The Peculiar Blindness, Part 5: Missing Dates

 

Museum and Tourist's Center list of Important Dates in history of Washington, Louisiana. March 2015.

I'm in Birmingham, Alabama.

Juneteenth 2021 is coming up this weekend.  

I've been going through past photos, editing and organizing. 

I bumped into a photo I took in 2015: A list of Important Dates in the history of the historic village of Washington, in Louisiana. 

Apparently not a thing in Washington, Louisiana:

• Slavery
• Civil War
• Emancipation
• Opelousas Massacre (with its catalyst in Washington) (or heck, even call it the Opelousas "Riot")

Nor are these noteworthy events: 

April 9, 1866: The first civil rights act in the United States, which overturned the Black Codes and which established that "all persons" (including Black persons) born in the U.S. are citizens. [But: The Act specifically excluded most Native Americans from citizenship.]

July 9, 1868: The 14th Amendment to the Constitution re-affirmed that all persons born in the U.S. are citizens. [Note: But voting rights were denied to all women and to most Native Americans. The 14th Amendment was generally interpreted to deny citizenship to most Native Americans, as well.]

June 2, 1924 (less than 100 years ago!): The Indian Citizens Act allowed as how Native Americans are U.S. citizens, too.

Here in Alabama, the state scrubs out the federal holiday that commemorates Dr. Martin Luther King's birthday by bleaching it with a state holiday that honors Robert E. Lee, the Confederate general. 

In fact, Alabama has three PAID holidays that honor those who fought and died to protect their right to enslave fellow human beings.

In good news, there are efforts afoot to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. 

 

A couple of days ago, the U.S. Senate voted unanimously to make Juneteenth a federal holiday. 

Yesterday, the U.S. House voted in favor of same, over the objections of, yes, two of Alabama's four representatives. (On the other hand, Governor Ivey recently proclaimed Juneteenth as an important day.)

Related posts

• The Peculiar blindness, Part 1: Introduction
• The Peculiar Blindness, Part 2: The "Yes, But" Mask
• The Peculiar Blindness, Part 3: You Don't See What I Don't See
• The Peculiar Blindness, Part 4: Casual Contempt

 

St. Louis: History Museum: #1 in Civil Rights Exhibit

#1 in Civil Rights Exhibit, Missouri History Museum, St. Louis, Missouri. March 2018.

I learned about the #1 in Civil Rights Exhibit at the Missouri History Museum through the Readings on Race Book Club at the Ferguson Municipal Library.

Although I'm not much of a museum person, the exhibit captured my attention for about an hour.

I plucked the bits that I ingested on the spot or that I will investigate more deeply in the future.

#1 in Civil Rights Exhibit, Missouri History Museum, St. Louis, Missouri. March 2018.

Harriet Scott?! Why had I only heard about Dred Scott all these decades of my life? Here is one story of Harriet Robinson Scott's adult life. In this account, we learn that Harriet Robinson was only 16 when she married Dred Scott. This suggests another story, untold. Further, because the legal status of children of enslaved persons followed the maternal line (i.e. if the mother was enslaved, then her children were also enslaved), one could argue that Harriet Scott's name should have been the more prominent one on the Supreme Court case, as the futures of their two children depended on the outcome of the case.

#1 in Civil Rights Exhibit, Missouri History Museum, St. Louis, Missouri. March 2018.

It was only a few weeks before I visited the History Museum that I learned about the East St. Louis Massacre. The confounding range of estimated killed between 40 and 200 reminds me of the similar obliqueness about the Opelousas Massacre.

#1 in Civil Rights Exhibit, Missouri History Museum, St. Louis, Missouri. March 2018.

 The above quote by William Wells Brown countered the mealymouthed exhibit on slavery in the state capitol's history exhibit.

St. Louis: A Sister of Selma Dies

Sister Antona Ebo. Source: Franciscan Media.

"[A friend told me:] 'Now, you know you don't know the Deep South. Go down there, stay with your group, and keep your mouth shut.' .... Well, I couldn't imagine that."

Source: 2014 interview with Mike Bush

St. Alphonsus Liguori "Rock" Catholic Church, St. Louis, Missouri. November 2017.

Shortly after I moved to Ferguson, Sister Antona Ebo died.

I heard about Sister Ebo's death at my first meeting of the Ferguson Readings on Race Book Club.

I didn't know who she was, but I soon learned she was famous.


2014 interview with Mike Bush, a KSDK news anchor below: 

I take issue with the reporter's statement: "They weren't activists; they were nuns." So many nuns are and have been activists. I recall today the nuns slaughtered in El Salvador. I follow the Global Sisters Report for inspiration from activist sisters, and as a counter-weight against the dark side of Catholicism: its reactionary, anti-woman side.

