My mother, Doris Graham, was in the news quite a bit during her years at Eastern High School in Detroit. Some were from the school paper, “The Indian”. Some were from “The Detroit Tribune”, a weekly black newspaper published by my mother’s cousins, James McCall and his wife Margaret. I have other articles “starring” my mother but I am just using those from 1937 – 1940. The others will appear later. The articles were saved by my grandmother Fannie, Doris’ mother. The writing on them is hers.
Mary Vee was my mother’s sister. Dee Dee was Mary Vee’s daughter. Kris was me.
My mother was 36 years old and had been teaching for six years at Roosevelt Elementary school when it was taken. My sister and I attended Roosevelt. I had my mother for a Social Studies teacher when she first began teaching. We pretty much read the book, “Someday Soon.” and answered questions. It was not very interesting. She improved a LOT as she went through twenty years of teaching.
Her last teaching assignment was at Duffield Elementary school, where she taught reading using the Distar method. She loved it and taught it to me and I used it to teach all of my children to read.
I found the writing below in one of my mother’s notebooks. It isn’t dated and I don’t know if she wrote it after retirement or before or what she was planning to do with it.
Each year when school begins I see again the many ways in which my children are alike. I am equally impressed with their differences. Close on the heels of these feelings comes the realization that once more I must try to build with each child the kind of relationships that will make it possible for me to teach him.
Children ask themselves many questions about a new adult. Is she friendly? does she smile often? Does she really mean what she says? What does she expect of me? Too much? Too little? Can I be myself with her? Or must I pretend to be what she has already decided I must be? Will she listen when I am happy or in trouble or need help? Or will she always be too busy?
Satisfactory answers to these questions will mean satisfactory learning experiences for a child. Unsatisfactory answers will mean no learning – or even worse the learning of things that must later be unlearned.
It was a warm afternoon. The sounds of children at play came in through our open windows along with the good smell of newly cut grass.
My forty odd second-graders, (who come to me for two distressingly brief forty minute periods each week), were eagerly writing with crayons on small pieces of lined paper. Rough desks and clumsy crayons made writing difficult, but they settled to their pleasant task of writing for me their first and second choice for group work. We had been studying transportation as groups. Now according to our plan, we were dividing ourselves into groups of seven or eight to paint, draw write plays, poems, or stories, or create in clay about airplanes, boats, subways, cars or trains – whatever appealed the most to us. We had decided to use crayons instead of pencils because it took less time to pass crayons from a large box than it took to pass each one his own pencil.
As I walked among the crowded seats helping when I could, I came upon a small boy in a front seat. His paper was empty. His small fists were clenched on his desk. Leaning down to keep from disturbing others I asked, May I help you Julie?”
His close-set blue eyes were intense and unblinking as he raised them to me and said between clenched teeth, “I can’t do it.”
Thinking that he wanted a neat paper and knew that this was well-nigh impossible with crayon and rough desks, I said reassuringly, “Don’t worry about how it looks this time. Do the best you can.”
His hands did not move as he stared as his paper.
“I’ll never help him on the playground if he is in a fight – I don’t care if he is getting beaten, I’ll never help him.”
Work had stopped and forty pairs of eyes watched us unwaveringly.
“Who is it that you won’t help, Julie?”
He pointed silently to the boy who had passed a crayon to each child from a box of assorted colors. Julie’s jaw was set – his face moist, “I hate purple. He gave me a purple crayon I can’t stand it.”
Here was a child who brought to school a brilliant mind (At 7 he could read on a fifth-grade level) burdened by countless problems at home – over-worked parents building a small business, a senile grandmother, constant competition for recognition and affection with her as well as with older and younger brothers.
I stooped beside his desk. “We didn’t know that you don’t like purple. What color would you like to have?”
“I don’t care – but not this one! He opened his fist and showed a purple crayon moist from a small hand’s clenching.
All eyes were fixed on me as I rose from Julie’s desk. Their tension now was almost as great as his. I walked to the cupboard and returned with a green crayon. “Will this one do?”
He took it without a word and began to write his choices.
I looked over his head at the children. They smiled gently and I smiled back. We had taken another step on the road to good learning.
