I have decided to go through my grandparent’s photographs and see how many of their friends I can trace. Yesterday I was looking at my grandfather, Mershell C. Graham’s friends from home when I came across “Hands up. Just a little desperato. You know why.”
I turned it over and saw there was a bit written there in pencil. Holding it up to the sunshine coming in the window, I was able to read: “From my friend Charlie Watkins. 10/22/07. Mershell Graham. Chas’ wife Emma Dee died 1949.”
In 1907 my grandfather was still living in Montgomery, Alabama. When looking for information about people who aren’t relatives, I’ve found it very helpful to start a tree for them on Ancestry. I’m able to put all of the information I find in context. I made Charles Watkins with wife Emma Dee (maiden name unknown at that point) the starting couple.
I was zipping along finding information when I decided to check out some photographs that were suggested. Imagine my surprise when I realized that Charles Watkins was the brother of William Watkins that I wrote about earlier here He Hid Beneath the Floor. It tells the story of Victor Tulane, my 2X great uncle by marriage, hiding a family friend, Montgomery dentist, William Watkins, under their floor to save him from white vigilantes. When I wrote that post I researched the Watkins family. I recognized the photograph of their father, William Watkins Sr.
Charles married Emma Thompson, a seamstress, in 1910 in Montgomery. By 1917 the family was living in Chicago, IL. They had two children, William born in 1912 and Sarah born in 1916. Emma was no longer working. Charles was a carpenter, as his father had been. By 1920 they were living in Los Angeles, California. He was the first member of the family to move west. Others followed later as most members of the family left Montgomery after brother William was smuggled out to escape the mob.
Charles Watkins died in Los Angeles at the age of 74. I still don’t know why he was a little desperado.
Names are sometimes repeated in a family generation after generation. In my family, Pearl is one such name. My grandmother, Pearl Doris Reed Cleage, was the first Pearl. She was born in Lebanon, KY in 1886, the youngest of 8 children.
Pearl Losin Mullins was the son of Pearl’s sister Minnie Mullins. He was born in 1908 in Indianapolis, IN. and died in 1986 in California.
Theresa Pearl Averette, was the youngest daughter of Pearl’s brother Hugh. She was born in 1913 in Indianapolis, IN. and died in 1941 in California.
Barbara Pearl Cleage, daughter of Pearl was born in 1920 in Detroit, MI.
Pearl Michelle Cleage, my sister, daughter of Pearl’s oldest son Albert and 2nd granddaughter was born in Springfield, MA in 1948.
Anna Pearl Shreve is my grandmother’s youngest daughter’s daughter. She was born in 1960 in Detroit, MI. Anna Pearl was the 4th granddaughter.
Ayanna Pearl, my daughter and my grandmother Pearl’s great granddaughter, was born in 1976 in Jackson, MS.
Jann Leya Pearl, great granddaughter of Pearl Reed Cleage, was born in 1983 in the Detroit area.
Liliana Pearl Nowaczewski, is another great granddaughter of the original Pearl. She was born in 1989 in Michigan.
Chole Pearl is the youngest family Pearl. She was born in 2003 in New Orleans, LA and is a great great granddaughter of Pearl Reed Cleage.
Who are they? Probably include Hugh Cleage, Paul Payne, Louis Cleage and ? The original is not clear enough for me to really make them out.
Entry from Henry Cleage’s diary, 1936.
January 13 Haliver Greene died this morning -spinal meningitis. Didn’t get up early to study History, however there was no class – lecture tomorrow so I won’t slide, tonight. Toddy bought back two books about lives of Dictators (putrid!!) only 25 cents a piece though – awfully windy out today-not so cold thought – like March. I would like to have been in the country, wrapped up good, walking into the wind at the Meadows, down the road towards the sand pile or over the hill to the creek – zest, spice, life, health, clear eye, firm step and all that sort of thing.
Route from Capac to Detroit.
The photograph was taken at “The Meadows” near Capac, St Clair County, Michigan around 1939, several months after the journal entry was written.
