Message to President Obama on July 3rd

On the day before Independence Day 2009, Obama's first Independence Day as U.S. President, I sent him the following e-mail asking that he allow the safe delivery of the supplies that the FREE GAZA MOVEMENT including former U.S. Representative Cynthia McKinney sent for Gaza. What better way to celebrate Independence Day than to fight for the Independence of Palestinian people (and us who are also killed by violence of guns made in the U.S., this country's apparent precoccupation with locking people up, and what King called the "deadening complacency" of the MSM and all the trinkets (Blackberries, iPods, video games) we have now)?! An increasing number of Americans and world citizens have been repeatedly disappointed with Obama's lack of action on the belligerence of the Israeli military in seizing and detaining the FREE GAZA MOVEMENT shipment. I sent this e-mail and will continue to do what I can to support the FREE GAZA MOVEMENT and fight against Israeli aggression. As a descendant of people who survived the Middle Passage, chattel slavery, and Jim Crow discrimination, it is my obligation to fight for the true Independence of the people of Gaza. I feel like reading Frederick Douglass' "What To The Slave Is The Fourth of July?" now. What does the celebration of this day as an American mean when so many people across the globe are oppressed by the hand of this country, including Palestine? I must look to my ancestors for counsel, guidance, wisdom, protection. I hope Obama gets this. I just e-mailed it today.

July 3, 2009

Dear President Obama: Peace. I am e-mailing to ask that FOR THE SAKE OF THE OPPRESSED PEOPLE OF GAZA that you please mean what you say when you're "easing" the humanitarian aid into Gaza. Please allow the aid that the SPIRIT OF HUMANITY has brought for the people of Gaza actually get to Gaza. This is yet another statement that when it comes to Israel, you are all TALK and no action. Israel can wantonly murder Palestinians using U.S.-funded and manufactured weapons while the United States turns its back. PRESIDENT OBAMA, PLEASE INTRODUCE THE CHANGE THAT YOU SO HEAVILY CAMPAIGNED FOR, AND ALLOW U.S. EFFORTS TO HELP THE PEOPLE OF GAZA TO BE COMPLETED. PLEASE DELIVER THEIR AID AND CONDEMN WHAT ISRAEL IS DOING: REPEATING THE HOLOCAUST AND THE LEGACY OF NAZI GERMANY ON PALESTINE. YOU HAVE THE POWER TO STOP THIS OPPRESSION AND TRAUMA: PLEASE USE IT WISELY. Sincerely, Rhone Fraser.

A review of Tracy Letts' play "August: Osage County"

Review of August: Osage County by Rhone Fraser

This review is meant to be read by those who have already seen this play. –RF.

Tracy Letts says that he hopes his play August: Osage County “speaks to people about their families, about navigating the rocky water of family life.” Letts has definitely provided a blueprint for doing so through thirteen characters in this play. In this play, he challenges the virtues of the American nuclear family, something that other writers have done in their popular works: novelist Toni Morrison in her first novel The Bluest Eye and screenwriter Alan Ball in his first feature film American Beauty. He frames this play in ways that provide important clues about how to navigate the rocky water of family life. It takes place in a large country home outside Pawhuska, Oklahoma in August of 2007. It opens with the patriarch of the family, Beverly Weston (John Cullum), telling his hired help, Johnna Monevata, her responsibilities for running the house. Here the audience is introduced to Violet Weston (Phylicia Rashad), a prescription drug-addicted wife who according to Beverly has “struck a bargain” with him. Beverly tells Johnna the effect of his resigning to alcohol and his wife to pills: “these facts have over time made burdensome the maintenance of traditional American routine: paying of bills, purchase of goods, cleaning of clothes or carpets or crappers” (11). Letts present Violet and Beverly as a married couple who would rather anaesthetize themselves in prescription drugs and alcohol than deal with the reality of their marriage, which includes the monotony of these traditional routines and some damaging family secrets revealed later. Beverly depends on Johnna to take care of the house while he plans to leave. For good. This first scene is the first and last time we see Beverly in this play. Letts brings into question the cost at which the supposed comfort a marriage can bring to an already dysfunctional situation that was produced as a result of the genocide of a particular group. His character Johnna, is Native American, and when Bryan Appleyard of the Sunday Times (of London in their December 14, 2008 article “Tracy Letts on August: Osage County”) asks what she is doing in this play, Letts replies: “She is watching, waiting. I believe in collective guilt, and Oklahoma is a more focused example of what country is founded on—manifest destiny and all that...But we still have Indian reservations and, growing up in Oklahoma, I grew up with Indians…Anybody who lives in that state can look around and say, this is the result of genocide committed long ago; and if you can see that in one states, you can see it in the whole country. There’s not only oil in that land, there’s blood. I think there’s a kind of karmic price to pay for that.” Letts placement of Johnna in the beginning and ending scenes of this play shows his understanding of how Europeans applied a uniquely possessive ownership of land that, to Native Americans, belonged to everyone. Letts shows ultimately, in the relinquishing of control from a European (Beverly) to a Native American (Johnna) and the finalization of such control in the last scene of the play where Johnna tells an anaesthetized Violet who seeks refuge in her lap: “this is the way the world ends.” The world Johnna is referring to here is obviously that of American control. Letts tells Appleyard that the actress playing Johnna, Kimberly Guerrero, told him a story that Native Americans were there before the white people, and that they were going to be polite and help them and nurse them and do what they had to do. But they would still be here when the white people had gone. Letts’ plays shows us exactly this: the transient yet dynamic glimpse of white people on land they named Oklahoma. In August: Osage County, we get this glimpse of European control, framed by Johnna, made very dramatic by family issues and individual addictions. No character’s line exemplifies this transience more than Barbara’s, one of Beverly and Violet’s three daughters who tells Johnna: “This country, this experiment, America, this hubris: what a lament, if no one saw it go. Here today, gone tomorrow. (Beat) Dissipation is actually much worse than cataclysm” (124). Letts shows in this play the dissipation of an American family due to its strong need for the concept of blame and the even stronger need to assign it to a single person. He frames this family as a sort of quintessential midwestern American family, suffocated by their own maintenance of patriotism and family. They are supposedly patriotic because they followed without question Dick Cheney’s supposedly fool proof method for guarding against terrorist attack: duct tape. Charlie asks Ivy when they started taping the shades. The taped shades of the Weston home are a representation of secrets within the family that, like the tape, keeps the family in the dark, ignorant of the nurturing sunlight that exposure and honesty can provide.
Each member of the immediate Weston family verbally abuses another because of the need to cast blame away from themselves, to cope with their own shame, or to defend against others who do the former two. The family comes together in the Weston home after the disappearance of Beverly, the family patriarch. We are first introduced to the eldest Weston daughter Barbara as she is blaming her husband Bill (Frank Wood) for their daughter Jean’s (Anne Berkowitz) smoking habit. Barbara is dealing with a husband who has left her for a younger woman and the guilt for leaving her mother and father that her mother and sister remind her of. She deflects these feelings with a very strong exterior and a profane vocabulary. The sympathetic portrayal of Barbara by Amy Morton is in my mind the most memorable of all performances, because she of all the characters is trying hardest to hold this family together: Barbara is the moral compass of the family. She is the only one to ask perhaps the most difficult questions that break other characters out of the mold of the “narcissistic generation” her husband says we’re part of. She challenges Violet’s material preoccupations with the safety deposit box; she questions Jean’s respect for her grandfather; she is the only one willing to identify her father’s drowned body; she is the first to challenge the authority of Violet; she challenges Ivy’s morbid proclamations that their father may have never liked any of his children; she is the only daughter willing to take responsibility after all other family leaves. Finally, she is also most sensitive to “the karmic price” that Letts suggests that Midwest America is paying for. As they enter the household, Barbara asks her husband: “Who was the a—hole who saw this flat hot nothing and planted his flag? I mean, we f---ed the Indians for this? (20). While Barbara handles blame, the thrust behind her doing so is intended usually for some greater moral purpose, best seen in her line lamenting her father’s apparent suicide: “I believe he had a responsibility to something greater than himself; we all do”(105). This moral compass was not true for the younger two Weston daughters. In the first scene of Act Three, Ivy tells the youngest daughter Karen and Barbara about her decision to leave her ailing mother: “nobody gets to point a finger at me. Nobody” (105). Ivy responds to charges about her lack of concern for her parents by vehemently deflecting blame. She is so concerned about expressing her love for Little Charles that she sees Violet’s revelation of Bev’s paternity of her lover, Little Charles, only as a plan to “change her story”(134). The youngest sister Karen also acts to shift blame away from herself when her fiancé Steve (Brian Kerwin), like a military contractor just out for a good time, is accused of making a pass at Jean. Karen tells Barbara: “You better find out from Jean just exactly what went in there before you start pointing fingers, that’s all I’m saying. ‘Cause I doubt Jean’s exactly blameless in all this. And I’m not blaming her. Just because I said she’s not blameless, that that doesn’t mean I’ve blamed her. I’m saying she might share in the responsibility.” Where Ivy and Karen seem preoccupied with blame and telling their side of the story, Barbara as the oldest seems more interested in correcting a problem than assigning blame. She thinks this way, apparently to a fault according to Karen who says that things are not cut and dried, black white, good and bad; that things are more often than not “somewhere in the middle. Where everything lives, where all the rest of us live, everyone but you” (121). Here Karen recognizes Barbara’s higher moral standard that does not compromise in trying to correct an issue. Barbara’s own possibility of romance is redeemed through her relationship with sheriff Deon Gilbeau (Troy West) who helps her remember her own attractiveness. Of all individual characters, it is through the character of Barbara that Letts shows best how to navigate the rocky water of family life.
Violet’s sister, Mattie Fae (Susanne Marley) does not seem to depend on pills as much as Violet, however she copes with the pain of a long-kept secret through the verbal abuse of her husband and particularly her son, Little Charles (Michael Milligan). She and her husband Charlie (Guy Boyd) follow the opening scene, which takes place five days after Beverly’s permanent departure. Mattie Fae warns Charlie that if he leaves without apparent notice the way Beverly did, his books would be burned, if he had any. Mattie Fae inflicts special abuse on Little Charles whose physical likeness plausibly reminds her of the shame she may feel for her affair with Beverly, whose fatherhood of Little Charles is the deep dark secret of this play. She tells Little Charles: “I suppose you wouldn’t like TV then, not if watching it constituted getting a job” (111). Charlie verbally threatens to kick her out of the car on the way back if she continues berating Little Charles. She reveals to Barbara: “I don’t know why Little Charles is such a disappointment to me” (114). Mattie Fae is Violet’s support, and between the two of them is the family’s deepest secret whose concealment maintains the appearance of a stable American family. The direction of the play is largely dictated by the decisions of the matriarch Violet Weston. She waits five days before alerting influential family members like Barbara of Beverly’s absence. She was more concerned about getting money from the safety deposit box than she was about trying to prevent her husband’s death. She curses Beverly even after his death: “You want to show who’s stronger, Bev? Nobody is stronger than me, goddamn it. When nothing is left, when everything is gone and disappeared, I’ll be here. Who’s stronger now, you son-of-a-b—ch?!” (137). It is this line that makes her crawling on all fours, seeking Johnna, so dramatic at the end of this play. In this play, through the Weston family, Tracy Letts has provided a survey of American history on Native American land, beginning with the patriarch, brought down by his burden of paternity, ending by the matriarch who is brought down by the pain of her own codependency which she refuses to acknowledge. At the beginning at the end of this play, like in Guerrero’s story is the Native American waiting to reclaim the land they intended for everyone and not one person. In this play, the concept of blame or personal responsibility is forsaken or unwanted the current way that the land on which the Weston household rests is. Its something most people (not Barbara) are trying to get rid of, instead of handle responsibly. Learning how to handle it responsibly is one way to navigate the rocky water of family life. One can read this play as a critique against the pharmaceutical industry, however on a deeper level it is a play about how individual choices can either help or hinder one’s navigation of family life. What makes one decide to douse their concerns in pill-popping seems to be a more important question that Letts is asking.
This is the play from a literary perspective. From a performance perspective, the most emotionally moving moments happened during the dinner scene when Violet berates her daughters for not making the most of the things that her generation never had. This is yet another example of Violet shifting blame from herself for the problems her daughters face. Rashad’s Violet is definitely a detached matriarch, one that is preoccupied with not having to think deeply as long as there’s a pill to pop somewhere. The fight scene where Barbara is trying to take Violet’s pills away from her needs much more work. There is definitely commotion by the cast at this part, but no real physical confrontation between Barbara and Violet that would drive such a commotion. Overall, the staging of this play that will soon tour will hopefully cause more people like Barbara not only to say, “that madhouse is my family,” but this play should hopefully cause people to ask: how can I make this madhouse less mad? Letts seems to suggest that an answer may be to either confront whatever shame affects our behavior, or to accept responsibility without fear or shame. –RF.