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The inspiration for this post came from reading “Fearless Females Blog Post: March 12: Working Girl” on the blog The Accidental Genealogist.
To read more about Dock Allen and his escape from slavery, click Dock Allen’s Story.
This weeks theme is hair, specifically facial hair. I only have one photo of an ancestor with a beard. Dock Allen is sporting a pretty nice one. My husband and sons are doing their part to bring more bearded photos into my albums.
I’ve been thinking about my mother these last few days. My mother, Doris Graham Cleage, was picking vegetables in the garden at Old Plank. I wrote about the farm in my post Playing Poker. What else was my mother doing in 1963, aside from maintaining a large, organic garden? She turned 40 February 12 that year and lived on the west side of Detroit at 5397 Oregon with her second husband, Henry Cleage and her two daughters Kris, 17 and my sister Pearl, 14. Both of us were students at Northwestern High School. Henry was printing in those days and putting out the Illustrated News.
She was in her 5th year of teaching Social Studies at Roosevelt Elementary School. She took two post masters degree classes at Wayne State University that year, Urban Geography in the winter quarter and Constitutional Law in the fall quarter.
There was a lot going on in those days and my family was involved in a lot of it. To see what was going on in the news in 1963 click here –> Politics
To read about the March To Freedom in Detroit, when over 100,000 people walked down Woodward Avenue to protest the violence in Birmingham, Alabama, in July 1963 click here –> Walk to Freedom.
To see Henry and the press at Cleage Printers click here –> Henry printing
My mother and Henry bought this house about half an hour from Detroit about 1961. There was talk of moving there year around, but it never happened. We had a large garden and went up on weekends and for longer periods during the summer. We only owned 2 acres of the 40 acre farm, not including the barn. In 1967 someone bought the barn and started keeping chickens and pigs there, though they didn’t live on or near the property. The animals regularly escaped. The pigs dug up our garden and the chickens roosted on the porch. Before Henry and the man came to blows, they finally sold the house to the man with the animals.
For more fun and games, click here –>
Henry Cleage outside of Cleage Printers, on Lovett near Mcgraw in Detroit, MI. 1962.
There is no letter this time. I am posting several newspaper articles mailed home about various Negro History Week activities in Springfield, Massachusetts in February, 1946. Included are some articles I found at GenealogyBank.I thought I would post them as African American History Month draws to a close. Something not covered by newspaper article is that there were only six more months until I arrived on the scene!
Heroic Infantryman
Fifty uniformed members of the new Crispus Attucks post, VFW, attended a memorial service for Pfc Carl L. Talbot yesterday morning at the St. John’s Congregational church. The service for Talbot, who died as the result of wounds received in Italy with the 355th infantry regiment, 92nd division, was also attended by his mother, Mrs. Z. Carl Talbot of New York city, and his widow, Mrs Georgia Mae Talbot, also of New York.
Before a congregation, which filled the pews and extra chairs, Richard H. Snyder, Jr., post commander, presented the mother of the soldier a Gold Star certificate and bouquet, and the widow a Bible bearing the post’s name and a reading by its chaplain, John Cranshaw.
A memorial sermon was preached by the pastor, Rev Albert Cleage, and Comdr Snyder made a memorial address.
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Special programs will be presented observance of Negro history week, which starts today, and Brotherhood month over the chapel of the Air program sponsored by the Greater Springfield Council of Churches.
Tomorrow and Tuesday members of the international seminar, meeting here at Hope Congregational church, will speak. They are Rev Sabapathy Julandran, Chaplain Gernanda Laxamana and Miss Manawora Powar of India.
Rev Albert B. Cleage, pastor of St. John’s church will be speaker for the balance of the week. His topics will be “The Christian Dilemma” on Wednesday; “Pigmies and Supermen” on Thursday; and “Hope vs Reason” on Friday. The program is scheduled at 1:30 over WSPR. (Schedule transcribed from The Springfield Sunday Union and Republican. February 10 1946)
George W. Goodman Asserts It was Fought Because Slave and Free Economies Were Opposed
The Civil War was not fought for the emancipation of the Negro but was a contest between two economic theories – slave economy and free economy – with the Negro as the scapegoat, was the declaration made by George W. Goodman, director of the North End Interracial Community Center in Hartford, in his talk last night at the observance of Negro history week conducted by the Springfield branch National Association for the Advancement of Colored People at St. John’s Congregational church.