My Aunt Gladys remembers that her father Dr. Albert B. Cleage Sr and a bunch of fellow doctors bought it. It was to be a place where everyone could get away and the kids could meet and play… big house on the property with a porch that wrapped around 2/3 of the house… dances on the porches… near Capac Michigan… they sold it later. She kind of remembers parties on the porch… a getaway other than the Boule or Idlewild … her brothers and their friends spending a couple weeks at the meadows during the summer and brother Louis packing the provisions.
My friend, historian Paul Lee shared this today and I am sharing it with you, in remembrance of my father who died on February 20, 2000 on Beulah Land, the Shrine’s farm in South Carolina.
My father preaching about 1972.
‘A Day of Remembrance’ Salute to Jaramogi By Paul Lee
On Feb. 20, 2000, Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman, formerly the Rev. Albert B. Cleage, Jr., the founder and first holy patriarch of the Shrines of the Black Madonna of the Pan African Orthodox Christian Church (PAOOC), returned to the ancestors at the age of 88.
Since then, the PAOCC and others who cherish the life, work and legacy of this visionary theologian, master-teacher, freedom fighter, nation-builder, father and father-figure, who on Easter Sunday 1967 proclaimed the self-determinationist creed of Black Christian Nationalism (BCN) to restore the African roots of Christianity and resurrect the original Israel as a “black nation within a nation,” have commemorated the anniversary of his passing as the “Day of Remembrance.”
COVENANT AND COMMITMENT
This year, I’m honored to share a rare audio recording of Jaramogi Abebe reading the original BCN Creed, his statement of the church’s sacred covenant with God and “Total Commitment” to God’s people, which he promulgated in early 1972.
From then until 2011, church members and often visitors faithfully recited it during every Sunday service at Atlanta, Ga., Beulah Land, S. C., Detroit, Flint and Kalamazoo, Mich., and Houston, Tex., and at the community and college cadres at Georgia, Illinois, New York and Pennsylvania.
FROM MOVEMENT TO CHURCH TO DENOMINATION
Jaramogi Abebe read the creed at a “Black Religion and Black Revolution” symposium at Duke University, Durham, N. C., on April 8, 1972.
He was then the presiding bishop of the Black Christian Nationalist Movement, founded on March 26, 1967, when he unveiled at Central United Church of Christ, formerly Central Congregational, Glanton Dowdell’s striking nine-by-18-foot Black Madonna and child chancel mural, after which the church would be renamed in January 1968.
From Jan. 27-30, 1972, the then-Reverend Cleage served as the general chairman of the second biennial Black Christian Nationalist Convention at Shrine #1, during which the BCN Movement became the BCN Church, a new “black” denomination. When he read the creed at Duke, he neglected to change “Movement” to “Church” in the final sentence.
In July 1978, the BCN Church evolved into the Pan African Orthodox Christian Church, named in honor of the African Orthodox Church (AOC), which grew out of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA). After this, “Pan African Orthodox Christian Church” replaced “Black Christian Nationalist Church” in the creed.
NEW TITLE AND NAME
Five days before the Duke appearance, Sala Andaiye (also Adams), the Detroit minister’s new secretary, advised the symposium’s organizer: “We also have given Rev. Cleage an African name, Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman, and address him as Jaramogi.”
His Luo title (Jaramogi) and Amharic and Akan names (Abebe Agyeman), erroneously identified as Kiswahili by an amateur African names book, was given to him by the late Rev. George Bell, the BCN convention coordinator, who soon took the Kiswahili title Mwalimu and the Fulani and Kikuyu names Askia-Ole-Kariuki.
ORIGINAL BCN CREED
Below is the original creed read by Jaramogi Abebe (all-capitals represent the bold font used for “believe”; “INDIVIDUALISM” was capitalized in the original):
“I BELIEVE that human society stands under the judgment of one God, revealed to all and known by many names. His creative power is visible in the mysteries of the universe, in the revolutionary Holy Spirit which will not long permit men to endure injustice nor to wear the shackles of bondage, in the rage of the powerless when they struggle to be free, and in the violence and conflict which even now threaten to level the hills and the mountains.
“I BELIEVE that Jesus, the Black Messiah, was a revolutionary leader, sent by God to rebuild the Black Nation Israel and to liberate Black people from powerlessness and from the oppression, brutality, and exploitation of the white gentile world.