Three Powerful Plays Part Two

TOP: my friend Bianca (right) with Diana, grand-niece of Broadway pioneer Diana Sands.

BOTTOM: Me and Diana (photos courtesy of Diana).

This past week I had the opportunity to watch two amazing plays by two amazing playwrights: Leslie Lee and P.J. Gibson. The first play I saw was by Leslie Lee on Saturday, May 16th was Sundown Names and Night-Gone Things written by Leslie Lee and performed at the Castillo Theater on 42nd street between ninth and tenth avenues. I was truly able to empathize with the main character of this play, Cairo (Stephen Tyrone Williams), who works at an insurance agency in Chicago. I talked with Mr. Lee who said that this main character is loosely based on the experiences of Richard Wright, soon after he moved to Chicago from Mississippi. What strikes me about this play, as a writer myself are the historic nuances of the time period that Lee expressed in this play. Two of which specifically struck me were the numbers lines that Cairo’s co workers talked about and the different numbers books that they played from. I have to make sure that if I am writing in a historic period, that I capture everything, including the popular pastimes of people those days. I read a review of this play in Backstage by Mark Peikert and in some ways, Peikert definitely explicates this play in terms of its contributions to humanity, according to Addison Gayle’s stated role of the critic. Peikert writes that this play deals more with issues of class and misogyny than with race. I wholly saw that in this play. In fact the way that Cairo deals with these issues of misogyny and race is what made his character absolutely so appealing, so sympathetic to me. Lee begins the play showing a passionate intimacy with Cairo and Ruby (Deanna Wise) his girlfriend, and Ruby shows her very sensual side. However their very first interaction is fraught with mistrust when Cairo discovers that Ruby is wearing a dress another man gave her. He immediately challenges the “good time girl” or tramp stereotype that Ruby is falling into. As a playwright, Lee shows the difference between the individual and the stereotype. We get brief glimpses of Ruby’s resistance against this stereotype, when she asks Cairo to read to her, but we also get that fact that Cairo’s working obligations disallow him from spending time that is sufficient to separate Ruby from this tramp stereotype. Ruby understands this and ultimately shatters this tramp stereotype by deciding to move away from Chicago altogether. Lee is raising important questions about the employment possibilities of black women in the urban areas towards the latter end of the 1930s. Where Peikert writes that Ruby is simply a good time girl, a closer examination of Ruby will reveal that she wanted to be more than this stereotype, hence her fateful decision to move away from Chicago, when she discovers that she is pregnant, but unsure about who the her baby’s father is. The play’s action changes between two scenes: those between Cairo and Ruby and those at Cairo’s workplace. It is here that Lee challenges misogyny through the character of Cairo in the criticism of his co-workers’ behavior. His co-workers R.J. (Nathan Purdee), Travis (Marcus Naylor), and Boyd (Ralph McCain) are life insurance agents who arbitrarily charge their female clients hefty premiums depending on their clients’ willingness to sleep with them. Cairo rightly chastises co-workers for capitalizing on their female clients’ weaknesses. It is here I believe that Lee makes his most profound his contribution to humanity, through Cairo’s verbalizing of the ethical problems behind taking sexual advantages of their clients. But also, Lee makes an even stronger statement through the character of Mae Ann (Crystal Anne Dickinson), a client of Travis’s who pulls a gun on Travis after she realizes his game. Lee writes a searing monologue of Mae Ann who says she could not even look her children or husband in the eye after sleeping with Travis. She threatens to shoot Travis and serves as a cautionary tale to men about the dangers of taking unnecessary advantage of clients that one works with. This scene is a very exciting, suspenseful scene that precipitates Cairo’s decision to leave. Lee also shows the imbecility of colorism within the African American community through the exchanges between R.J. who wants to swap clients with Boyd in order to get more lighter-skinned clients since, according to R.J., lighter skinned ladies are “nicer.” Lee said that he was encouraged to end the play with Cairo leaving however he changed it to allow Cairo’s ethic to influence R.J. when R.J. describes his deceased father-figure from the South who slapped him across the face for not respecting a woman. As Cairo is preparing to leave their office for good, R.J. is on a phone call trying to arrange another rendezvous with a client when all of a sudden he feels a slap across his face; R.J. takes this as yet another warning against mistreatment of women, and Lee makes yet another attack on misogyny, he also brings the redeeming qualities of the American South to our attention. The South is a place where Ruby goes to flee the dangerous stereotypes leading her into prostitution and drug abuse; it is also a place where R.J. thinks about to stave himself from the vices of urban life.

