saying the actual "L-word". But, to be Black and female and lesbian? Well, that was all just a bit too much for some folks.

It wasn't until a sister priest who was also Black pulled me over and told me about her "gender confusion issues" that I got the full picture. "You mean, she was a dyke?" I said, using the only language I had at the time for masculine-looking women.

"Yeah, I guess that's what you'd call it," she said, deeply embarrassed. "I mean, it was more than that, you know? I don't know how to explain it. It was more than just being gay. I think . . . well, I don't know, but I think . . . well, let's just say that I think, sometimes, she got confused, being a woman in a man's world."

Years - decades - later, I would come to understand that Pauli Murray was what we would call today "non-binary" and "gender fluid." I came to understand that she suffered from the same sexism as writer Zora Neale Hurston, whose brilliant work was deeply controversial in her community because it was feared that her portrayal of Southern Black dialects and folkways out of context furthered racist stereotypes.

I also understood that the same homophobia that denied the brilliant strategic and organizational skills of Bayard Rustin, the principal architect of The March on Washington, and the brilliance of author and essayist James Baldwin also tried to deny Pauli Murray her well-deserved place in American history.

The truth will have out, and their brilliance is now embraced and their stories are being told. I believe that is due, at least in part, to the brilliant work of Black authors like Kelly Brown Douglas who, in her book, "Sexuality and the Black Church," suggests that issues such as homophobia and sexism in the Black church and community are clearly a response to the virulent and dominant White exploitation of Black sexuality.

Today, we have the "alphabet soup" of inclusion: LGBTQIA+++. Today, we continue to work on the racism and sexism that is in the very air we breathe. Today, we continue to work on the unrelenting prejudice against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people.

Today, movies and documentaries about James Baldwin and Bayard Rustin, and Pauli Murray are made and viewed widely. Today, Pauli Murray - the woman who celebrated her first Eucharist at the altar in the same chapel where her grandmother, then a slave, was baptized - is celebrated and remembered in the Lesser Feasts and Fasts on July 1. (Imagine!)

But, without the foundational, brilliant, courageous, persistent, tenacious, and resilient work of people like Pauli Murray, we would not be where we are today.

I saw a meme on BlueSky the other day that I think, if Pauli were alive today, she, herself, might have authored it. It said,

"You can not take the DEI out of Imgao Dei."

In these dark days when the new administration has declared war on DEI and has prohibited Federal agencies from observing Black History Month, I rejoice that we have bright lights of The Epiphany of Jesus like Pauli Murray to illumine our path.

"Hope is a song in a weary throat," wrote Pauli in one of the first poems of hers I ever read in that raggedy, broken-down old sacristy in that inner-city church in Baltimore, MD.

It's more important, now more than ever, to find our voices and sing out the hope we know in Jesus. And, I'll say to you what that wonderful Altar Guild Lady said to me at Holy Apostles Church, so many decades ago, "And, why do you think that is?"

I hope something good happens to you today.

Bom dia. NB: I'm going to say this here, again, and I'll keep repeating it: Black History is American History. We need Black History not for Black people but for White people who have been seriously impoverished and do not know or have an appreciation for the contributions Black people have made to American History. We know even less of the Black women who have made enormous contributions at equally enormous cost. So, please, White people: read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest as much information as you can during Black History month, that it may inspire you to continue to learn all the rest of the months of the year and all the days of your life. Especially in these days of the attempted elimination of DEI.

 

Epiphany XXI: Martyrs

Good Thursday morning, good pilgrims of the Remains of The Epiphany. The Martyrs of Japan are on the calendar of the Lesser Feasts and Fasts today, providing us with yet another example of what happens when religion is perceived as a vehicle of Western imperialism.

The story goes that Jesuits brought Christianity to Japan as a byproduct of trade relations. The movement was led by Saint Francis Xavier, who introduced Christianity to Japan in 1549. Xavier was a founding member of the Society of Jesus.

Initially, many of the warring feudal lords embraced Christianity, viewing it as a way of undermining those in power. At its peak, Christianity in Japan boasted some 500,000 adherents, the majority of them clustered in Nagasaki.