“I BELIEVE that the revolutionary spirit of God, embodied in the Black Messiah, is born anew in each generation and that Black Christian Nationalists constitute the living remnant of God’s chosen people in this day, and are charged by him with responsibility for the liberation of Black people.
“I BELIEVE that both my survival and my salvation depend upon my willingness to reject INDIVIDUALISM and so I commit my life to the liberation struggle of Black people and accept the values, ethics, morals and program of the Black Nation, defined by that struggle, and taught by the Black Christian Nationalist Movement.”
At the end of the recording, Jaramogi Abebe pauses, then says, “That’s a creed.” Indeed!
The photograph of three of my grandfather Mershell C. Graham’s friends was perfect for today’s Sepia Saturday prompt. To read about their lives, click this link – The Migration Part 3 – Those Left Behind. It turned out that some of them also left Montgomery, AL and moved north.
Lowndes Adams, Rufus Taylor and Lewis Gilmer & Lowndes little niece, Edoline.
Looking south on Grand River Ave in Detroit toward Downtown. About 1940.
When I saw the prompt for this weeks Sepia Saturday, I knew that I wanted to use this picture if I hadn’t already used it. It comes from my Cleage photo collection and my father or one of his brothers took it around 1939 – 1940, judging by the cars. After posting it, I decided to look and see what was going on with my Cleages around then. There was an article that mentioned my Grandfather, Dr. Albert B. Cleage Sr. speaking at a meeting at New Light Baptist Church. This was part of a larger column in the Chicago Defender devoted to Detroit happenings.
Ethel Waters was performing in “Mamba’s Daughters”. During this same time my cousin, Sylvia Vincent played the part of one of Mamba’s daughters at a young age, she was 8. While I was looking for a picture of Ethel Waters, I noticed that the author, Dubose Haywood had written the book and also written “Porgy and Bess” and, surprising to me, one of my favorite books of all times, “The Country Bunny” who is choosen over all the big, rich fast bunnies to be one of the Easter Bunnies and she has trained her 21 little bunnies to take care of the house in her absence and does a stellar job of being brave and steadfast and true to the end.
Marian Anderson was singing in the Masonic Temple, which was just a few blocks up Temple from the corner in the photograph. This was the year that the Daughter’s of the American Revolution refused to let her sing to an integrated audience in Constitution Hall and so she ended up preforming on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for 75,000 people and to untold millions via radio.
Child prodigy, pianest Phillippa Shuyler was to preform to a thousand children at Bethel A.M.E. church. There was a lot going on in Detroit at the end of 1939 and I never would have noticed if I hadn’t been looking for something to relate to the photograph of Grand River Avenue and Temple. The heading is a photo from Google Maps of that corner as it looks today.
When I saw Prompt 18 – Your First Gift, in The Book of Me, I was sure I had a list of what I received when I was born in my baby book. Unfortunately, when I checked there was a list of people who gave me gifts, but not a mention of a gift. I remember having a little silver cup and a silver fork and spoon but I have no idea who gave them to me. I don’t know where they are now and I can find no photographs of them.
Something I did notice was that the handwriting and the language used in the baby book appears to be my father’s and not my mother’s. I had always thought it was my mother who kept the book. Only a few pages were filled out at the time. There is some information I added years and years later when I was about 12 – When I started to talk and walk, what childhood illnesses I had, and a list of some of my elementary school teachers.
One last thing about the baby book – it was found in pile of trash to be thrown out with other papers from my father’s office at the church but someone saw it and saved it. Why was it in the office? Anyway, I’m glad it was rescued.
Looking again, I see that Dearie Reid brought my going home outfit to the hospital. I’m thinking that she bought it. I wonder what I wore home. It must have been the second week in September in Springfield, MA by that time. Maybe cool? Maybe hot?
I started taking piano lessons when I was about seven years old. We lived on Chicago Blvd. in the parsonage. Mrs. Fowler was our teacher. I remember her as a stern older woman who, according to my cousin, sometimes smashed her fingers on the keys when she kept making mistakes. I think of the room with the piano as the “Morning Room”. Maybe that’s what my mother called it. There was wall paper with fruit on it. My music book was “Teaching Little Fingers to Play” and I learned 3 note pieces with words like “Here we go, up a row, to a birthday party.” When played in a different order it became the piece “Dolly dear, Sandman’s here. Soon you will be sleeping.” I must have practiced between lessons because I remember being used as a good example to my cousin Barbara one time. The piano must have belonged to the church because when we moved, it stayed there.