During intermission, I had the opportunity to talk to Lee about the play; I shared how stuck Ruby seemed to be in the tramp (or jezebel) stereotype and Lee agreed. In this play, I was struck by the romance between Cairo and Ruby; how much he wanted to love her, and how unable and incapable Ruby was of loving Cairo. I definitely empathized with his feeling of isolation due to his voracious reading, which immediately set him apart from not only Ruby but from his co-workers, who tried to use alcohol to challenge his ethical claims. Essentially R.J. was trying to suggest that the alcohol was a cure for Cairo’s problems, however Cairo knew this was not the case and resisted. Cairo’s understanding of his manhood in this play is concerned with the need to be a father. He hated his father’s abandonment and tries not to repeat such abandonment when he discovers that Ruby is pregnant: he tells Ruby that he wants to raise her child. However when even Ruby does not know who the father of her baby is, Cairo is still insistent on being a father, a more attentive and better father than Cairo’s father was to him. Here Lee also extends the alienation of the educated black man in the late 1930s, an issue that was written about in Ellison’s novel Invisible Man. He is not only alienated by his woman but by his co-workers. We get that in Cairo. We get him resisting the stereotype of the whore and of the womanizer, the same way the narrator in Invisible Man resisted the stereotype of the black nationalist demagogue, corporate pawn of the HBCU, and the black token-trophy of the white Left. Lee is challenging these stereotypes in this play. Through R.J., Cairo presents the importance of remembering one’s heritage in treating a woman correctly, and not following the stereotypes that urban life can encourage. We get this in Cairo.

The second play I saw last week that absolutely changed my life was presented at a staged reading at the Schomburg Center in Harlem, last Wednesday, May 21, 2009. The play is tentatively titled The Diana Sands Project and is written by P.J. Gibson. I am grateful for the efforts of Diana Sands’ niece, Kathryn Leary in organizing this staged reading. It was searing. I truly hope this can be produced. Like my first play, this play is a biographical play about the pioneering Broadway actress Diana Sands, who lived a short yet full life. She stands out in my mind as the actress to originate the role of Beneatha in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. Her career blossomed after this role, and I think P.J. Gibson shows all the important marks and the interesting back stories in this play. I liked hearing the back story of how Diana braced herself for the indomitable slap that Claudia McNeil, who played her mother in A Raisin in the Sun gave her each and every night. McNeil seemed to take a bit too much pleasure in doing that. What brought Diana to life for me was the woman reading the role of Diana herself: Kim Brockington. I remember seeing Kim Brockington in her portrayal of Zora Neale Hurston in Kristy Andersen’s 2008 film Jump At The Sun. She portrays one of the back stories of Diana Sands’ story in such a powerful way, particularly the back story of the pain Diana felt when her then husband Lucien Happersburger leaves her for writer James Baldwin. Gibson writes a very painful part for Diana in going through this. In my mind, this part is one of the main reasons that this play should be produced because that kind of pain of adultery, particularly men leaving wives for other men is so relevant today. It was a pain suggested in Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, and it is a pain made more relevant after the popularity of J.L. King’s book. And it is a pain that Gibson writes so clearly in this play. Brockington is actually crying “Jimmy!” She is in sheer unbelief that her husband would leave her for another man, yet Gibson has her state very clearly that it is not because Lucien left her for another man why she’s so angry, but the fact that she found out from other people talking about it, rather than Lucien telling her directly. We get this so clearly from Gibson’s play. I like how Ms. Gibson frames this play. It begins with Sands in a dressing room, seeming to have a casual conversation with an audience about her life. According to the stage directions I heard at this reading, there is a screen on which important images are shown. Some of these images are the different people and plays and productions that Sands was involved in. I am sure it will be fun for the production to collect and project all those productions. There were many and they were influential. The most influential production Diana Sands was involved in I think was the Broadway production of The Owl and the Pussycat where Sands starred with Alan Alda. I am appreciative for Gibson including in this play the New York Times review of The Owl and the Pussycat where Alda tried to temper the then old-fashioned, racist attitudes that were uncomfortable seeing a stable black woman-white male couple on stage. In this script, Gibson quotes Alda saying that kissing her was no big deal, she’s just a human. To me, this revealed a high level of discomfort on Alan Alda’s part. Sitting behind me at this reading was the actual friend of Diana Sands, Dee! I was so humbled to meet her and hear more about Sands’s life from her at the reception following this meeting. Sitting in front of me at this reading was none other than the actress who originated the role of Ruth Younger in the original Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun: Ruby Dee. In her important memoir she co-wrote with Ossie Davis, edited by Sydne Mahone called With Ossie and Ruby: In this Life Together, she writes of Sands: “there are some spirits that stride boldly over the horizon and claim life with gusto. Diana Sands was one of these people. She came sure and laughing, taking hold of what she came for with both hands. She played Beneatha in A Raisin in the Sun, giving us the essence of Lorraine Hansberry, the author, in her portrayal.” Dee says also in this memoir that when she was in Hansberry’s presence, she felt she was in the presence of “a superior intellect.” I am so excited to see this play read, and see it have the opportunity to be produced. I was invited to this reading by my dear friend Bianca Lavern Jones, an actress who read the role of Dee, Diana Sands’ best friend who was sitting behind me at the reading. Bianca is sitting to the left of Kim in this reading. In the following video clip #1, you see a pink hat, which is the hat of one Ms. Ruby Dee.

In the second video clip, you see the reception that Ms. Leary held in the Reading Room of the Schomburg Center with Diana Sands’ best friend, Dee, talking about her friend Diana. In the third video clip, you see Ms. Leary leading Ms. Dee to read about Diana Sands from her memoir My One Good Nerve:

In the third video clip, is accomplished stage actress Mary Alice discussing Diana, followed by Diana’s best friend in London:

In the fourth video clip is accomplished stage actress and writer Micki Grant discussing Diana:

In the fifth video is what Ms. Leary described as the “village” of Diana Sands:

In the sixth video clip is Kim Brockington discussing how she received this role of Diana:

What I thought was remarkable in this sixth video clip of Brockington is the fact that every role she truly wanted to play, she played. I am fascinated at how some things, roles, seemed to be destined for certain people. Brockington said in this clip that the first role she got when she was at Morgan State was the lead in The Owl and the Pussycat which was also a breakout role for Diana Sands. Brockington in my mind is the closest facial resemblance to Diana Sands among any accomplished actor out there. I was so pleased to see this production come to fruition. In this seventh video clip is director of this reading, Regge Life.

In this eighth video clip is the first part of the playwright of the Diana Sands project, P.J. Gibson, Professor of Creative Writing at John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York. What is fascinating about what Ms. Gibson says is the fact that she had a photo of Diana Sands with her in college, brought it to graduate school, then to Brown University, then to New York. I am fascinated with how people seem to be predestined to do powerful things. The photo of Diana Sands that she kept was a symbol or a testament to the long relationship that Gibson had with Diana Sands. However no relationship seemed more important to Gibson than that between Diana Sands and her friend Dee, whose interviews with Gibson she said were instrumental to writing this play, and interviews with her niece Kathryn Leary.

In this ninth video clip, P.J. Gibson talks about how the piece she wrote on Diana Sands was completed and how different people met each other. Gibson said: “things come when they come.” I truly appreciated hearing this, because, for me, for me, it shows the power of God and how he will line people up with the right resources in the right places for things to happen. In this clip Gibson talks about internalizing and getting as close to the actual Diana Sands as possible, which meant learning that she had a taste for pineapple from Dee (and Brandy Alexander, Diana’s favorite drink which was served at this reception) and also learning a lot from Kathryn Leary.

In this tenth video clip, P.J. Gibson says about Diana: “this is a woman who has been walking with me for a long time.” This speaks to the spiritual perceptiveness of writers, and how spirits such as Diana’s might not have been literally walking with Gibson, Diana’s aura, presence, and essence remained and remains with Gibson. Brockington also spoke to this when she explicitly said she asked Diana to come and she did. I think that was evident in the reading in Brockington’s very vivid portrayal and in Ruby Dee’s reading where all Ruby Dee described about Diana was being portrayed by Ruby Dee herself. I am also fascinated with the connections between Diana and her best friend Dee. I thought the fact that they came from different worlds yet had a strong abiding love was powerful. My friend Bianca played this extraordinarily well. I remember Bianca and Kim giving each other a very very warm hug at the end of the reading. I appreciated hearing Gibson’s writing process. She says she writes everything up in her head. This is how novelist Edward P. Jones writes, according to my interview with him that aired on WBAI two years ago. Gibson is asked how long it took her to write this by my dear friend Bianca Lavern Jones. In the reading, the men in Diana’s life were masked.