But anyhoo.

Article about Sister Ebo in the St. Anthony Messenger: Antona Ebo, FSM: Brave Sister of Selma

Sister Antona Ebo's rosary. St. Alphonsus Liguori "Rock" Catholic Church, St. Louis, Missouri. November 2017.

 "If we don't get involved when we know that it's happening, and we know that injustice is happening, then we are failing also." Sister Ebo in the 2014 KSDK interview

Sister Ebo had things to say about Ferguson, almost 50 years after her walk in Selma. From The Passionists: 

Sister Ebo’s advocacy did not stop at Selma. Throughout her life she continued to advocate for social justice issues, particularly to end the injustice of racism, and even at age 90 she led a prayer vigil for peace [at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church] after the events in Ferguson.  In an interview with the Missouri History Museum she said, “The one thing that I didn’t want to do was to become a sweet little old nun that was passing out holy cards and telling people, ‘I’ll pray for you.’”

St. Alphonsus Liguori "Rock" Catholic Church, St. Louis, Missouri. November 2017.

I attended Sister Ebo's funeral at the St. Alphonsus Liguori "Rock" Catholic Church. One of my maternal aunts attended high school here back in the 1940s.

Sister Antona Ebo's funeral. St. Alphonsus Liguori "Rock" Catholic Church, St. Louis, Missouri. November 2017.

I invite you to pause for a few minutes to share in this passing of history, which took the form of a tiny, but not quiet, woman.

Below is the procession of clergy, as they accompany Sister Ebo's casket to the altar:

A praise song:

And a couple more segments here and here (the latter I include for my mom, as Ave Maria is so dear to her for both weddings and funerals).

And a slide show:

El Paso: Women's March

Women's March, El Paso, Texas. January 2017.

Windy, wet, shivery - not a day I wanted to pile on the layers and trudge downtown for the Women's March. But I did it anyway.

Women's March, El Paso, Texas. January 2017.

I did it anyway because it was important to my self-respect that I be able to look back and know that I took actions that publicly affirmed my belief in our Declaration of Independence and our Constitution - that all of us, not just some of us, have inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That we have fundamental rights of self-determination.

Women's March, El Paso, Texas. January 2017.

I liked where the march began; I liked where it wound through, and where it ended.

Women's March, El Paso, Texas. January 2017.

It began at the Armijo Branch Library in Segundo Barrio and worked its way through that historic neighborhood - where so many El Pasoans or their parents or grandparents first settled in the United States - the "other Ellis Island." The march ended at San Jacinto Plaza downtown.

.

Women's March, El Paso, Texas. January 2017.

When I see quotes, such as above, from Malala, it is a call to action for me because if a 16 year-old girl could speak out for girls' and womens' rights in Pakistan, what am I ready to do?

Goddamn, it was cold, though.

Women's March, El Paso, Texas. January 2017.

To get an idea of how many women, girls, men, and boys participated in the march, the video below shows it getting underway from Armijo:




A slide show of the march below:

And a little Mexican pop to march by in this video:

It felt good.

It felt very, very good.

El Paso: Standing Up: Men for Choice?!

Men for Choice event, West Fund. El Paso, Texas. November 2016.

I was dumbfounded.


An upcoming event in November had popped up on my social radar screen. An event called Men for Choice.

Maria y Yahvi at Men for Choice event, West Fund. El Paso, Texas. November 2016.

Holy pissaroni! Back in Missouri and Louisiana, one barely whispered the word abortion, looking from side to side in the process to see who was in earshot, said states having been hijacked by ultra-conservatives trapped in the Three Bs paradigm (babies, bullets, and the Bible) drawn by the political grandparents of our current power structure. (This was NOT the case in Missouri in the 80s and early 90s, when there were multitudes of Republican and Democratic women who publicly espoused reproductive rights.)

In El Paso, not only are there women talking LOUDLY and OFTEN about reproductive rights, there's even enough traction for there to be an event called Men for Choice!

El Paso! Who'd have thought!?

Maria y Yahvi at Men for Choice event, West Fund. El Paso, Texas. November 2016.

Folk musicians, Maria y Yahvi, shared new, old, traditional, and regional songs in English and Spanish, using a range of instruments.

Below, they sing a bilingual version of Woody Guthrie's This is Your Land:

This land was made for you and me. 

It felt good to be here.

And I got this:

West Fund was the organization behind the event. I had no idea there was an organization that helped people so directly with their reproductive needs.