Click HERE to read Paul Robeson’s testimony before the House Committee on Un-American Activities in 1956. With courage, he shamed the Congressional committee that sought to shame him. “You are the Un-Americans, and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves.”
Not to be further shamed, the Chairman adjourned the Committee.
For ten or twenty, thirty years or more
the song was sung before the Civil War
by southern slaves in secret. First a call,
and then a sung response that came from all
around, “O let my people go!” And then
another voice, another poet, sang
out still another call, “Tell King Pharaoh!”
And then, “This world’s a wilderness of woe…”
“O let my people go!” Old Lincoln heard
the sad song sung and gave the legal word:
Abolish evil slavery first here,
and finally across the land. For where
no freedom is for some, at risk we all
will be. Each one must listen for the call:
to set each prisoner free.
– Verse “O Let My People Go” by Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, October 23, 2013
Spirituals! (The first one published in 1861, “O Let My People Go,” was transcribed by a YMCA missionary sent to help escaped slaves at Fort Monroe. –Dena J. Epstein, “Sinful Tunes and Spirituals: Black Folk Music to the Civil War,” Univ of Illinois Press, 1977, 2003.)
Editor’s Note: Harriet Tubman was the Moses of the Underground Railroad.
After eight months of planning for Emancipation Day celebrating the 150th Anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation at Chaska High School this Saturday (expected attendance: 600), this email arrived from one of the planners, the Chaska Chief of Police:
FYI. The Chaska football team has a “home” game, on Saturday. It’s a big one. It starts at 3 PM. Be prepared to encounter a lot of traffic, activity and parking may be a challenge.
Turns out the game is a Section 2AAAAA Semifinal with the Northfield Raiders. The Chaska Hawks are unbowed and unbeaten. Excitement is high.
We may not get into the parking lot.
The best (or worst?) laid plans of mice and men…. How did we miss this? “Lord, emancipate emancipation this Saturday.” Excedrin and Jack Daniels will be gratefully received.
Verse – “The Kite Flew All Night”
If the wind is steady–
on these plains it often
is– and if the dacron
line has not been eaten
by those grey and tiny
field mice that slip into
my small storage shed, and
if the stake is driven
firmly in the ground, and
if the rip-stop nylon
like a parachute can
hold, and if the fiber-
glass rods bend but do not
break, the sky has color
added and our hearts can
also fly.
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, October 20, 2013
EDITOR’S NOTE: The author of this verse has always had a mental picture of “the grid” of the City of Chicago streets, avenues, and interstates.
The First Signs of Dementia
I cannot see myself on the grid
anymore–the web of avenues,
streets, lanes, and turnpikes. I know the road
I am driving on, but the views
from the height of buzzards are now lost
to my mind’s dim cataractic eye.
Well, at least it happens sometimes. I
hate not knowing when the very last
clear and cogent thought will cross my mind
(double-cross, most likely…) Can there be
exercises for brains? Surgery?
Memory replacement would be kind.
Will I soon not even know my name?
Hell is when all highways are the same.
(Composed while driving on I-57, Urbana to Chicago–but not transcribed while in Work Zones…}
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, October 16, on his way to McCormick Days, the annual three-day Alumni/ae event at McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago. Steve first mentioned losing his grip on the grid last spring on the drive from Midway Airport to the seminary for the annual gathering of old friends.
Kay Stewart photo following storm
Click “The projected timing of climate departure from recent variability” to read the article John brought to our attention.
John and Bob McLain’s exhibits “Morning Has Broken: a Celebration of Light” and “Seven Faces of Christ” will be displayed at Shepherd of the Hill Presbyterian Church in Chaska, MN from 9-12 a.m. Monday thru Thursday, November 4 through December 8. An Artist Reception will be held November 8, 7:00 to 9:00 P.M.
The mid-west farmland seen up close,
the only way it should be seen,
is black, then green, then gold and tan.
The corn comes first in narrow rows,
the soybeans planted next will spread
into a leafy blanket for
a while, then brown and shrivel, dry
and seem to die. The corn is bred
to grow a single ear per stalk.
The harvester has different jaws
to chew each crop and spit the grain
in trucks. The farmers stand and talk
of yield and price, machines and laws.
They seldom look to see a plane…
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, October 16, 2013
NOTE: Views from the Edge found this photo of Amish farmland from Pennsylvania Dutch country.
Amish farmland quilt
The voice of Frederick Douglass:
Whether we turn to the declarations of the past, or to the professions of the present, the conduct of the nation seems equally hideous and revolting. America is false to the past, false to the present, and solemnly binds herself to be false in the future.
– Rochester, NY, July 4, 1852
Sojourner Truth
The evening will begin with Odetta singing “I been ‘buked and I been scorned” and move into the spoken words of 101 year-old ex-slave Fountain Hughes, Sojourner Truth, Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Tubman (“Moses”), and Langston Hughes (“The Freedom Train”) portrayed by local residents Yvette Atkinson and Ray Pleasant in dramatic readings.
Group singing of the music that kept hope alive: There is a balm in Gilead, O Freedom, Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, and Go Down, Moses!
Questions to be discussed by participants:
Frederick Douglass
Who/what are the new owners of human property?
Who are the new slaves?
Where is the spirit of emancipation moving today in the U.S.A.? Continue reading
“For 40 years,” writes Steve, “I had been a Pastor on college campuses where many students were of the marrying age, and perhaps because I would not accept money for weddings, was often asked to officiate.”
Verse -“Give Up Your Faith”
was what I told several Christians
who were wanting to marry
someone of another Faith.
“It’s the Christian thing to do,”
I said. “Give up what you love
for the person you love.”
(“Remember the Golden Rule?”)
Only a very few became Muslim,
or Buddhist, or Hindu or Jewish,
but I felt those who did were
showing clearly the love of Jesus…
I was glad to be an evangelist.
– Steve Shoemaker, Urbana, IL, October 11, 2013
Views from the Edge 