Later in this eleventh video clip I asked Gibson where she got the idea about the masks from. After I asked this, an actor in this reading thanked P.J. Gibson

Finally in the twelfth video clip, my dear friend Bianca Lavern Jones shares how she learned about Diana Sands and playing Dee. If it were not for her, I would not have attended this important reading. Thank you, Bianca.

The last play I saw this past week was a searing play by Naomi Wallace entitled Things of Dry Hours. I was most humbled by this play. I thought more than anything it is a role-reversal of the white supremacist world within the home of one Sunday School Communist teacher, Tice Hogan. Tice is played by the legendary Delroy Lindo who sticks out in my mind as the indomitable West Indian Archie in Spike Lee’s film on Malcolm X. His daughter Cali Hogan, played by Roslyn Ruff, is a laundress and cobbler who works to support herself and her father. When Corbin, played by Garret Dillahunt, seeks refuge in Tice’s home in order to avoid the Klan for being a Communist sympathizer (I think), the tables are turned in terms of his power relative to the outside world. Corbin demands that Tice gives him the names of Communist members. Tice demands that Corbin learn how to read the Bible and the Communist manifesto by Marx. Cali resists the demands of both, veering from Tice’s communist teachings and from Corbin’s sexual advances. I think Wallace turns the tables in quite a convincing way. More than Lee and Gibson in their plays, Wallace takes more poetic licenses, with Tice in particular who makes comparisons of mankind to appleseeds. I had the opportunity to ask Wallace why the apple of all metaphors for Tice and she replied that it is something he likely sees a lot. I appreciate the poetic lines that Tice has, particularly being a student of the Bible which uses very vivid metaphors to teach its lessons. Perhaps the most powerful character in this play is Cali. I like the way Wallace writes her coping mechanisms for dealing with male sexual abuse. When Tice is away, Cali forces Corbin to play a game where he puts black cream on his face while Cali puts white cream on her face in order to mimic her sexually abusive white masters. After Corbin plays with her, Cali develops an attraction to Corbin, perhaps because this is the only man whose circumstances even as a white man in 1930s Alabama has forced him to actually not see her as an object of sexual conquest (not until the second act, that is). This play is a must see. –RF.

Three Powerful Plays Part One

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Why I Don't Support Obama's Ignoring the U.N. Conference on Racism

I was recently very disappointed with Obama's refusal to even consider attending the 2009 U.N Conference on Racism, considering his rhetoric about change. I respect that decision but with very strong reticence. I wrote this reaction to such a decision according to what Lorraine Hansberry and James Baldwin stated in their fiction and their nonfiction. This entry is not an effort to critique the relationship between Blacks and Jews, but more an effort to understand the various nuances of the relationship, nuances that are covered up. It is my effort to reconnect with a history that many have tried to separate me from.

The Obama administration’s censoring of the 2009 United Nations Conference Against Racism marks a dangerous allowance of power to the Israeli lobby that would only further the sentiment, believed by the world, that the United States is still the largest purveyor of violence. It is an unwise decision that may please perhaps the strongest lobby in Washington, AIPAC (American Israeli Political Action Committee), but it will continue to isolate the U.S. from the world population and encourage "terrorist" activity. Martin Luther King, Jr. stated that an injustice anywhere is a threat to justice anywhere. Tim McGirk writes in a January 2009 Time magazine article that “Hamas cannot be beaten militarily,” but should be “engaged politically.” By demanding that the U.N. Conference Against Racism avoid reference to Israel, Obama is condoning a threat to justice everywhere in the world by ultimately endorsing the violent policies of the Israeli state towards the Palestinian people. The rich legacy of African American writers, particularly James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry, provide an important framework for interpreting the Israeli colonization of Palestine. Baldwin and Hansberry were aware of the dilemma of colonization for Europeans not only in their non-fiction but in their fiction, which dismantles colonization by displaying its sheer ugliness. In defending Andrew Young in Jimmy Carter's public chastisement of him (as U.N. Ambassador) in 1979, Baldwin wrote, “the state of Israel was not created for the salvation of the Jews’ it was created for the salvation of Western interests…The Palestinians have been paying for the British colonial policy of ‘divide and rule’ and for Europe’s guilty Christian conscience for more than thirty years.” Baldwin suggests to the reader that Israel is a European or Western construction and as such pinpoints a significant injustice of occupation that continues to this day. According to a 2003 commission organized by Israel’s own government , Israel behaves in a “neglectful and discriminatory” manner towards Arabs. The Israeli government is notorious for their anti-Arab racism. Even McGirk writes that a “tectonic shift in demographics [in Israel from European to Arab]…scared…hawkish Israelis.” By censoring the U.N. Conference Against Racism, Israel is ignoring their own racism against Arabs and continuing the trauma visited upon European Jews by Nazis. They should at least confront Israeli colonization and make an effort to curtail the cycle of violence that their racist oppression against Palestinians perpetuates. Baldwin’s essay in defense of Young was published one month before I was born, and one month after a very important Black Leadership Summit at the NAACP’s national office in New York. Out of this summit came a “Declaration of Independence” from Jewish control of Black organizations. Julian Bond read the meeting’s statement on “Black/Jewish Relations.” It was unanimously adopted and it said in part: “within the past 20 years some Jewish organizations and intellectuals who were previously identified with the aspirations of Black Americans…became apologists for the racial status quo…Powerful organizations within the Jewish community opposed the interest of the Black community in the DeFunis, Bakke, and Weber cases up to the United States Supreme Court.” Tony Martin, Africana Studies Professor at Wellesley College and author of The Jewish Onslaught shows how the historical relationship between Blacks and Jews do not in fact provide justification for blind support of Israel and the United States in their demands to censor the U.N. Conference Against Racism. Martin points out that the judge who sentenced influential leader Marcus Garvey (Julian Mack) before his deportation was a Zionist and co-founder of the American Jewish Committee. The Ocean Hill-Brownsville debacle which removed public school control from the predominantly Black community and placed it in the hands of the mainly white Jewish teachers unions produced the kind of soft bigotry of low expectations that we see up to this day. Based on this history, the relationship between African Americans and white American Jews has not provided a basis for blind support of AIPAC or a lack of critique against it. According to an article by Steven Carter, in one of Lorraine Hansberry’s notes for an unpublished play, she wrote: “the Europeans will always underestimate us since they will be fighting free men thinking they are fighting slaves, and again and again—that will be their undoing.” By censoring the U.N. Conference Against Racism, they show that by the exclusion and treatment of Palestinians, Israel insists on undoing itself. Baldwin pointed out in the same 1979 essay that Israel was the main arms supplier of white South Africa. In fact, South African Jews were beneficiaries of apartheid, and were the world’s richest community and the world’s highest per capita contributors to Israel. How much of the wealth owned by Jews was in fact created at the expense of South African labor? Lorraine Hansberry’s character of Tshembe Matoseh in her posthumous play Les Blancs, laments his brother Abioseh’s conversion to the Catholic Church by detailing how African labor produced material wealth, saying: “I know the value of this silver, Abioseh! It is far more hold than you know. I have collapsed with fatigue with those who dug it out of our earth! I have lain in the dark of those barracks where we were locked like animals at night and listened to them cough and cry and swear and vent the aching needs of their bodies on one another. I have seen them die!” If we as African Americans have seen another victim of a gun shooting die, we have also seen some part of the billions of dollars given to the European Israeli state instead of given to legislation that could have paid for some preventive measure. Baldwin, Martin, Hansberry and many other important writers have shown that because race trumped religion, it is essential for African Americans to demand that other injustices not be carried out with impunity on any other nations, including Palestinians. Those who know better must do better. The proposition that literature is a moral force for change was articulated by Addison Gayle in his 1970 text Black Expressions. Baldwin and Hansberry have proven their nonfiction and fictional works are moral forces for change, to not only educate but inspire American citizens to ensure that injustices by Israelis do not create threats to justice anywhere. We need to rely on their moral compass, based on their experience as African Americans, and not on AIPAC. -RF.

