This one's for Black History Month 2010.
Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry, by Mildred D. Taylor has won several major publishing industry commendations and awards including the Newbery Award for 1977; I'd like to bestow my own reader award for the dozen fast-reading chapters in a book originally intended for middle- or high-school ages but that hardly talks down to a more "mature" audience and, I imagine, most of the vocabulary is basic enough for a bright 4
th or 5
th grader.
The story happens in post-emancipation Mississippi USA during the Great Depression of the early 1930s. The author doesn't specify an exact locale but refers to a fictional town of Strawberry as well as the real city of Jackson where, by the way, author Mildred Taylor was born and my own grandfather grew up. Spokane County in Washington State was the only one I found with a Google search, so that's one for the book, as well. And this was three decades prior to the Civil Rights movement that with legal decrees only started initiating the dawn of desegregation followed by sometimes grudging, occasionally truly triumphant integration of Black Americans and White Americans. Interestingly, until mid-20
th century only Blacks and Whites qualified to become American citizens; most of the country remained racially and ethnically suspiciously divided (and still is), with what feels like endless disputes over the international border between California, Arizona, Texas and Mexico.
First-person narrator Cassie Logan is the young teen daughter of Mary, a school teacher and of David, who spends a lot of time away from home laying railroad track in neighboring Louisiana; grandmother Big Ma, Uncle Hammer and a few other elders provide some backstory and lots of historical perspective. Biblical themes of land, justice and peoplehood run throughout the book, punctuated remembering and recounting tales of Southern Slavery punctuated along the way with reflections about injustice and inequalities and hints of daring hope for a truly free future. Each successive generation is willing to settle for less and more able to trust dreams of a different reality down the road--if not now, when? Mildred Taylor has written so skillfully from Cassie's perspective you'd think she'd actually lived the events, though she tells us her own father was very much like David in the book and as a youth he basically
was Cassie's brother Stacey. Christopher-John and Clayton Chester, a.k.a. "Little Man" complete the trio of Cassie's brothers. David spends a lot of time away from home laying railroad track in neighboring Louisiana
The Logan family is privileged to own 400 acres of land; in 1887 Grandpa bought 200 acres that by the year 1933 had no mortgage note to pay yet still had taxes; in 1918 he acquired 200 additional acres that during the time of the book had mortgage plus taxes. The Logans and some of their Africa-American neighbors recognize land as gift that further will provide crops that will enable them to pay taxes and the mortgage on the land that will keep them living there and will continue to yield food for their dinner table.
In some ways scripture views land, the earth, as inalienable gift, Leviticus 25:23 famously says, "The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine. For you are strangers [aliens] and sojourners with me." God is the creator and the original owner but wait, it all belongs to Him, anyway! In Native American culture, too, land cannot be sold. However, access to rich, healthy, well-stewarded ground is essential for our mutual survival, yet during the Jubilee Year, the 50
th year, the one of 7 times 7, the land reverts to its original (human) owner/steward. "They" say land is inalienable gift, yet "they" also observe all wars are about territory and we have the concept of real estate, real property.
The Logan family related to the dominant White-controlled economy sometimes with fear-tinged submission, at times with almost play-acting "yes sir, no sir, of course, ma'am" behaviors amidst finding true refuge and safety in a solid, respectful and respecting family of parents, their offspring and the dad's mother, Big Ma. The church that has given its name and a lot of funding to Great Faith elementary school play major roles, too.
Although earlier on in the novel we find examples of death-dealing and destructive fire, closer to the conclusion of the book, fire becomes redemptive as Cassie's father David torches a portion of his own cotton crop in a prescribed burning that directs the Whites in power from possibly pursuing a handing or lynching because they need to prevents the fire from spreading to their own land; for a while the fire brings along with it the visible reality of White and Black "children of slaveholders and children of slaves" working compatibly side-by-side.
And oh, of course there's a prominent White character who is on the side of the Blacks, the lawyer Mr. Wade. And we have the Wallaces, which sounds like a code name.
