Bill Bryson’s “One Summer, America 1927,” when “America First” came to call

As I read Bill Bryson’s “One Summer: America 1927,” I realized that our history is comprised of an amazing number of knuckleheads and heroes. And sometimes, they are one and the same.

Charles Lindbergh, for instance. He became a hero overnight when he flew The Spirit of St. Louis over the Atlantic Ocean, the first solo flight by airplane. Many had attempted it. This scrawny bland fellow from Detroit accomplished it. Thousands of Parisians swarmed him when he landed at Le Bourget Airport. Ticker-tape parades in the U.S. followed. Crowds greeted him everywhere. He often took to his airplane to escape into the wild blue yonder.

By the time the U.S. entered World War II, he was disgraced by his embrace of eugenics and Nazism. He participated in the first “America First” campaign and proudly wore an air medal awarded him in Berlin by Herman Goering, one of the architects of the Nazi scourge. He survived to be one of the defendants at the Nuremberg Trials. “Lucky Lindy” tried to redeem himself by training American pilots in the Pacific during the war. But damage had been done. His name was stripped from all those streets and schools and airfields named in his honor.

You can still see The Spirit of St. Louis displayed at the Smithsonian’s Air and Space Museum along the National Mall in D.C. I’ve taken my family there many times. The plane, so flimsy and tiny when compared to modern aircraft. It’s quite possible those other aircraft wouldn’t exist without it.

Bryson has been one of my favorite writers since his 1989 book, “The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America.” Writing humor is no mean feat and he does it with aplomb in so many books. Humor helps you understand contradictions such as Lindbergh, Babe Ruth, and Al Capone. But that’s why I read, to be entertained and educated in the ways of the world. This book did that. I almost quit several times.

My sister Eileen gave me the trade paperback a month ago. She enjoyed it and knew I was working on novels set in the 1920s. I am of an age where reading big books with small type is difficult. I read to page 80 in bright light but put it down. Then I remembered I have a Kindle Reader for such challenges and I borrowed the book from Libby. Ah, a lit screen and large type. Heavenly. I still put it aside for other things until Libby warned me that I had only five days left on my loan. I hunkered down and read the rest, including a bit of the back matter. So much research!

Sitting in front of another lit-up large screen, I wonder about a century from now, 2125, when a book comes out about 2025. The year of Trump and A.I. Who will be the heroes and villains? As someone who’s been resisting Trumpism since 2016, you can probably guess my answer. “One Summer: America 2025.” A nonfiction tale, told with panache by someone. First we have to survive this period of U.S.-bred fascism and racism. First that. Will books survive?

Big Bill Thompson was mayor of Chicago in 1927. Chicago is in the Trump crosshairs as are all cities in blue states. Big Bill knew that to rule the people must be kept clueless so, writes Bryson, “he started a campaign to remove unAmerican books from Chicago libraries.” He even scheduled a bonfire to burn “treasonous books.” One city employee upped the ante:

“The head of the Municipal Reference Library announced that he had independently destroyed all books and pamphlets in his care that struck him as dubious. ‘I now have an America First library,’ he said proudly.”

America First? Will that be the fate of Chicago’s libraries now that Trump’s goon squads are on their way?

President Biden signs the "Jackie Robinson Ballpark National Commemorative Act"

President Biden signed the "Jackie Robinson Ballpark National Commemorative Act" on Saturday. It designates Daytona Beach's 110-year-old Jackie Robinson Ballpark as a commemorative site and "makes it a part of the African American Civil Rights Network," according to a story in Monday morning's Daytona Beach News-Journal.

The article caught my eye because it was headed by a big photo of the ballpark's statue of Jackie Robinson handing a baseball to two young fans. Robinson's jersey said "Royals." This isn't news to locals as Robinson first played here for the Triple-A Montreal Royals on March 17, 1946. That was more than a year before his April 15, 1947, MLB debut with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

Robinson is celebrated every April 15 on his namesake day at every MLB park. He is in the Baseball Hall of Fame. He broke every record worth breaking. He died way too young in 1972. He's idolized by millions.

But the 1940s were no picnic for a black big-league ballplayer. He was all alone in Daytona and Brooklyn and every ballpark he played in. He got death threats and hate mail. He was yelled at by hateful whites. Some players refused to play with him. 

