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Post by the Scribe on Feb 25, 2023 19:41:38 GMT
BLACK HISTORY MONTH 2023
1 side owned slaves. The other side started Black History Month. How a family heals
Code Switch
Updated February 23, 202310:08 AM ET
Sandhya Dirks
SANDHYA DIRKS
B.A. Parker, photographed for NPR, 9 September 2022, in New York, NY. Photo by Brandon Watson for NPR.
B.A. PARKER
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DALIA MORTADA
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35-Minute Listen ondemand.npr.org/anon.npr-mp3/npr/codeswitch/2023/02/20230221_codeswitch_65799f95-5554-4c05-bc70-c35b4100f581.mp3?orgId=1&topicId=1015&aggIds=1152157000&d=2131&story=1154563737&dl=1&sc=siteplayer&size=34102588&dl=1&aw_0_1st.playerid=siteplayer
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The Woodson family members at the Woodson reconciliation ceremony in 1998.
Courtesy of Craig Woodson
"Those who have no record of what their forebears have accomplished lose the inspiration which comes from the teaching of biography and history." — Carter G. Woodson
There are many things from childhood that Brett Woodson Bailey doesn't remember. Maybe it has to do with his cancer diagnosis at age 4, living in the hospital for almost two years, undergoing intense courses of radiation and chemotherapy. He thinks that plays a part in why so much of his childhood is "hazy."
Forgetting after all, is a side effect of trauma.
Brett Woodson Bailey, on the University of California, Santa Cruz campus.
Sandhya Dirks for NPR/.
But one moment he remembers clearly is his mother, Adele, sitting him down when he was in middle school, telling him that he was the descendant of a famous, important man.
You are the great great grandnephew of Carter G. Woodson, she told him. Woodson is the man behind Negro history week, which ultimately became Black History Month. She said Brett should be proud of this fact, he should even brag about it.
Brett is not the braggy type. Now 20, he's a soft-spoken and thoughtful sophomore at the University of California, Santa Cruz, majoring in environmental science, with dreams of becoming a wildlife biologist.
As Brett got older he began to better understand what it means to be related to the man who insisted that we tell, and learn, the true story of Black people in America.
In 1926, Woodson created Negro history week, anchoring it between the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass. In the 1970s the week officially expanded to a month.
Woodson helped pioneer the field of African American history, especially when it comes to education, and he fiercely believed that Black history should not be a separate, segregated thing, that our histories are intertwined.
Brett recognizes his ancestor's historical importance, but he doesn't know if he feels any personal connection to a man who lived so long ago. "I'm not exactly like carrying down his legacy too much," he says.
But then he stops and turns the idea over mid-sentence. "I guess I kind of am by still being here," he says. "Because you know he was a fighter, fighting for civil rights."
Brett knows that surviving is no simple feat, especially when you are Black in America. "I am my ancestors wildest dreams," the aphorism goes. Then there is Brett's own experience with cancer — when he was diagnosed he was given a 30% chance of making it. But his people survived and he survived, and that means something. He carries history in his skin and in his bones.
"If a race has no history, if it has no worthwhile tradition, it becomes a negligible factor in the thought of the world, and it stands in danger of being exterminated." — Carter G. Woodson
*******************************************************************************
In 1984 a postage stamp issued to commemorate the life of Woodson changed a white family's story
Growing up in the '40s and '50s in segregated Kentucky, it was part of Craig Woodson's family legend that they could trace their lineage all the way back to the beginnings of American history. There was even a book where the legend was enshrined, a family genealogy. Craig didn't read the book, but he knew the story.
John and Sarah Woodson crossed the ocean in 1619 from Bristol, England, to settle in the first colony of Jamestown. To start a new life in a new world.
One day when John was away and Sarah was at home with their two boys, "there was an Indian attack," Craig recounts. "An attack by the Native Americans, and Sarah fended them off with a cast iron pan," recalls Amy Woodson-Boulton. She's Craig's niece, and grew up with the story too.
To protect them, Sarah hid her two children, one underneath the potato bin, and the other in the bathtub. They survived, and from these two sons came the two lines of Woodsons — two genealogical bloodlines to populate the colonized new world. When you met another Woodson you would ask them — tub or potato bin?