My experiences growing up around grandparents heavily influenced by Southern social and cultural practices made me think a lot about what I read in
Roll of Thunder. I recognized a bit of the attitudes, though tempered by recognition of mutual humanity and mutual needs. The food was familiar, too; what got called Soul Food for a while was exactly the same vittles as poor(er) White Folk typically ate. By the time my grandparents reached New England they'd owned farms and worked the land in Nebraska and North Carolina, and though they'd become urban cliff-dwellers they retained heavy respect for the land. Need I mention we often enjoyed black-eyed peas, grits, cornbread and biscuits? I attended high school in an inner-city school that imagined it at least could desegregate and maybe even integrate some day and did my second undergrad stint at a university originally formed for non-traditional students that included a lot of African-Americans and other distinctive groups. Later on as an adult I lived and served in a predominantly African-American community, where I discovered my familiarity and relative easiness with African-American cuisine and customs coupled with my relative lack of stereotyping and assumptions was a powerful asset to bring to the situation. If I had doubts about my abilities - and who doesn't at times? - my horror at the words and behaviors of some outsiders who came in for volunteer or paid work constantly assured me.
What have you been doing for Black History Month? Just wonderin...
"reads like a real-life experience" —
my amazon review
Last Sunday, churches that follow the Revised Standard Lectionary concluded the season of Epiphany with the Feast of the Transfiguration; I'm writing on Thursday, so yesterday on Ash Wednesday we opened our lives to six weeks of Lent with slower-paced songs, more thought-provoking prayers and readings, wearing a cross made from ashes and oil inscribed on our forehead. Ashes left after burning palms from the previous Palm Sunday / Lent 6 has been the tradition and the ideal, but doesn't necessarily need to be. Ashes and oil carry a multitude of meanings, but most immediately, ashes signal the mortality of our bodies created from earthbound elements that one day will return into the ground. Oil? Anointing for burial after death, but more urgently, a reminder of the oil – chrism – that in the HS anoints us at baptism into Jesus' threefold public ministry of prophet, priest, and king. 
Creative Market – this is far from the first shoutout I've given on this blog and on my facebook page to Creative Market, the best place ever to get an astonishing variety of design assets from creatives all over the globe. Every week CM offers six design freebies; most weeks I pick up every one of them. If we've bought – either for free or for a cash transaction – a font or photo or drawing, in every case we legally can use it for our own design projects. Typefaces aside, if we want to incorporate an asset from CM into a paying client project, sometimes we need to buy an extended license. Simple guidelines that also include not needing to credit the artist/source. Most weeks I get all the freebies, but other than the fonts, I use them very rarely. Why? For the most part the paintings and drawings are in a particular artist's especially unique style. No way would I imagine passing it off as my own, but it feels not quite right. However, I've used photographs from CM about a dozen times for blog graphics, and it's easy to credit the photographer, which I always do. So about all that, I'm just sayin' for your information. Every element I used in my graphic for this post is from Creative Market, but it feels fine because this time they're all very similar to something I easily could have designed myself.
"Opportunity was born so that Anaconda could live, and now it's dying for Missoula's sake." [page 217]
Throughout the Hebrew Bible we discover "types" of The Resurrection in events of liberation and deliverance. This typology includes God's definitive prototypes of redemption from death on the passover, of freedom from slavery through the exodus. The image of Pharaoh's army drowning in the water of the Red Sea doesn't thrill me, but the enemy does need to be vanquished and banished and the Apostle Paul calls death the last enemy. Hebrew bible typology also includes realities of new birth from the surging waters of first creation, from the flood that floated Noah's ark, of Divine faithfulness in covenant-making and covenant-keeping. We hear about many unforgettable Spirit-called and Spirit-inspired humans without whom the outcome of history would have been very different--you can refer to them as "types" of Jesus Christ! The jubilee passage in Leviticus 25 mandates Yahweh's people release or redeem, buy back, all held captive by indebtedness of any kind, including servitude to others; the 50th Jubilee Year also grants the land a full year without work. Especially in the Hebrew scriptures, we encounter land as promise, as gift, and as covenant partner with humanity. In short, the Hebrew bible provides hints of resurrection, of the ultimate covenant with life. 