Fluently expressing his thoughts on his topic of “Democracy at the Crossroads,” Mr. Goodman further declared that the present-day racial troubles in this country are not accidental but the result of an accumulation of negative attitudes and differences throughout the 300 years of this country’s existence.
Emphasizing that America must face squarely the matter of justice and equality for all men as being a basic moral issue, the speaker added “We’ve been talking democracy for about 200 years but we haven’t come close to actually applying it.”
Citing his experiences while a Red Cross worker for two years in England, Mr. Goodman said that the English people showed unreserved friendship to American Negro soldiers due to the friendly attitude and sense of humor the colored soldier displayed.
A part of the meeting featured the awarding of merit certificates issued by the national office of the NAACP in New York to eight members of the local unit who had been instrumental in increasing the membership during the campaign last year. The presentations were made by Rev. Albert Cleage, pastor of St. John’s church. Miss Marguerite Carson, president of the Springfield branch, was chairman of the meeting.(Transcribed from The Springfield Daily Republican, Springfield, Mass, Thursday, February 14, 1946)
“In a combination of choral speaking, music and plain speech, a program of Negro folklore called “The Negro Speaks” was presented at the YWCA last night. In three movements which took almost two hours, the speech choir, soloists, quartet, speakers presented a rhythmic, sibilant tone and word picture of the progress of the Negro from slavery to the present.”
“Choral speaking is the oral interpretation of verse possessing many of the qualities of the Negro spiritual. The speech choir was led by Langston Hughes. Soloist was Carol Somerville and the quartet was composed of Constance Taylor, Joanne Wilson, James Herbert and William Barnett. Speakers were William Woods, Isiah Hill, John Carter and Marguerite Carson. Other singers were Clarence Calloway, James W. Johnson and J.R. Johnson, Frances Jones accompanied.”
Members of the speech choir were Alfreda Desmond, Myrtle Desmond, Edith fuller, William B. Hill, Malcolm Lasseter, Nile Pettijohn, Joan Carole Porter, Charles Wiley, Willa Mae Porter, Lindbergh Pulley, Barbara Seymour, James Spruill, Alberta Walker, Dorothy Walker, Rodman Ware, Alfred B. Wimbish and W. Orrin Woods.
The program was a part of Negro history week which ends today. Opening remarks were made by Mrs William A. Lawrence.
According to The History of St. John’s congregational Church, published in 1966 “He (Albert B. Cleage) also wrote dramas; one of them coauthored with four other recalled ‘eighty years of progress’ since Emancipation and “the significant role the Negro played in our country’s history.'”
These are my feet in my work boots. I wore them to milk the goats and work in the garden when it was muddy. It must have been muddy because I have my jeans tucked into my socks. I don’t remember any stripped socks but there I am wearing some. The rocking chair used to rock on Nanny and Poppy’s back porch.
In 1978 we lived in rural Simpson County, Mississippi with our 4 children, some chickens and some goats. While looking for a photograph of my feet in my work shoes I came across this batch of negatives which included a photo of my shoes.
In row one, we have my friend Teresa’s son, Palo, holding his baby sister. The baby’s father is holding her in the next. I cannot remember their names right now. Picture three is my family plus Palo. Last are baby and father again.
In row two, I’m outside with my three oldest daughters, Jilo, Ife and Ayanna. Next two photos are of our friend Robert with his and Ruth’s two children. Robert got us started with milk goats and rabbits. He had a very good herd of milk goats himself. Last is the photo of my shoes.
In row three, we start with Robert and children again. The ghost photo has their two and our three oldest. Next, my midwife, Ruth, is reading to my daughter, Ayanna, who she helped to deliver. Last, I’m reading while holding baby Tulani.
The three older girls are in the side strip with the baby crib my mother and her siblings used and all of my children used. Except for Ife who slept in a dresser drawer. You can see baby Tulani best in the bottom row dribbling milk. The house was built on stilts and was about 10 feet up in the air. I do not know why they built it like that because it was in tornado country with no water to flood anywhere nearby.
For more photographs click below. Some will be shoe related and some will not.