It was hell playing in Brooklyn, Cleveland, and Chicago. Imagine how hard it was to play in Deep South Daytona. Some will say that a beach town in Florida was different, say, than Selma or Little Rock. There was prejudice but it was a more laid-back wastin'-away-in-Margaritaville kind of racism. But it was in the air and on the ground. And in some dark hearts.

When my family moved to Daytona in 1964, blacks were not permitted on the beachside after dark. They had their own beach named for the Bethune family of educators, a family so esteemed there is a college named in their honor and Mary McCloud Bethune's statue was installed in 2022 in the Florida display in Statuary Hall in the U.S. Capitol Building, the first statue of an African-American in that hall. Many whites in Daytona called Bethune Beach "N-words Beach." The first black surfer I surfed with appeared at our beach in 1969. Coaches at my Catholic high school recruited black players for our football and basketball teams which made us the only integrated high school among the four in Daytona (the rest weren't integrated until the 1970s).

But worse things happened in this part of Florida:

From a "Freedom Never Dies" special on WUCF, a PBS station at University of Central Florida in Orlando: 

By 1930, four thousand blacks had been lynched nationwide by white mobs, vigilantes, or the Klan. Most of these occurred in the Deep South, many with law enforcement complicity. And while Alabama and Mississippi had more total lynchings, it was Florida, surprisingly, that had the highest per capita rate of lynching from 1900-1930.

"Freedom Never Dies: The Legacy of Harry T. Moore" documentary debuted on PBS stations nationwide 24 years ago Jan. 12. Ossie Davis and Ruby Dee narrated. Sweet Honey In The Rock and Toshi Reagon performed original music. Here's some background information from the WUCF web site:

Combining Murder Mystery, Incisive Biography and an Eye-Opening Portrait of Jim Crow Florida, "Freedom Never Dies" Sheds New Light on one of America's Earliest and Most Fearless Fighters for Civil Rights.

In 1951 after celebrating Christmas Day, civil rights activist Harry T. Moore and his wife Harriette retired to bed in their white frame house tucked inside a small orange grove in Mims, Florida [Mims is in north Brevard County, a 45-minute drive from Jackie Robinson Ballpark]. Ten minutes later, a bomb shattered their house, their lives and any notions that the south's post-war transition to racial equality would be a smooth one. Harry Moore died on the way to the hospital; his wife died nine days later.

"Freedom Never Dies: The Legacy of Harry T. Moore" explores the life and times of this enigmatic leader, a distinguished school teacher whose passionate crusade for equal rights could not be discouraged by either the white power structure or the more cautious factions of his own movement. Although Moore's assassination was an international cause celebre in 1951, it was overshadowed by following events and eventually almost forgotten.

"Freedom Never Dies: The Legacy of Harry T. Moore"  produced by The Documentary Institute, restores Moore to his rightful place in the Civil Rights saga.

Mary Pat Fennessey looks for "Small Mercies" in Dennis Lehane's latest novel

Reading a Dennis Lehane novel is no walk in the park. It is if your park is filled with intrigue, betrayal, revenge, murder, drug overdoses, child abuse, and race riots. You get all of that in his latest novel, “Small Mercies.” It’s a harrowing ride through the Boston South End we read about in “Mystic River,” "Shutter Island," and the Kenzie-Gennaro mystery series (“Gone, Baby, Gone”).

The setting is the very hot end of summer in 1974 Boston. Americans are on edge due to the Saudi oil embargo. Lehane writes that everyone was driving around with at least a half-tank of gas so they didn’t have to spend their time in long gas lines. But there’s a bigger issue in the mostly-white areas of the city: court-ordered busing. Some of the Irish-American kids are going to be bused to a formerly all-black high school in a black neighborhood. Black children will be bused into all-white South End schools. The setting is about as territorial as it gets and a bomb is set to go off.

That bomb is Mary Pat Fennessey. She’s a native of the Southie projects, daughter of an abused household who passes on some of that abuse to her own family. One husband has been killed and the second one is estranged. Her son Noel returned from Vietnam with a habit and he dies from an overdose. Mary Pat only has her 17-year-old daughter Jules. Jules goes out with friends one night and doesn’t come home. A young black man has been murdered and Jules and her friends were somehow involved. Everyone tells Mary Pat to be patient, her daughter will turn up, you know how kids are. But Mary Pat has been pushed too far this time. Irish mobsters try to buy her silence and that tells her one thing: her daughter is dead because she’s witnessed a murder and someone is going to pay. Many someones pay dearly at Mary Pat’s hand.

