Inheriting the Trade

(photo: Brian Velenchencko)

For all my friends in the Bay Area of California, this one’s for you!

Over the past two years I’ve worked with writer, producer, educator, and activist Belvie Rooks on several occasions. We’ve made presentations together at the Denver Green Festival, the Institute of Noetic Sciences International Conference, and Central Connecticut State University.

I’m excited to share with you that Belvie–co-founder with her husband Dedan Gills of Growing a Global Heart–will host a series of “dialogues” in the fall titled ConverZations That Matter: Navigating the Boundaries of Race, Class, and Gender in the 21st Century and Beyond. These public events are sponsored by the California Institute of Integral Studies (CIIS) in San Francisco.

The first dialogue, An Evening with Dr. Cornel West: Speaking Our Vision of Hope and Possibility Out Loud!, takes place September 30, 2010. Dr. West teaches at Princeton University. He is considered one of America’s most provocative public intellectuals. He is the author of many books, including Race Matters (from the publisher of Inheriting the Trade, Beacon Press).

I’m honored and excited that the second dialogue, Slavery’s Legacy: What Would Healing Look Like?, will feature Belvie and me. Our presentation is scheduled for October 13.

The third in the series, Finding Common Ground: Stretching the Boundaries, on November 10, is an Intergenerational Spoken Word and Performance Dialogue with original Watts Prophet poet Amde Hamilton and some of the Bay Area’s most amazing female poets, rappers, and spoken word artists.

I strongly encourage you to SAVE the dates for the series, attend these events if you can, AND share this news with all your friends in the San Francisco Bay area. These will be some powerful ConverZations That Matter indeed!

Please note: space is limited so get your tickets early! For more information, and to register to attend, click here.

Bill Kuntsler was a radical civil rights lawyer in the 6o’s and 70’s. He fought with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. He defended the Chicago Eight, the inmates from the Attica Prison riots, and defendants from the American Indian Movement who protested at Wounded Knee.

Later in life he began defending rapists, murderers, and terrorists, including those charged with the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center. He risked the outrage of the public and his closest colleagues and friends. He risked the safety of his family. He said believed in justice. He said he believed that all white people, including his daughters, are racist because we are blind to the depth of our own prejudice and that as long as there is prejudice there can be no such thing as a fair trial. His own daughters did not understand him and his choices. This is their film. It is indeed powerful.

AND, though William Kuntsler: Disturbing the Universe was shown on PBS a few weeks ago, you can watch it NOW on the P.O.V. website. I’m not sure how long it will be available online. I encourage you to watch it soon. This is a complicated story about a complicated man. It is well worth your time.

A wonderful new resource is available for everyone who works for truth, justice, and healing in the face of the damage inflicted by racism. The film I Can Tell the World: Singing to Heal Our Racial Divide is available for purchase at all the usual places, or for rent on Netflix.

Watch a preview here.

I Can Tell the World is the story of an interracial group of singers–The Spirituals Project Choir–from Denver, Colorado that is committed to the preservation and performance of African American spirituals.

A few weeks after Inheriting the Trade was published in January 2008 I spoke at the wonderful Tattered Cover Bookstore in Denver. My friend Harold Fields–who I met during the making of the film Traces of the Trade–helped arrange not only my appearance there, but also for the Spirituals Project Choir to sing prior to my presentation. I’d learned more about the history and significance of this special music from Harold–the music librarian for the choir–than I knew previously when he gave a talk about the spirituals at the first Coming to the Table retreat in 2006.

Though some people may believe the spirituals were born during the Civil Rights movement, they were actually reborn then. Harold explained that the spirituals are songs that were created and first sung by enslaved African people in North America. They are songs of community, inspiration, protest, and resistance. Coded messages embedded in the lyrics were sometimes used to to share instructions for escape, revolt, or a secret worship service. Harold said,

The spirituals represent a triumphant spirit from a people that survived and dealt with the most horrible conditions that can be imagined.

And from the film’s website,

Without the spirituals, there would be no gospel, blues, jazz, R&B, hip-hop, or rap. And though many of us are familiar with some of the songs – Wade in the Water, Go Down Moses, This Little Light of Mine, Amazing Grace few understand the spirituals’ deep history, complex origins, and coded messages of a music born of slavery.

As these diverse men and women share their stories of transformation, we learn how the experience of shared songs can help heal a nation still wounded by racism.

I highly recommend this terrific documentary.

When I got The Other Wes Moore last week I anticipated reading it once I finished a couple other books I’m presently reading. But when I read the first couple pages I stopped with the other books and dove into this one. I simply couldn’t put it down.

How is it that two boys, about the same age, born within blocks from each other, raised by single mothers, end up in such different places. One Wes Moore is serving a life sentence in prison for the murder of a police officer. The other Wes Moore–the author of the book–is a Rhodes Scholar, a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, worked in the White House, and is now a successful businessman and author? Many factors were at play in the lives of both of these young men. And yet, as it states on the cover of the book,

The chilling truth is that his story could have been mind. The tragedy is that my story could have been his.

I’ve never met the author but I look forward to doing so one of these days. Both his mother and his older sister are dear friends of mine. You may conclude that this factor makes me biased. It’s true that I read the book because I know members of this family. But I would not highlight the book on my blog unless it had a powerful impact on me and I believed it would do the same for others.

I encourage you to read The Other Wes Moore and discover for yourself the power of this very American story. It is filled with tragedy and triumph, with despair and hope, and a look at some slices of life in our nation that many of us have never seen. It is a reminder of what is possible when things go well, and just how easy it is for things to go tragically wrong. It is also a reminder to me of the importance of communities like Coming to the Table that are committed to addressing the legacy of enslavement, racism, inequality, and injustice that remain today.

In reading this book, you’ll understand, as I do, why Wes Moore has appeared on Oprah, the PBS News Hour, Tavis Smiley, why The Other Wes Moore debuted at #5 on the New York Times bestseller list, and why former U.S. senator and secretary of defense William S. Cohen said,

“Wes Moore is destined to become one of the most powerful and influential leaders of this century. You need only to read this book to understand why.”

UPDATE: watch Wes Moore’s excellent interview on The Colbert Report from June 21, 2010 here.

I’m not sure that anyone loves America more than Pete Seeger. He’s been a lifelong supporter of the labor movement. He was at the forefront in the struggle for Civil Rights. Pete and his music have been used to support peace and end war. He’s always been an active and vocal participant in cleaning up the environment. He used his influence to almost single-handedly insure that the Hudson River was restored to a state of health. He had the distinct honor of being blacklisted by HUAC.

I’ve started a photo album on my Facebook page called “Tom’s World View Influencers.” Whether you’re on Facebook or not you can see the photo album here. We each have stories about people that have influenced what we believe and who we have become. Today I added Pete Seeger to my growing collection of memories about people who made a difference in me.

I love Pete Seeger. I love his music and his message. I’ve seen him in concert, purchased his albums, and read about him in the media. Throughout my life I have been inspired by Pete. If you want to stop war; if you believe in clean water and air; if you love justice, if you want to undo racism, then you are a friend of Pete Seeger.

I recently watched Pete Seeger: The Power of Song. It’s available on DVD. Check it out on Netflix. We have much work to do to achieve justice. Pete points us in the right direction. I encourage you to watch this wonderful film.