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Tag Archives: Black History Month

Daily Ramblings – Thankful/Thinking Thursday – Audre Lorde

18 Thursday Feb 2021

Posted by Dave Gardner in Thankful Thursdays, Thinking Thursdays

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Activist, Art, Audre Lorde, Black History Month, Civil Rights Movement, Discrimination, Gay Rights Movement, Google, Poem, Poet, Poetry Foundation, Prejudice

Photo Credit: Audre Lorde. Photograph by Elsa Dorfman.

Today’s thinking Thursday is about another African American icon. This one is a poet called Audre Lorde. Much of her work throughout her life was dedicated to fighting discrimination be it racial, homophobic, ethnic, or whatever. I’ve included a poem from the Poetry Foundation below for you to read if you are interested. Google highlighted her today. This is where I got the inspiration to write today’s posting. After the poem, I’ve included the link for her biography on Poetry Foundation and a link to her Wikipedia page. I hope you enjoy reading about her.

Sisters in Arms

BY AUDRE LORDE

The edge of our bed was a wide grid
where your fifteen-year-old daughter was hanging   
gut-sprung on police wheels
a cablegram nailed to the wood
next to a map of the Western Reserve
I could not return with you to bury the body   
reconstruct your nightly cardboards
against the seeping Transvaal cold
I could not plant the other limpet mine
against a wall at the railroad station
nor carry either of your souls back from the river   
in a calabash upon my head
so I bought you a ticket to Durban
on my American Express
and we lay together
in the first light of a new season.

Now clearing roughage from my autumn garden   
cow sorrel    overgrown rocket gone to seed   
I reach for the taste of today
the New York Times finally mentions your country   
a half-page story
of the first white south african killed in the “unrest”
Not of Black children massacred at Sebokeng   
six-year-olds imprisoned for threatening the state   
not of Thabo Sibeko, first grader, in his own blood   
on his grandmother’s parlor floor
Joyce, nine, trying to crawl to him
shitting through her navel
not of a three-week-old infant, nameless   
lost under the burned beds of Tembisa
my hand comes down like a brown vise over the marigolds   
reckless through despair
we were two Black women touching our flame   
and we left our dead behind us
I hovered    you rose    the last ritual of healing   
“It is spring,” you whispered
“I sold the ticket for guns and sulfa   
I leave for home tomorrow”
and wherever I touch you
I lick cold from my fingers
taste rage
like salt from the lips of a woman   
who has killed too often to forget   
and carries each death in her eyes   
your mouth a parting orchid   
“Someday you will come to my country   
and we will fight side by side?”

Keys jingle in the door ajar    threatening   
whatever is coming belongs here
I reach for your sweetness
but silence explodes like a pregnant belly   
into my face
a vomit of nevers.

Mmanthatisi turns away from the cloth
her daughters-in-law are dyeing
the baby drools milk from her breast
she hands him half-asleep to his sister
dresses again for war   
knowing the men will follow.
In the intricate Maseru twilights
quick    sad    vital
she maps the next day’s battle
dreams of Durban    sometimes
visions the deep wry song of beach pebbles
running after the sea.

Notes:

M-mán-tha-tisi: warrior queen and leader of the Tlokwa (Sotho) people during the mfecane (crushing), one of the greatest crises in southern African history. The Sotho now live in the Orange Free State, S. A.

Má-se-ru: scene of a great Tlokwa battle and now the capital of Lesotho

Durban: Indian Ocean seaport and resort area in Natal Province, S. A.Audre Lorde, “Sisters in Arms” from The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde. Copyright © 1997 by Audre Lorde. Reprinted with the permission of Charlotte Sheedy Literary Agency and W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., http://www.nortonpoets.com.Source: The Collected Poems of Audre Lorde (W. W. Norton and Company Inc., 1997)

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/audre-lorde

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Audre_Lorde

This is yet another inspiring woman. I hope you enjoy these links. I did.

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Ted Talk/Thinking Tuesday – Rosa Parks

16 Tuesday Feb 2021

Posted by Dave Gardner in Ted Talk, Thinking Tuesday

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Accomplishment, Black History Month, Civil Rights Movement, Icon, NAACP, Rosa Parks, Service, Torch Bearer

Photo Credit: Photograph of Rosa Parks with Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. (ca. 1955) Mrs. Rosa Parks altered the negro progress in Montgomery, Alabama, 1955, by the bus boycott she began. National Archives record ID: 306-PSD-65-1882 (Box 93). Source: Ebony Magazine

When we hear the name Rosa Parks, we all remember the incident where she refused to move out of a “white only” section of a bus and was arrested, turning the fledgling civil rights movement into a national phenomenon. Watch this short video to see what else she did in her life. I think you’ll be surprised.

If you’d like to learn more, here’s a link to read about her and her life: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Parks

When you look at the large list of her accomplishments, think about the Jim Crow laws and all the other roadblocks that were put in her, and other African American’s lives during one of the darkest periods of American history.

Have a great Tuesday, folks!

Until next time…

Dave

Daily Ramblings – Wisdom Wednesday – Martin Luther King, Jr.

10 Wednesday Feb 2021

Posted by Dave Gardner in Wisdom Wednesday

≈ 3 Comments

Tags

Black History Month, Charity, Cherish, Determination, History, Honor, Martin Luther King, Remember, Reverence, wisdom

Photo Credit: Wikipedia

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

We are not makers of history. We are made by history.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the End, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

In honor of Black History Month (Feb 1 – Mar 1 2021) I’ll be selecting quotes from memorable figures that should be remembered for the work they did to gain their civil rights during a dark period of our history.

Here’s a Wikipedia link for the late Martin Luther King, Jr.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr. I hope you enjoy it.

Until next time…

Dave

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