It's the kind of apocryphal lore many families pass down. But this was a white American origin story. And it's problematic in the way white American origin stories tend to be, erasing anything but the heroic white point of view, conveniently forgetting the colonization and violence that began the American experiment, ignoring that the new world was not new.
But also, because it turns out there weren't just "potato-bin Woodsons" and "tub Woodsons."
There was another line of Woodsons, one that would lead to Carter G. Woodson, and then, decades later, to Brett Woodson Bailey.
That part of the story stayed silent until 1984, when Craig was 41 years old. That year, on Feb. 1, a postage stamp was issued to commemorate the life and work of Carter G. Woodson.
postalmuseum.si.edu/exhibition/the-black-experience-famous-poets-and-writers/carter-g-woodson
Craig Woodson in Los Angeles, Calif.
Stella Kalinina for NPR
It wasn't the first time Craig had heard the name, but it was the first time something clicked for him — that this famous Black man shared his last name.
"What's the deal with the Black Woodsons?" he asked his father. "Who are they?"
His dad pointed to the old genealogy book on the family's shelf. "It's all in there."
It was in the first six pages. In 1619, the same year the white Woodsons settled in Jamestown, a ship carrying around 20 kidnapped Angolans arrived at Point Comfort, in what is now Virginia. The Woodsons bought six of the first Black people who were forcibly trafficked here. They were some of the first American slave owners.
"Why did you never tell us this?" Craig demanded of his father.
"You never asked," he replied.
If forgetting can be a side effect of trauma, what is the side effect of burying the truth? What happens when you bury history in plain sight?
"The bondage of the Negro brought captive from Africa is one of the greatest dramas in history, and the writer who merely sees in that ordeal something to approve or condemn fails to understand the evolution of the human race." — Carter G. Woodson
Breaking the family myth and confronting a history of enslaving
Craig has a whole series of past lives. In the late 1960s, he was a part of the short-lived, but influential, avant-garde music group The United States of America, known for its radical politics and psychedelic rock. He played drums for Linda Ronstadt, among others. He got a Ph.D. from UCLA in ethnomusicology, where he studied African drumming and drum making. www.allmusic.com/artist/the-united-states-of-america-mn0000920101
Craig Woodson, an ethnomusicologist who specializes in African drumming, holds an African talking drum.
Stella Kalinina for NPR
He says one factor that drew him to African drumming was that it didn't come naturally to him, he had to work for it. (A parallel that stands out: Brett — who is a star track athlete — says the same thing about himself and running. He wasn't naturally talented at it, he says, but now, running feels like freedom, like flying. And he's very good at it.)
In 1984, when Craig saw the postage stamp, he had just returned from Ghana, where he was playing music and doing fieldwork. Many of his friends and colleagues were Black. He had no idea what to say to them, just an incredible, bottomless shame he couldn't shake.
For months he did what he was angry at his family, and his father, for doing. He stayed silent, swallowing the truth. His family wasn't just enslavers, they had been "huge slave owners, the first slave owners," he says.
more www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2023/02/19/1154563737/woodsons-slaves-black-history-month-family-heal |
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Post by the Scribe on Feb 25, 2023 19:56:46 GMT
I landed on this Woodson story when I heard about the KJJZ/NPR haiku contest. While waiting for the announcement of their random selection of a prize winner Code Switch was broadcast. I perked up when Linda Ronstadt's name was mentioned. The story was about how two families with a black branch and a white branch gained acceptance of their past, present and future. An inspiring story to be sure. Craig Woodson played in Linda's band at one time.
Without even knowing about this program Code Switch I had written the following haiku poem as a response to the question asked in the contest:
What's something you want to reset in your life?
my haiku response:
MAKING PLANS
accepting my past
alas no bad memories
so I’m making plans
kjzz.org/haiku
Genealogy is an interesting thing. My own family line landed in what is now Virginia in 1717 as indentured servants, had 7 sons and 5 daughters. My German elders lived down river not far from where Linda's German Ronstadt ancestors lived but mine emigrated much earlier than hers. Mine became part of the Second Germanna Colony. From there they left for parts far and wide in this burgeoning country. The son that began my family tree here married a woman who was born in the Germanna region in the 1690's. Many fought in the American Revolution and on both sides of the Civil War as well as other conflicts in this new country. Linda's emigrated to Mexico mid-19th Century and led a different path.