An Homage to James Bevel (1936-2008)

James Bevel is one of the most influential people in the civil rights movement. Not only did he originate the idea to march from Selma to Montgomery in 1965 following the death of Jimmie Lee Jackson (an event which precipitated Bloody Sunday and the important passage of the 1965 Voting Rights Act), but he also gave a very inspirational sermon on the night of Monday, August 27, 1962 at Williams Chapel Missionary Baptist Church (a church I took a picture of, that I’d like to post soon) that inspired one Fannie Lou Hamer to join the movement and become an instrumental force for social change. The milieu was introduced by biographer Chana Kai Lee in For Freedom’s Sake, who writes:

One hot day in August 1962, an individual in Hamer’s Ruleville [Mississippi] church stood up and announced that a group of young people would be visiting the area to teach people how to register to vote. The visitors were members of the Council of Federated Organizations (COFO), an umbrella coalition of major civil rights organizations—the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), the National Urban League (NUL), the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and SNCC [the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee]. The council was established in 1961 for the purpose of promoting cooperation and less competition among organizations with different civil rights agendas in Mississippi. A series of meetings between town folk and COFO representatives, mostly SNCC members, was scheduled to being…Monday, August 27, at Williams Chapel Missionary Baptist Church, the only house of worship in the community that allowed voter registration workers in a forum…
At this COFO-sponsored meeting, the Reverend James Bevel, staff member with SCLC, and three SNCC members, James Forman, Bob Moses, and Reginald Robinson, informed a fascinated audience of its constitutional rights as citizens of the United States and of the state of Mississippi. Specifically, they told the audience that as adults they were all eligible to vote, and more important, eligible to vote out of office those individuals most responsible for keeping them down. Not the least of these was Senator James O. Eastland. Bevel then delivered a stirring sermon, entitled “Discerning the Signs of the Time,” based on a Bible passage, Luke 12:54. The sermon called on everyone to recognize the signs of the times and to act on them much as one would see clouds forming in the sky and prepare for coming rain (Lee, 24-25).

When I wrote a biographical play of Ms. Hamer in 2005, I tried to write the sermon that James Bevel gave that night. This I think is a difficult task because I am trying to reconstruct or present the truth, which is so incredibly unknown, and getting more unknown as the folks who were there on that night are moving farther and farther away (like all of us) from that night on Monday, August 27, 1962. Like the biographies that Dr. Lee and Ms. Mills have written, my play on Ms. Hamer’s life is still largely speculative. I am speculating on what happened and as such, this biographical play (with the exception of documented speeches that were Ms. Hamer’s actual words) is ultimately a work of fiction. I do not know what exactly happened on that night of Monday, August 27, 1962. I do know however that based on Dr. Lee’s biography, that was a night that changed Ms. Hamer’s life forever. It was after that night that she became dedicated to the cause of registering fellow black Southerners to vote. And I know based on the excerpt from Dr. Lee’s biography who was there, and what the topic of the sermon was. In writing this I tried to accomplish what Toni Morrison mentions in her 1984 essay “Rootedness: The Ancestor As Foundation” about “major characteristics of Black art.” She mentions that one of the major characteristics of Black art is something that “should try deliberately to make you stand up and make you feel something profoundly in the same way that a Black preacher requires his congregation to speak, to join him in the sermon, to behave in a certain way, to stand up and to weep and to cry and to accede or to change and to modify—to expand on the sermon that is being delivered.” In the following passage, I tried to write James Bevel’s sermon that I thought would make the Ms. Hamer then in my mind “stand up” or “change” and modify. The following excerpt from the biographical play I wrote is the scene in which I thought Ms. Hamer was changed by James Bevel’s sermon.

Scene 4: Williams Chapel, August 27, 1962.
[The setting is a small church chapel, humid and packed, eager in anticipation for an important sermon by SCLC member and leader, Reverend James Bevel. Fannie Lou is sitting next to Mary Tucker singing with the congregation and join the overall aura of praise in this church. The spiritual, “Jesus Is A Rock In A Weary Land” is being sung. There are random shouts of praise and exultation in the congregation; Fannie Lou and Mary are completely indistinguishable from the overall spirit of worship in the church. After the song, Reverend James Bevel approaches the pulpit.]

Reverend: A weary land, yes Lord, you are a rock in a weary land. Let’s give God some praise right now [congregation applauds]. Lord Jesus [shouting], we worship you, we thank you for health! For strength! We thank you that you’ve allowed us to gather here safely in this chapel for this prayer meeting, ‘cause Lord, you know, we live in a weary land! We need you, Lord! We can’t make it here without you. Amen. [voice gets quieter, as speech becomes casual]. I’m so glad to see all you folks here tonight. I’m a tell you right now, there’s no better place for you to be than here [Mary looks at Fannie]. And I guarantee that you will not be same after tonight. I said you will not be the same after tonight. Grab somebody by the hand [congregation grabs each other’s hands] bow your heads, and lets pray. Father God, we come to you tonight because Lord you know we live in a weary land. There are forces out there Lord [Reverend pauses; random folks in the congregation exclaim their agreement] that try to kill us Lord, and we need your help [much of congregation responds with ‘yes Lord’]. We have been troubled and menaced by the people among whom you have set us down, Lord. And still, we have sung the Lord’s song, Lord, your song, in a weary land! Lord Jesus help us! [even louder exclamations of agreement come from the congregation; Fannie Lou says “Yes Lord.”] We need you here, right now, LORD. Help us, LORD, to do the work you created us here to do. Bless all the members of this congregation, bless SNCC, the NAACP, CORE, the National Urban League and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference as we try to vote and help those like us who are in a weary land, LORD, among people who try to stop us from votin’, Lord, who try and stop us from getting registered[i]. Lord, bless them too. Lord, help us to fear nobody but you Lord. Nobody but you. Bless the understanding of this message tonight, bless the words that come out of my mouth, and bless them as they register, have your angels of protection around us, covering us from any harm, evil, and danger all this we ask in Jesus name, Amen.

Congregation: Amen.

Reverend: Ladies and Gentlemen, please understand, it is no coincidence that we are here speaking to you tonight. It is not by random chance that you decided to come here now, nor is it by chance that the Freedom Riders caught the attention of not only Senator James Eastland but also the Attorney General of the United States Bobby Kennedy. [much slower] Ladies and gentlemen, it is not by mistake that there are people in this here community of Ruleville who have decided—they made up their mind—that they would give shelter and refuge to the freedom riders. You see all these things are happening because they are meant to happen. I need to talk to you about the signs of the times[ii]. Every person in this congregation must be able to discern the signs of the times. Turn your bibles with me to Matthew Chapter sixteen, Matthew chapter sixteen. [The congregation, including Mary, turns to the chapter while Fannie looks on]. Verse one says, “The Pharisees also with the Sadducees came, and tempting desired him that he would show them a sign from heaven. Verse two says, He answered and said unto them,” wait, let’s stop right here and look at this. Now the bible in verse two says he answered, but what was the question—it didn’t mention the previous question, so what was it?
[The congregation varies from “signs” to “the signs” to “signs of the times” in their responses]

Reverend: Right. What are the signs of the times? That’s the same question a lot of us are asking. We want to have the answers in our way and in our time, but…the answer’s been sitting there in front of our face.
[Congregation exclaims agreement]

Reverend: You see, in order for Jesus to have answered, like the Word says he did, there had to have been a question. The question that the Bible doesn’t explicitly tell us was, ‘what are those signs?’ Folks, Jesus already knew what they were going to ask before they even asked him. The rest of the verse says, ‘He answered and said unto them, when it is evening, ye say, it will be fair weather: for the sky is red. Verse three says, “And in the morning, it will be foul weather today: for the sky is red and lowering. O ye hypocrites, ye can discern the face of the sky; but can ye not discern the signs of the times?” In other words, why ask such a question when the answer is staring you in the face? I’m here to tell you tonight, we got to wake up and look at what has been done and start praising God! [Congregation exclaims agreement] Those silly Pharisees and Saducees were asking Jesus for even more signs when he done already multiplied the bread and fed five thousand, he made the blind able to see again, he made the dumb able to speak, he healed the sick! The signs were right in front of their eyes! And tonight I’m telling you all the changes, all the miracles you seein’ round here: the arrests, the Freedom Riders coming through Nashville, Alabama, Mississippi, the sit-ins we havin’, the integration of all some of these places…it’s the signs of the times. You better move with it or get left behind. You go out and you register to vote. Get involved. Start acting like real citizens. The Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments said you can vote. So stop lettin’ the White Citizens Council stop you. Don’t let them people take away our schools. Stop lettin’ just the white folks vote so that they get all the federal funds. You go out and vote too. Don’t let them steal what you gotta right to. We got people in this neighborhood, in this church, still fussin’ ‘bout everything goin’ on and then got the nerve to ask, “What we gon’ do?” Fool, don’t ask that question! [Congregation laughs]
You just like the Pharisees! With your stupid question! The answer is right in front of your eyes! Look around! Notice how slowly but surely we gettin’ our rights. We got Brown v. Board just a few years ago. Now we got Bob Moses and Jim Forman down here helpin’ folks get registered. We got our own people helping each other. Stop living in bondage! Stop living in bondage! The Word of God says in Matthew chapter ten verse twenty eight, ‘fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.’ You fear nobody but God. You hear me? [Congregation exclaims approval] Nobody but God! Stop worryin’ about what white folks gon’ do and start givin’ God praise for what He did and what He gon’ do. I done learned that for myself. When the world tried to put fear in everything else except God. I wanna tell y’all a story if I could. You know, for the rest of my life, I’ll never forget the time my brother in SNCC John Lewis and I sat in one lunch counter on one afternoon, of November 10th of 1960.

