Writing about how their time in Washington D.C. and at Howard University drew to a close in the early 1940s, Pauli Murray reflected on all the work they did, notably the 1943 sit-ins in the nation’s capital and how those sit-ins laid the foundations for the 1960s. Murray thinks about the tensions between their “urge toward kamikaze defiance of Jim Crow and the more … Read More Our Role in the Relay of “Cosmic Composition”
Last year, I read 79 books. I really wanted to hit 80, but I fell one short. This year, my goal is to read at least 80 books, and as of the end of March I’m on track to read 10 books a month, so 120 books overall. I really doubt I’ll hit that goal, but I may. To reach that goal, I have … Read More Some of My Favorite Books So Far in 2024
Throughout Song in a Weary Throat, Pauli Murray highlights the intersections between Jim Crow segregation and Nazi Germany. Specifically, Murray uses the term “fascism” in these comparisons, drawing attention to the ways that the United States, while working to promote and save democracy abroad nevertheless allowed fascism to grow and spread in the United States, not just in the South. This, of course, is something … Read More The Smoldering of Fascism
Our existence, from our physical birth till our physical death, is finite. It has a beginning and an end. With this limited time, we constantly make decisions about what we choose to learn and remember. We may hear about, say, the Civil Rights Movement during our P-12 education, and remember a few words: “Rosa Parks, Martin Luther King, I Have a Dream.” Once we … Read More We Must Never Stop Learning
Every semester I tell my students how Ernest Gaines would respond when someone asked him how to become a better writer. Gaines would look at the questioner and say, “There are six words to make you a better writer. Read. Read. Read. Write. Write. Write.” During my own educational journey I had teachers tell me that in order to be a better writer I … Read More Six Words to Be a Better Writer
Interminable Rambling 