Linda Ronstadt also has a rich and amazing family tree. Most of us do in some ways. Discover your roots to give yourself footing and go from there.
Did I ever mention on this site how a well known and accurate psychic medium and channeler told me about my Linda Ronstadt past life connection? Still confused at my obsession with Linda I met a psychic medium channeler and past life regressionist at a local psychic fair and health event. She had some quiet time at her booth and we struck up a conversation. She said, sit down and she unfolded a stack of tarot cards. I asked her many questions but my main question was about the draw I had towards Linda. This is what she told me: At the end of the first millennium Linda Ronstadt (same soul different name) lived in the area of what is now Spain. She had a child (me) and died trying to keep me alive during a great famine the region was experiencing at the time.
When I researched the peoples and customs there at that time it was interesting to see some of the cultural similarities Linda has kept on her path through time. The women of that time loved their music and their "bling" of which today's Linda has no shortage lol.
Where it began
On a lazy Saturday afternoon (late '60's) one summer day I was napping on the family couch in the livingroom when I was awakened to a song on the television. The show was It's Happening and the song was High Muddy Water. As my sleepy eyes focused on the tv screen I recognized the "essence" of the singer the moment I laid eyes on her but I didn't know why, how or from where. (it took just one look as I was 14 years old - hence my obsession of discovery all things Linda and being more than just a fan)
There are some things you just inherently know. But this is her life now and this is mine. I knew to stay away but did all I could to support her from afar. This was to be her special life. There is a genealogy among souls as much as there is for those in this physical world. We can't escape either one.
Now I see the distance stir
And I hear reckless sound
And something seems to say well
I'm bound for higher ground
So now I'll swim ashore
For I must make it
Although I'm up to my neck
In high muddy water
The song seemed prescient for where I landed in this lifetime. Definitely UP TO MY NECK. Coincidence? or synchronicity? most likely fate, if that is possible.
Connections from a past life are often recognized through another one's eyes. It is said the eyes are the windows to the soul. With Linda it was there in her eyes for me.
this song Women 'Cross The River has always resonated with me as I think it stirred memories from a past life long ago and far away.....(I think Linda should have added gun shot sounds here: Now a soldier with a gun and a battle to be won
Might kill you with a bullet and you never even know the reason why)
So why do I think this psychic medium was accurate in regards to Linda? She told me several things that were spot on that no one, especially a stranger could have known. Following is the "one" that did it for me.
She told me in my most recent lifetime before this one I was a riverboat gambler (like Jim Garner on Maverick). Luck might have been the lady Bret Maverick loved best, but most 19th- century riverboat gamblers were cheats. There were laws and rules against gambling, but boat owners winked at the games and lawmen weren’t called in unless gambling graduated to gunplay. It was a very uncomfortable and dangerous life for me as a goodytwoshoes. As her reading goes, I was in a card game with some hardcore fellows who thought I was cheating. I wasn't. But that didn't stop them from shooting me with one bullet entering right through my heart. They discovered AFTER THE FACT that I had NOT cheated but obviously it was too late.
From there fast forward to the time of this past life reading. In my current life I had been experiencing "yuppie flu" with chest pains and had an appointment with my doctor aka Dr. Bill McGarey who founded the A.R.E. Clinic in Phoenix Arizona based on the readings from Edgar Cayce, the famous Sleeping Prophet. Dr. Bill has written many books himself and he and his wife Gladys had a thriving practice. It was so odd the way I found Dr. Bill:
I was quite open to alternative healing and was on my way home after visiting a local healer (who didn't show for my appointment) for some relief and support. Headed home I passed through downtown and decided to stop at my favorite haunt, Changing Hands Bookstore to see if they might have a book on remedies I could do myself. As I made my way downstairs in the bookstore towards the 'healing and metaphysical" section a book literally FLEW off the shelf ahead of me and landed at my feet. It was a big red book, a used book about healers. It was an older book and I wondered if any of these healers were still alive? As I glanced through the book I gained hope for my condition. Soon after, I ended up flying to Chicago to see one healer who specialized in Huna (Hawaiian healing) and I lastly flew to Hollywood to see an energy healer. But also listed was Dr. Bill McGarey who was right here in the Valley of the Sun! He became my new doctor right away. He immediately prescribed daily castor oil packs which were a directive for healing through an Edgar Cayce reading. It worked well and gave me relief. But what to do about these new heart pains? I made another appointment.