Congregation:Go ‘head preacher!

Reverend: John grabbed me to go stage a sit-in at the Krystal Restaurant on Church Street in downtown Nashville. This is the same restaurant where Elmyra Gray and Maryann Morgan who took seats and asked to be served at a white counter, got a bucket of water poured over their heads and detergent poured down their backs and a hose turned on them. [congregation silenced slightly while Reverend gets louder] Then the demons turned on the air conditioner on full blast to try and freeze them out! Just for sitting and asking for service. So me and John saw the signs of the times and took action! As soon as we arrived, the manager came out from the back, wearing his white uniform and chef’s hat. Bernard and the women left, and John and I took two seats. “I’m closed,” the manager told us. “You’ll have to leave.” We glanced at each other. John looked at his watch, a gesture that said it was mid-afternoon, nowhere near closing time. The man pulled out a mop, went over the floor with a couple of wipes, then walked to the front door and locked it. By then the two or three other employees in the place were gathered behind the counter. The manager told them to head out the back and he followed, stopping for a moment to flip on a machine before he left. [Long pause.] The machine was a fumigator. A white cloud of insecticide began filling the room. Within seconds it was so thick we could not see out the front window. I tried the front door. It was locked. The back was locked as well. The fumes were getting thicker by the minute. I kept sittin’ there prayin’ for God to save us. Then the spirit of the Lord came on me and I started preaching, praise God! [congregation increases in volume] How many of you know that when you in the midst of the fiery furnace, you gotta press yourself into the word of God and speak that word! I tell you, I spoke the book of Daniel, where the angel appeared before the kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar and warned the people to bend before God or be thrown into the fire and smoke of hell. I said, ‘and whoever falleth not down and worshippeth,’ my eyes squeezed shut, ‘shall the same hour be cast into the midst of a burning fiery furnace.’ Then I started singing. How many of you know like Paul and Silas you got pray and sing to the midnight hour to get your deliverance? Paul and Silas prayed so that the suddenly there was an earthquake, so the immediately the doors were opened, and I tell you as I praying and singing in that restaurant, we could start to hear someone banging on the window and suddenly, hah, praise God, the front door burst open. A rush of cool air came through, along with the shapes of bodies—firemen dressed in full gear[iii]. Give God some praise for deliverance! I said you got to pray to midnight hour to get deliverance! Praise God! Don’t you know that restaurant is serving more black customers, now! Know the times! Know the times! Go with the change! Change! The Lord has called us to change! [Congregation erupts in praise; Fannie hears a distinctive ‘Hallelujah.’ While the environment silences while Fannie speaks in an aside]

Fannie Lou: Tuck, you heard that?

Mary: Heard what? [whispering]

Fannie Lou: Aunt Ella.

Mary: Who?

Fannie Lou: Aunt Ella. Momma.

Mary: No, why? You heard her?

Fannie Lou: Yeah, you ain’t?

Mary: No, but that probably don’t mean she ain’t here [laughs to herself].

Fannie Lou: [Fannie Lou turns around to see her mother, who is invisible to everybody else, dressed in all white standing behind her and identifies her as the woman who just said, “hallelujah.” Lou Ella is dressed in white, from top to bottom, worshipping God with her hands outstretched; however she quickly turns back around before Mary notices staring at her and decides to pretend not seeing her as she continues being enthralled by the sermon.]

Reverend: Stop sittin’ round just expectin’ things to change. You gotta change them! Or else you end up just like the Pharisees, so closed minded they can’t even see what’s in front of them. You got a duty to respond! Ain’t nothin’ gon’ change until you change things! They ran that man Clinton Battle outta town, the best dentist in this part of the world that man was, Clinton Battle. Don’t let him run you out. You see ‘cause he know what he was doing. He knew once we got the vote, that changes everything. We can put in charge, who we wanna put in charge, that meant the end of us gettin’ the worst of everything. The word of God says in Hosea chapter four, verse six, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge: because thou hast rejected knowledge.” Don’t let God destroy you! You go out there and run with those times. Get what belongs to you! Make a difference and be the agent of change God called you to be [congregation increases in exultation and excitement]. The word of God says in John chapter 8 verse 32, ye shall know the truth and the truth shall make you free! [congregation in exultation and excitement and begins clapping loudly] Stop living in bondage! [begins clapping and shouting louder] Get yourself free! [is at is loudest in clapping and shouting] Amen. Amen. Thank you tonight. We want to extend tonight the invitation of voting as I turn it over to my dear brother, SNCC member James Forman.

James: [speaking to the congregation] Good evening everybody.

Congregation: Good evening.

James: We have got to make a difference and get involved. Enough is enough. Everyone one of us in this room is capable and able to vote these people out there out of office. Now what Reverend James said is true: we have the power to vote these racist white leaders out of office. We have the power to do so. If we work together and get registered and vote, you would be surprised to see the difference you can make. Tonight I want to invite you to get registered and brother Moses will explain how you can do that, brother Moses…

[i] Lee, Chana Kai. For Freedom’s Sake: The Life of Fannie Lou Hamer. Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1999: 24.

[ii] Moye, J. Todd. Let the People Decide: Black Freedom and White Resistance Movements in Sunflower County, Mississippi, 1945-1986. Chapel Hill and London: The University of North Carolina Press, 2004: p.97
[iii] Lewis, John with Michael D’Orso. Walking With the Wind: A Memoir of the Movement. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1998: p.121-122.


My reason for writing this whole biographical play is what Toni Morrison says in a 1987 essay, “The Site of Memory:” She writes: “how I gain access to that interior life is what drives me and is part of this talk which both distinguishes my fiction from autobiographical strategies…It’s a kind of literary archeology: on the basis of some information and a little bit of guesswork you journey to a site [Williams Chapel on August 27, 1962 in Ruleville, Mississippi] to see what remains were left behind and to reconstruct the world that these remains imply.” I was also driven by the personal wish of mine to have been born at least thirty years earlier, so I would be part of a generation of people that were willing to change the destructive mores of the society in which they lived. I needed to gain access to that interior life of Ms. Hamer that helped her become the staunch civil rights advocate that she became. I think I needed this because I was so shocked by the way the then Bush administration was rolling back civil rights and liberties in brazen ways that I thought went unchallenged by most people I knew. While going to the physical structure of the church in 2005 helped me on some level, there was nothing like getting the actual scripture from Dr. Lee that Bevel based his whole sermon on. I found this more helpful than anything because I’ve heard a lot of sermons in my life and did not mind trying to write a sermon that would be the sort to influence one Ms. Hamer to join the work that SNCC was doing. Lee writes later that:

“the civil rights workers’ presentation contained new and exciting information for the group. It certainly lit a fire in Hamer, apparently to the point of helping her to ignore or forget her initial response to Tucker’s initial invitation. ‘Until then, I’d never heard of no mass meeting and I didn’t know that a Negro could register and vote.’ The COFO representatives told the eager group that they would have to fill out voter registration applications, which they were taught todo that night. The SNCC members then asked who would be willing to go to the county courthouse in Indianola to secure this most precious of rights. Eighteen people raised their hands and expressed an interest in testing a longstanding practice of excluding blacks from southern politics and thereby limiting their control over their destinies. Before leaving the church, the organizers made sure the volunteers signed their names on a list of those who were going to make that historic step the following Friday, August 31, 1962” (25).

While James Bevel deserves a lot of credit for preaching the sermon that drew Ms. Hamer into the civil rights movement via SNCC, a lot has been made over the past forty year about James Bevel’s encounters with the law, most notably the sexual abuse of his younger daughter that put him in prison several years up to his death. While these issues raise questions about Bevel, they should absolutely not obscure or replace recognition of the very influential and important work he has done in the civil rights movement, including the drawing of Ms. Hamer to the movement as well as originating the Selma-to-Montgomery march. My deepest sympathies extend to all those who suffer sexual or verbal abuse. Certainly if each of us were recognized according to our consistent morality, we would be found failing, just like James Bevel. Nobody should be defined by their weaknesses only. I appreciate James Bevel's strengths, as they allowed forums of creative protest against the Jim Crow South. His actions have taught me that my faith and pursuit of social justice are one in the same, and are inseparable, and I thank him for his work. –RF.

AN INTERVIEW WITH BARBARA LEE

I thought the perspective of Barbara Lee will be especially important especially during the Obama administration. She is currently chair of the Congressional Black Caucus. Below is my enlightening exchange with her about her recent memoir, Renegade For Peace and Justice: Barbara Lee Speaks For Me.

