Tuesday was the anniversary of the 1969 assassination of Fred Hampton, the 21-year-old leader of the Chicago Black Panther Party. Fifty-four years ago, when I first saw the next morning’s Washington Post headline, I was instantly convinced that the Chicago police had done it, that they were lying about it and that they would getContinue reading “Immediately. Forever. In the Middle of the Night.”
Category Archives: racism
The Fog of Grief
November 1969 Last Wednesday was the 54th anniversary of the largest political demonstration in American history. Organized by the National Mobilization against the War in Vietnam, commonly known as the MOBE, the protest drew half a million people to the nation’s capital. They marched from the White House (Nixon’s “secret plan to end the war”Continue reading “The Fog of Grief”
Movin’ On Up
When I met the father of my children, he was just starting a job for a new project at the Black YMCA in Chicago. (Yes, Y’s were segregated.) Jobs Now aimed to get corporations to hire Blacks. I was surprised that the focus was on jobs, when, in the late sixties, it seemed to meContinue reading “Movin’ On Up”
White Wife/Blue Baby
I’m using the title White Wife/Blue Baby for my forthcoming memoir. When the phrase first hit me, my psychological hair stood on end. I married across the color line in ‘68, and our daughter was born not getting enough oxygen, two facts with ambulance sirens attached to them. When I first referred to my titleContinue reading “White Wife/Blue Baby”
Today April 4 MLK’s Anniversary
Today April 4 MLK’s Anniversary Fifty-five years ago today I found out that Martin Luther King had been shot when I heard someone snickering and snorting. A man was walking by the hospital room of the friend I’d come to visit. We could hear the crackle of the transistor radio the guy was listening to,Continue reading “Today April 4 MLK’s Anniversary”
Interracial Marriage, Updated
In what CNN described as a ‘landmark bipartisan vote” the Senate passed a bill Tuesday protecting same-sex marriage. Hooray for a preemptive strike! The bill also protects interracial marriage, something we thought was already entirely safe given the Supreme Court’s 1967 Loving vs. Virginia decision. But now we have an anything-goes Supreme Court. Who knowsContinue reading “Interracial Marriage, Updated”
Coming to a Bookstore near You!
The good news – the stomp-and-yell good news — is that my memoir, White Wife/Blue Baby, has been accepted for publication. When will it come out, everyone asks. It’s too early to know. But it’s in the queue at All Things That Matter Press. (https://allthingsthatmatterpress.com/) When I got the ATTM email message stating, “We wantContinue reading “Coming to a Bookstore near You!”
Blue Baby
My infant daughter died fifty-three years ago last week. She was born not getting enough oxygen, which made her lips purply, the way kids look when they’ve stayed in the pool too long. Writing about Carolyn in my forthcoming memoir, White Wife/Blue Baby, has finally quieted my heart. After she died, her father and IContinue reading “Blue Baby”
White Girl Mistakes: The Gun
The doorbell finally rang. I’d been waiting, hurt, while my entirely Midwestern baked chicken and Idaho potatoes dinner cooled in the kitchen. I was going to definitely tell Emmon how I felt. But when I swung the door open, he came in hurriedly with hunched shoulders and without meeting my eyes. Sitting on the edgeContinue reading “White Girl Mistakes: The Gun”
Buffalo
On a Saturday in May in Buffalo, ten people died trying to buy groceries. Survivors told us how it happened: Blacks hunted down in the aisles and blasted with what was essentially a weapon of war, a young guy with curly brown hair carrying out his grisly mission. As Ta-Nehisi Coates has told us, LatinateContinue reading “Buffalo”
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