So I went to my appointment and to my surprise Dr. Bill was on vacation and his daughter (also a doctor) was filling in for him. She gave me an EKG and upon looking at the tape, she turned around and said YOU NEED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL ASAP for something called a nuclear medicine heart test. That is a procedure where you take some radioactive pills and then they quickly take images of the heart in this big vault of a room with lead walls. So I had the procedure and made a return appointment to the A.R.E. Clinic for my results.
Dr. Helene was still there and read me the results. note: It was a couple of weeks earlier that I had seen the psychic medium for the past life reading. "The nuclear med x rays show you have scar tissue in your heart and all the electrical impulses must go around it. That is what is causing your problem. It's electrical" she said. hmmm I thought.
So I asked "IS THE SCAR TISSUE ABOUT THE SIZE OF A BULLET HOLE?" She said "WHY YES. it is exactly the size of a bullet hole. HOW DO YOU KNOW THAT?"
I told her about my recent past life regression and she agreed that was where that scar tissue may have come from as it was so unusual. A regular doctor would have thought me crazy but this was Dr. Bill and Dr. Gladys' (who was also a doctor) daughter. They had all kinds of neat healing gizmos and techniques at that clinic based on readings from Edgar Cayce. She let me keep those nuclear prints that showed the scar tissue in my heart as a souvenir and proof.
Had the original local healer I went to see actually showed up for my appointment it would have changed my life as I would have gone straight home from the session, would not have stopped into the bookstore where the big red book of healers found me, never would have found Dr. Bill, etc. A sad twist to that story is the no show healer was very apologetic, almost painfully apologetic. Then I discovered he had died shortly after that.
So fast forward (2 years) to a visit back to L.I.N.Y. to visit my family. some history: Both my parents loved to gamble and play cards. My mom played cards every week with a group of ladies on Wednesday nights into early Thursday morning. My dad was a heavy drinker who frequented bars, played craps and poker. Also when relatives from the city (New York) came for a visit the cards came out for a family card game. I WAS SURROUNDED BY GAMBLERS! I always got nervous and shakey when they did that and would not play. I would hide in another room until the game was over. After these events with the psychic and my doctor visit I realized at least two of the people responsible for shooting me in my past life were my parents. Clearly it was their punishment to give birth and raise me lol. (even though I was a model child) It was at that visit I confronted my dear mother (not the Linda Ronstadt mother) with this story and her response was...."aawwww, I wouldn't do that with a sly grin and a chuckle."
hmmmm yeah, right ma. (did I mention that the house my parents lived in and where I was raised was HAUNTED!)
There is no way the psychic could have known any of this information as I didn't even know it. That "shot through the heart" moment was just one of many things she told me that was spot on but none as dramatic as that.
companion links and threads
www.edgemagazine.net/author/linda-deer-domnitz/#
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bret_Maverick
www.goodreads.com/author/list/60317.William_A_McGarey
www.edgarcaycecures.com/about-cayce-cures
ahpweb.org/100-year-old-holistic-superstar/
Dr. Bill's wife Gladys and Dr. Helene's mom at an event 2 years ago:
www.foundationforlivingmedicine.org/introducing_dr_gladys_mcgarey
conservatism.freeforums.net/thread/6575/flashback-simple-dreams-tempe-october
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Post by the Scribe on Feb 25, 2023 20:39:41 GMT
DRUM!
Educating The World With Percussion: Nine Questions With Dr. Craig Woodson
drummagazine.com/educating-the-world-through-percussion-dr-craig-woodson/
BY PHIL HOOD
behind the scenes
The happy, smiling man with all the kid’s percussion instruments has probably put percussion education into more classrooms around the world than anyone alive today. His name is Dr. Craig Woodson, and he long ago he combined his Ph.D in music (UCLA) with an emphasis on ethnomusicology with music education and musical instrument technology to develop new educational approaches that have impacted hundreds of thousands of students.