An interview with Barbara Lee about Renegade For Peace and Justice: Congresswoman Barbara Lee Speaks For Me on November 13, 2008. A special thanks to Beth Warshaw-Duncan at WXPN studios in Philadelphia for production assistance.

An audio file on a Hipcast, thanks to Bryan Buchan, Virtual Outreach Coordinator for the Progressive Democrats of America, is available at:
http://blog.pdamerica.org/2009/02/renegade-for-peace-and-justice/

Fraser: In her candid and self-effacing book, U.S. Congresswoman Barbara Lee chronicles the challenges she overcame to break the silence of multigenerational domestic violence, and her rise from being a young single mother of two to being one of the most progressive, respected voices in Congress. Barbara Lee’s willingness to stand on principle earned her unsolicited international attention when she was the only member of congress to vote against the resolution giving President George Bush virtually unlimited authority to wage war against nations he personally deemed capable of terrorism. Some praise her vote as heroic and inspirational, and others called for her death. However this autobiography is about more than politics and votes cast. The name of it, Renegade For Peace and Justice dispels the myth that all members of Congress have led gilded, charmed lives. In this book you’ll learn about the work of Congress in the days that followed September 2001 and you’ll also be inspired by the story of an African American woman who rose from segregation and public assistance to become a member of Congress with a deep commitment to peace and improving the lives of the underprivileged…It is my pleasure to talk with Congresswoman Lee after reading this memoir in its entirety, Congresswoman Lee thank you so much.

Lee: Very good to be with you this morning.

Fraser: My first question for you is…you start very up front by saying you’re standing on the shoulders of giants. You say that you were taught that if you witness an injustice, then you had no choice but to stand and be counted. You write, “I have been fortunate to have met, worked with, or read about incredible people, who have shown me that having faith and doing what is right, is its own reward.” My first question for you, and you talk later about Papa, W.C. Parrish [her grandfather] and also how faith was a bedrock in your home-- Could you talk about up to today, in your time of going on your eleventh year as a Congresswoman the role of family and faith in your life?

Lee: Sure, you know that I am a believer. Not that everyone in our country and the world believe in what I believe in. Because of my upbringing, I was actually raised in many churches. I went to Catholic school because the [public] schools were segregated in El Paso, Texas, and my mother, grandfather, and dad, they would not participate in any form of segregation which meant of course, no segregated schools, so we ended up going to Catholic school and I ended up becoming a very devout Catholic…and the sisters of Loretta taught me—they were unbelievably brilliant nuns who were committed to social justice causes, even though they were deeply religious. So I grew up as a very religious person and as an elected official, and I write about this in the book, I strongly believe in the separation of church and state. And I think that that has got to be for people of faith the bottom line, we practice our faith in whatever way we practice it if we have faith. But we cannot allow that separation of church and state to erode. You know I got involved in politics as a result of a great woman, Shirley Chisholm. She was my mentor. I was a student at Mills College. And I was required to work in a presidential campaign—this was in the early seventies, 72, and I had never registered to vote, and my course requirement was to do the fieldwork and I said ‘no, I’ll just flunk it ‘cause I’m not going to work for Muskie, McGovern, and Humphrey,’ you know, I conscientiously made that decision like many young people in the past have made because they don’t think the system works for them. I didn’t believe it worked for me. I was a young student on public assistance, and I just refused to work in any of those campaigns. Well this great woman came to Mills College. As I said, I was president of the Black Student Union, she spoke. And I said ‘my goodness, she’s running for president,’ and I went up and talked to her and told her about the class I had that I was about to flunk and said I might reconsider that after hearing her speak because she talked about the eradication of poverty; she was against the Vietnam War; she was for our children and education; I mean she was a phenomenal woman and I heard this woman and I never heard of her before and I said ‘I’ll work in your campaign, how do I do this?’ And she looked at me and said ‘Well, you first have to register to vote.’ And then she took me to task about being involved politically and why I should get involved. If I really believed in changing the status quo and she said, ‘I don’t have a lot of money so my local people are establishing an organizing campaign.’ I went out to look for her campaign so I could work in it, and so I could pass this class. And, low and behold there was no campaign, and so I ended up actually with some friends organizing the Northern California Shirley Chisholm Presidential primary out of my class at Mills College. And I got an A and the rest is history. And that just speaks to why its so important for young people to have mentors and to have people to encourage them and inspire them because there was no way I would never have gotten involved in politics had it not been for our Beloved, the Honourable Shirley Chisholm.

Fraser: The role she played you talked about a lot, its responsible for a lot of your policies as well. You mentioned the separation between church and state that you also write, that explains why you are in full support of gay marriage. It also explains why you were against faith-based initiatives. This memoir really provides—I think for anybody that may not necessarily agree with your political stances you have—explanations, but you provide reasons for every one of your initiatives. Before you met Shirley Chisholm, could you talk about how you were working with the Black Panther Party. And you write how the Black Panther Party had a cadre of people called community workers. And you write that you were one of those. You knew Bobby Seale; you said you were his fundraising coordinator and raised money from a variety of middle income individuals. But I think most importantly about your experience with the Black Panther Party, Congresswoman Lee, I think, is the fact that you didn’t see necessarily a conflict between what the Black Panthers were trying to do and what your faith calls you to do. And I think today so many people, churches included, when you mention the Black Panther Party, very much like mainstream America, red flags are raised as it [is seen as] being too militant. But you expose a very humane side about them. Could you talk about how the Black Panther Party, your personal experience with them and how that shaped where you are?

Lee: Sure. The Black Panther Party was an organization that really was a revolutionary organization. But it also had as central to its mission survival programs. They had a ten point program. Feeding children breakfasts. Hungry children can’t learn. And actually the national movement for free breakfasts came, or had its genesis with the Black Panther Party. Medical care, they had survival rallies. I can remember my children and I bagging groceries and thousands of people would show up just to get a bag of groceries. The Black Panther Party led in the Sickle Cell Anemia testing efforts. There were so many unbelievable initiatives as part of the Ten Point Program that began under the Black Panther Party. I wrote about it because as a community worker, I saw that side of it. I was not a Party member but I was very involved in their survival programs. I helped them write proposals and raise money for the School, which was a phenomenal school. I think it was called the Oakland Community Learning Center. And yes Bobby Seale ran for the mayor of Oakland. And he got into the runoff. And so being a community worker and not a Party member allowed me the opportunity to talk to people who were more middle class, had a little money [to] help Bobby Seale in his efforts to take on the power structure in Oakland. And it was quite a profound time. I write about COINTELPRO, my FBI files. I looked at that and saw how I was targeted by J. Edgar Hoover. You know we still don’t know: what was real and what wasn’t real, who provoked what, in terms of the violence that was taking place during that time. But COINTELPRO was real, the FBI had a real program to go after Black organizations and the Black Panther Party was one of those. And I tell you one thing, that period in my life was a period that allowed me to really understand how economic systems oppress people and the Panthers were very clear about being a coalition organization; they were not a Black nationalist group: they had people of color, white progressives; they had all kinds of people, so it really helped me become more of a coalition builder and understand—and I write about this in the book that we all have roots. Of course my roots are in Africa. And we’re proud of our roots; we are who we are. But we also take that culture and those experiences as being people of African descent to the larger world and to the larger community. And that doesn’t mean you hate other people. That means you are proud to be who you are and you work with everybody to try to make this a better world.

Fraser: Thank you. You talk later about how Bush, in terms of policy…ignored a provision that banned permanent military bases in order to keep a military presence there. And in light of a very important transition in presidential administrations from Bush to Obama, I ask, especially [in terms of] policy...How can we as progressives…address the issue of military spending that Obama says he will commit and the troop increase he is interested in sending to Afghanistan?

Lee: I think we have to wait and see how the foreign and defense policies of the new administration will evolve. I was the first member of the California Congressional delegation to endorse Senator Obama and served as his Western region co-chair and I am, like everyone in the world, so excited, so relieved, that we’re going to break from the past and move forward…and so I think it’s going to be very important to be engaged in dialogue and see what’s going to happen in terms of the overall budget and really let Senator Obama put together his team and then we’ll see where to go from there but I’m certain he’s going to do the right thing. He was out against the war and the invasion and occupation of Iraq early on, and I’m confident. I believe in him and I think the progressive community should really work with him to make sure that our young women and men are brought home in a responsible and a safe way. And we’re going to continue to make sure we have a strong national defense while making sure that the resources are there for our domestic priorities.