The piano I took lessons on behind Henry playing the cello.
Several years later we were living in the upper flat on Calvert. I told my mother I wanted to take piano lessons again. She bought the used upright piano in the photo above. We all signed it on the inside of the flap you rest the music on and raise to get at the insides. Our new teacher was Mr. Manderville, the church choir director at that time. He was my parents age and went in more for mean, sarcastic remarks as opposed to banging your fingers on the keyboard. I wanted to play “Comin’ Through The Rye” but he wouldn’t assign it and, for unknown reasons, I didn’t just learn it on my own time.
The only piece I remember by name was “The Wild Horseman”. I remember it as a complex piece that I played exceptionally well. Sort of like this.
Well, maybe I wasn’t quite that good, but in my memory, I am every bit as good. Eventually I told my mother I didn’t want to take piano lessons any more. She was not happy with that and mentioned buying the piano at my request so I could take lessons. She did let me stop. My mother played the piano much better than I ever did. She played it often after that. Pieces of classical music she played on the record player and those she played on the piano have become confused in my mind now. I will have to ask my sister what she remembers.
Another part of the prompt is pictures within the picture. You will notice three pictures on the wall and one of my sister and me on the piano, in my photo above.
I did this “map” of my life during the years from 1966 to 1974 several years ago. The original is on a piece of stretched canvas 18 inches by 24 inches. At one time it had something painted on it but I covered that with Gesso, then ran off contact sheets with photos, drawings, writings and other material from that time. I wrote dates and thoughts that I would understand, although others might not. I blacked and whited out some stuff and that’s it. The prompt for The Book of Me this week is “Memory Board”.
Here are some links to other posts written about that time period.
Me and Beatrice 1947, Springfield, Massachusetts in my backyard.
The first toy that I remember is the bear I am holding in the above photograph. Her name was Beatrice. She wore a frilly, light blue pinafore. In this picture she looks quite fresh. Maybe I received her for my first birthday. I had her for a very long time. I don’t remember when she disappeared or was thrown out.
Here is collage of me with a variety of my early toys. They included a wagon, old pots and pans, a wooden push mower, plastic records, a ball, a tin dollhouse, a little Beauregard doll with a bottle that emptied and refilled, little flat plastic cowboys. I had several buggies and strollers and an endless supply of dolls. Books aren’t really toys but I had many little golden books during this time. The swing that Pearl is putting a doll in, was made of wood and blue. The tin ferris wheel was also hers and took many a little doll for a ride until it was no longer around.
After my sister Pearl was born when I was 2.6, I played with her most of the time because she was always there. And, of course, she was a delightful playmate. One of the best addition to any playthings we had during those years was our imagination. I remember in later years making bows and arrows from sticks, strings and bottle caps, riding on saw horse and playing endless imaginary games with our cousins. We had a good supply of Little Golden and Wonder books.
Playing Scrabble. Early 1960s. I’m on the couch, Pearl has her back to us and my mother must be winning!
The first board game I remember was “Sorry”. We played it often in the evenings the summer that we spent at my mother’s parents. My grandfather, Poppy, played with us while eating his snack of grated cheese and ritz crackers and a glass of buttermilk. Later I remember playing cards on the basement stairs of my cousins, endless games of “War”.
When we were older one of our gifts at Christmas would be a board game and we would play it over and over during that Christmas. Some never saw the light of day again but some we played throughout the years. Monopoly was popular for awhile. Chess was a staple. The summer of 1966 when I met my future husband at Wayne State University, we played chess almost everyday. He also taught me to play Solitaire.
We still play a lot of games in my family. “Five Crowns” is popular with my grandchildren. My husband and I play “Sequence” a lot. When I play games with my grandchildren I never let them win or make it easier for them than I would an adult. I don’t try to crush them, but if they win, they really won.
Two granddaughters playing Sequence – Christmas holidays 2013.
There is a toy trunk in the collage that I received as a gift one Christmas. That is as close as I could get to the well packed travel case below. Next time I go anywhere, I’m going to take a picture of my suitcase.