“Oppressed peasants” were attracted to Christianity by the promise of salvation, while merchants and “trade-conscious daimyos” were more concerned with the economic opportunities afforded by the new religion.

However, powerful leaders and warlords in Japan grew skeptical of a belief system with such close ties to foreign powers, especially Portugal and Rome. Suspicions were raised about Western intentions of conquest, particularly on the part of the Spanish, with their nearby presence in the Philippines.

There was a strong reaction against the proliferation of all things "foreign" - people, their culture, their values, and their religion - on Japanese soil, especially by the warlords. Suspicion and mistrust of anything not native to their soil fed a strong movement of isolationism.

(History has so many lessons. Are we paying attention, here?)

In 1587 Christian missionaries were expelled, accused of committing “the illegal act of destroying the teachings of Buddha”—the dominant faith in Japan at the time.

A decade later, on February 5, 1597, the first victims were persecuted. They were twenty-six Christians: six European Franciscan missionaries, three Japanese Jesuits (including Paul Miki), and seventeen Japanese laity, three of whom were young boys. They were executed at Nagasaki in a form of crucifixion by being elevated on crosses and then pierced with spears.

They were martyred for their faith, yes, but that is only one part of the story. They were crucified because their religion was seen as a powerful vehicle of Western imperialism. It seems ever thus when Christianity becomes "the state religion".

The Roman Catholic Church remembers these martyrs on the day of their deaths. The Anglican and Episcopal Churches remember them today, February 6th, to keep remembrance of St. Agatha on the 5th.

Today in Black History Month, we remember one Ms. Audre Lorde a writer and poet known for her radical honesty and fight against racism and sexism. Lorde described herself as a "Black, lesbian, mother, warrior, poet." She wrote about intersectionality long before The Academy recognized the powerful, dynamic interplay at the intersection of our various identities.

In the 1970s she worked as a poet-in-residence at Tougaloo College in Mississippi and began publishing poetry collections. Her works were informed by the intersections of race, class, and gender, and became increasingly more political.

In "Sister Outsider," she wrote,

“Your silence will not protect you," which became the foundation of the spirituality of People with AIDS, who realized that to save their lives and the lives of others, they needed to take the risk and be public about the privacy of their sexual orientation as well as their diagnosis. There followed incredible acts of bravery and courage that still make my eyes sweat and changed and transformed me."

The full context of that quote is even more powerful, especially for us today:

“What are the words you do not yet have? What are the tyrannies you swallow day by day and attempt to make your own, until you will sicken and die of them, still in silence? We have been socialized to respect fear more than our own need for language."

"Next time, ask: What's the worst that will happen? Then push yourself a little further than you dare. Once you start to speak, people will yell at you. They will interrupt you, put you down and suggest it's personal. And the world won't end."

"And the speaking will get easier and easier. And you will find you have fallen in love with your own vision, which you may never have realized you had. And you will lose some friends and lovers, and realize you don't miss them. And new ones will find you and cherish you. And you will still flirt and paint your nails, dress up and party, because, as I think Emma Goldman said, "If I can't dance, I don't want to be part of your revolution." And at last you'll know with surpassing certainty that only one thing is more frightening than speaking your truth. And that is not speaking.”

She also wrote:

“When I dare to be powerful, to use my strength in the service of my vision, then it becomes less and less important whether I am afraid.”

Most powerfully, she wrote:

“For the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house. They may allow us to temporarily beat him at his own game, but they will never enable us to bring about genuine change. Racism and homophobia are real conditions of all our lives in this place and time. I urge each one of us here to reach down into that deep place of knowledge inside herself and touch that terror and loathing of any difference that lives here. See whose face it wears. Then the personal as the political can begin to illuminate all our choices.”

I think the juxtaposition of the Martyrs of Japan and the life and teachings of Audre Lorde provide an opportunity to reflect on the nature of personal and political, the cost of silence and the cost of speaking up/speaking out, and the martyrdom that happens at the intersection - the cross - of all of our various identities, especially when it behooves the power structure to keep them separate and in a hierarchy of importance to an order dictated by the dominant social and cultural and religious paradigm.

I hope something good happens to you today.

Bom dia.