Fraser: On a personal note, you talk very strongly…for women who are addressing or wondering how to address a domestic violence situation, this book really addresses that. You talk very personally and candidly about your dealing with domestic violence not only through your mother but also yourself. And I encourage, highly encourage, anybody who has had to confront a domestic violence situation to really read this and be inspired, be encouraged, and to get inspiration. You write on page 126: “Some of the women in my family were victims of battered women’s syndrome so I am intimately aware that this is not an easy problem to overcome or escape.” And then later you say “Because women are devalued as human beings, male abusers have elaborate denial systems that are designed to justify or excuse their violent attacks.” And I couldn’t really help, Congresswoman Lee but to make a connection between the culture that you fight against, that you’ve fought against in September 13th in voting against the war and also the…gender roles that males have constructed. I think immediately of James Baldwin’s monumental essay [article] in Playboy called “Freaks and the American Ideal of Manhood” where he said that the American notion of manhood is so paralytically infantile that it prevents boys from becoming men. And in talking about your experience with domestic violence, I couldn’t help but make a connection. You also write on how you appeared on Oprah on September 26, 2001, to explain your vote with a group of other very influential women. And in that address to Oprah’s September 26th show, you said as women we must insist that a response is instructed to our children on how they deal with violence and that our response reassures our children that they will inherit a peaceful world. I wanted to ask you, what connection do you think is between your dealing with domestic violence and your stance against war?

Lee: You know this was a really hard chapter to write; I didn’t want to write about it but my editors and publishers insisted because I’ve taken that experience and worked a lot on domestic violence policy. I carried the Violence Against Women Act when I was in the legislature. And I carried many bills trying to bring domestic violence…to the forefront of the political agenda so it was very difficult. But I think out of that, what you’re saying is absolutely right. Violence should not be an option in our families, nor should it be an option in our communities. I’m dealing with the violence in my city in Oakland, California. Violence is so embedded in our culture and we’ve got to break that cycle. And one of the initiatives that I think is very important is a Department of Peace. Some people laugh at that, but we talked about establishing a Department of Peace to look at conflict throughout the world but also in our own communities as it relates to domestic violence, as it relates to gun violence. We’ve got to begin to talk about violence. Our young people, they watch television and they see our country invading another country and bombing another country. They see that violence is oftentimes the first option that we use. And so I think we have to have some serious dialogue, some serious debate, and some serious initiatives both in our own communities, in our families, as it relates to conflict resolution, mediation, and violence prevention. We must do that. Young people have got to have a world where they feel safe, where they understand that peace should prevail. And it starts at home.

Fraser: Could you talk about the policy initiatives in California that you spearheaded?

Lee: Vice President elect Joe Biden introduced the Violence Against Women Act. I was in the California Legislature and the National Bill allowed states to introduce their own measures within the contexts of federal laws. And so I authored the Violence Against Women Act for the state of California. Really that entails a lot of initiatives for women: counseling, battered women’s shelters; we’ve put in provisions for culturally and linguistically appropriate strategies and programs. And I wrote legislation to increase penalties for harassing by telephone and there are many violence prevention and domestic violence initiatives that I authored when I was in California. And working with the women’s shelters, battered women’s shelters, trying to protect women from their abusers…as I look back in writing this memoir, and like I said, it was the hardest thing to do but what it did—and the editors made me do this—that’s part of the motivation for working on all these issues. People would say, ‘why are you doing so much on women’s issues?’ You know, well, we’ve got to have some protection for women and children in these situations and I assume I draw a lot of that from my personal experiences.

Fraser: Not only in dealing with domestic violence but also dealing with comprehensive sex education. And the challenges that I faced that you’re especially. You know, you motivated me to be more genuine in my own understandings about sexuality. You do as well when you talk about your first husband and just before that phase—that phase of learning about what that is. And you discuss your policy initiatives with Senator Frank Lautenberg about educating people and taking time, not just to bash people over the head with abstinence only, but also efforts to provide comprehensive work. Could you talk about the potential of that in an Obama administration?

Lee: Let me tell you, we have to have comprehensive sex education for our young people. HIV and AIDS, the transmission of sexually transmitted diseases is off the scale now especially with young women and men of color. And its outrageous that the federal government [now, as in November 2008] will not fund comprehensive sex education for our schools and that abstinence only has been the policy. Actually it was instituted under the Welfare Reform Bill when President Clinton signed it, and what happened was federal funds were not allowed to be used in school districts throughout the country unless they were used to teach abstinence only. Well, fortunately, and I was in the legislature then, California, opted out. And so we have been teaching comprehensive sex education. But we don’t receive federal funding at all. Now I believe there have been fifteen or sixteen states that have declined federal funding because comprehensive sex education is the only way you can teach young people how to protect themselves. Sure abstinence, that’s the ideal. But it’s got to be abstinence plus. You have to be realistic and the dangers are too great in terms of HIV and AIDS and young people…young women with unwanted pregnancies and all of the issues I had to deal with. Roe v. Wade, we’ve got to uphold and never let to choose, a woman’s right to privacy be taken away. Some young people think that it’s always been the case. The government should not be allowed to make private decisions that women, their spouses or partners, their clergy persons should be making. And so I’m adamant in terms of being a pro choice woman. And being a person who’s going to continue to work to make sure that our young people, sooner or later, have the opportunity for comprehensive sex education. That’s the only way to help them lead healthy lives.

Fraser: Part of the problem is I think the popularization of the word ‘abortion.’ The fact that, you know, and I think it really came about in the late seventies and early eighties when ‘abortion,’ is not the root of the problem when in some cases women are raped. You talked very graphically about some people, some doctors who literally have would have women be tortured because of the unsafe way that the…experience happens, but just the popularization of the word abortion really absolves, essentially, the man from his role, and that’s part of the issue that you really discuss throughout the theme of this book…the men can force the conception, but the women are placed with the burden. The whole abortion debate from the late seventies throughout the eighties problematizes and places disproportionately the burden on women. And that’s why its important that women have reproductive rights over their own bodies and not allow the media to just stigmatize women for that decision.

Lee: Thank you and I appreciate your saying that as a male. It’s a really hard ethical and moral dilemma. And its something that I think that women and their private world should address. I don’t think government needs to dictate any direction or any policy that erodes a woman’s right to choice and woman’s right to privacy. I’m adamant about government staying out of the private lives of the people.

Fraser: Finally…I’ll read from [for me what was] the most moving part of the memoir, and then have a concluding question. You write on page 144: “I will never forget participating in a women’s caucus hearing at the California Institution for Women in Frontera. We were at the prison trying to get testimony from women who had killed their spouses in self-defense. All of these women had been continuously battered for years. And we were trying to get Governor Pete Wilson to grant them pardons. Well during this meeting, an African American woman told her story which was very similar to mine. All I could think of was, only by the grace of God that I wasn’t sitting there in jail with them because they fought back and I didn’t. There were press and cameras at the hearing. I broke down, ran out of the hearing and cried like a baby. So its obvious you had a direct connection to the policy and later you talk about how you had the Lee Amendment address these issues and how your perspective, your experience in shaping public policy is essential because you experience the issues that society tends to ignore.

Lee: You know its important I think that people whether they’re public officials, whatever one is doing, that if you have experienced certain injustices, certain traumas, certain obstacles which we all experience, that we try to fix it, if we have the opportunity. And as I look back, its very interesting because I really…wasn’t that happy interested in having to write this memoir, I decided to do it. But as I look back now, I’m saying yes. We have got to try to help others. This is about using our lives and what I hope I’ve been able to do in writing this, is for those who read, is to inspire others to use their obstacles or whatever they’ve gone through and if they have an opportunity to make things better for other people, do it. You only have this chance once. And don’t miss the opportunity to weigh in and do what it takes so that others don’t have to go through what you went through.

Fraser: Finally, my final question is: any suggestions after people are inspired, reading this in terms of policy lobbying efforts that you think the progressive community should be engaged in?

Lee: I think it’s important that we engage. Whatever issues people care about, I mean whether it’s school, whether its healthcare, whether its foreign policy. Find an organization that’s working on those issues. I think the next four years are going to be incredible in terms of finally moving forward in terms of participatory democracy. You know the last eight years have been pretty bad. And now we have an opportunity to be engaged and to do things, and to let our voices be heard. And so my suggestion is to just get involved however: whatever group, whatever issue you care about, whatever you want to do to use your life to change, make this world a better place, do it. You only come this way once. We’ve got to make sure our voices are heard in every decision that is being made, in every program, in every institution, in every business, in whatever world you’re in, in terms of your own private world. Try to do something for others and let your voice be heard.

Fraser: Congresswoman Lee is the author of the new book Renegade For Peace and Justice: Barbara Lee Speaks For Me. Congresswoman Lee thank you for your time.

Lee: Good talking with you.

Also see this very important interview with Barbara Lee and Brian Lamb, first aired on February 22, 2009 on C-SPAN’S Q & A program. The link to this program: http://www.q-and-a.org/Program/index.asp?ProgramID=1220