Dr. Woodson puts his musical knowledge to work around the world. Through the nonprofit Drums Of Humanity he has led workshops and performances in Iraq, Sudan, and other countries recovering from war and natural disasters. In another project, he also works with American veterans and refugees in the US suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
In 1976, Woodson founded Ethnomusic, Inc., a world music education consultancy that presents multicultural instrument making, educational concerts, school programs, and professional development. Later, he authored “Roots of Rhythm” a free, online world drumming curriculum for middle schoolers that teaches concepts in history, geography, and other subjects through the instruments and rhythms of countries around the world. Roots of Rhythm was promoted through the Percussion Marketing Council, with whom he also developed a program called “Drum Set In The Classroom” to reach elementary and middle school teachers who may be involved in music education but have little or no drum set knowledge.
He is an adviser to several art museums and the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame, and has performed or collaborated with major artists from Kronos Quartet to Mick Fleetwood to Linda Ronstadt. And, just to make sure he gives 110 percent in this lifetime, Woodson also owns 12 patents on musical instrument technology and percussion instrument design.
His latest project is STEAM, workshops that bring together music with concepts of Science, Engineering, Technology, Art, and Math for school assemblies and workshops. Vibrant and effusive in person, Woodson is an inspiring person who is driven by one overriding goal: to increase the number of music makers and their appreciation of this world and its music.
more drummagazine.com/educating-the-world-through-percussion-dr-craig-woodson/ |
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Post by the Scribe on Feb 25, 2023 20:50:30 GMT
Norma Downs Craig Woodson TV Interview Feb 1999
Craig Woodson
www.youtube.com/@craigwoodson
Norma Downs interviewed Craig Woodson on her local Cleveland TV show, Sit Down with Norma, ' about his background with Ghanaian drumming and his connection to Dr. Carter G. Woodson through Edgar Woodson. Also discussed is a Black White Woodson Family Reconciliation or 'Sankofa' ceremony that took in Oct. 1998. This event included an apology Craig gave to for his ancestors' enslavement of Edgar's ancestors. Clips of the 1998 meeting are shown. |
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Post by the Scribe on Feb 25, 2023 20:57:46 GMT
The United States of America Biography by Jason Ankeny
www.allmusic.com/artist/the-united-states-of-america-mn0000920101/biography
Despite releasing only one LP, the United States of America was among the most revolutionary bands of the late '60s -- grounded equally in psychedelia and the avant-garde, their music eschewed guitars in favor of strings, keyboards, and haunting electronics, predating the ambient pop of the modern era by several decades. The United States of America was led by composer and keyboardist Joseph Byrd, a Kentucky native raised in Tucson, AZ; there he appeared with a series of rock and country bands while attending high school, subsequently playing vibes in a jazz outfit as a student at the University of Arizona. Despite winning a fellowship to study music at Stanford, Byrd instead relocated to New York, intrigued by the avant-garde experiments emerging from the city's downtown music scene; there he began earning international renown for his own compositions, at the same time working as a conductor, arranger, associate producer, and assistant to critic Virgil Thomson.
Byrd eventually returned to the west coast, accepting an assistant teaching position at UCLA and moving into a beachfront commune populated by a group of grad students, artists, and Indian musicians. He soon began studying acoustics, psychology, and Indian music, but quickly turned back to experimental composition, leaving the university in the summer of 1967 to write music full-time and produce "happenings." To perform his new songs -- material inspired in no small part by the psychedelic sounds produced during the Summer of Love -- Byrd recruited a group of UCLA students (vocalist Dorothy Moskowitz, bassist Rand Forbes, electric violinist Gordon Marron, and drummer Craig Woodson) to form the United States of America; the group's lone self-titled LP, produced by David Rubinson, was recorded for CBS in 1968, its unique ambience due largely to their pioneering use of the ring modulator, a primitive synthesizer later popularized by the Krautrock sound.
T̤h̤e̤ Ṳn̤i̤t̤e̤d̤ S̤t̤a̤t̤e̤s̤ O̤f̤ A̤m̤e̤r̤i̤c̤a̤ | Full Album (1968)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_United_States_of_America_(album)
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