Lehane does a wonderful job weaving Mary Pat’s vengeance with rowdy anti-busing rallies, the oil embargo, and the poverty and dysfunction of Irish-American Boston. The author takes us on a tour of neighborhoods and the entire city. Even Sen. Ted Kennedy makes an appearance. This is what is happening in Boston in August and September 1974.

The scene seems eerily familiar to a reader in 2023. Lehane makes class resentment very clear through the eyes of his characters. The inner-city white Boston neighborhoods have sent more kids to Vietnam than almost any other place in America. Most young men get drafted because they work menial jobs and do not have college deferments like all those kids across the river in Cambridge. When Mary Pat visits Harvard to seek help from her campus janitor ex-husband, you feel her disdain for the hippies in the city and the privileged white students protesting the war which won’t be declared over for another year.

If all of this sounds familiar, it is. These class resentments have been buildings for decades and politicians and media blowhards on the Right have tapped into it. It’s sad, and the book is sad. It’s a personal story. You feel Mary Pat’s rage in your gut and this reader is both shocked and saddened by her vendetta.

I lived in Boston 1972-73. I missed the fireworks of 1974. If I had been paying attention, I might have felt the city’s aching heart. Dennis Lehane’s gift to us is we get to feel what it was like to live in the Boston of almost 50 years ago. One hell of a story.

I looked at “Small Mercies” as a historical novel. It’s still a rough place in 2023. Real estate web site Upgraded Home talked listed Boston’s 10 most dangerous neighborhoods. South End – Southie -- was number three.

Our advice? If you find yourself in South End, keep an eye out for thieves, don’t get into arguments with people who just came from the local bars, and get a security system for your home.

And then there’s this from a recent issue of Boston Magazine:

In the last few decades, the South End has rapidly gentrified, once again becoming one of the city’s most stylish neighborhoods.

Mary Pat might not recognize the place. Then again, she might.

Saturday Morning Round-up: Pretty Flowers, a Cornhusker Goes South, and Outrage in Tennessee

It’s mid-April and we’re experiencing our usual schizoid mix of warm days in the 70s interrupted by bursts of snow and cold. Humans are confused but bulb plants (amaryllis, tulips, daffodils, crocus) continue their rise into the sunshine. I have some nice yellow daffodils and purple crocuses emerging in my front yard garden. They are getting extra sunshine this spring because we took down the dying blue spruce on the house’s west side so the shade is gone. I’ll plant annuals in the gardens and maybe grow some cherry tomatoes to add some veggies to the mix. I’ve always wanted tomatoes in my front yard although critters may prove to be a problem. Wish me luck.

I volunteer at the Cheyenne Botanic Gardens this afternoon. At the front desk, I am surrounded by blooming things, mostly tulips who have already passed their prime and gloxinias which are beautiful but eerily have no scent. The scent of orange and lemon blossoms drift in from the Orangerie. The Tilted Tulip Gift Shop sells the nicest smelling candles, their scents drifting my way even when they aren’t alight. April is when I see the first visitors with sunburns from walking around the lake or strolling through the gardens. They bear beatific looks and sly grins, as if they can’t believe they have survived another Wyoming winter.

My university newspaper, published five days a week and independent of the University of Florida since 1971, is having a blast goading the new UF president, a toady Republican named Ben Sasse. If the name looks familiar, it’s because Sasse retired from his seat as one of Nebraska’s two U.S. senators to take the job. We know Gov. DeSantis played a role in this since he is working overtime to sabotage both the public school K-12 system and the state’s public universities. The Independent Florida Alligator mocks Sasse for ignoring their reporters’ calls and e-mails. He’s kept a low profile since being heckled at a public gathering when he first appeared with his Cornhusker roots and started telling Floridians what to do with their flagship university. It doesn’t look good for him even with his nose firmly planted in DeSantis’s backside. I worked at the Alligator for two semesters in 1976 as a G.A. reporter, General Assignment because I arrived with no specialty such as sports or local government and I knew a tiny bit about everything because I was an English major, the academic equivalent of G.A. Good luck Alligator – we are cheering you on from Nebraska’s superior western neighbor.

Wyoming GOP legislators are no prize but they take second place to their colleagues in Tennessee. The GOP ran two African-American Democrats out of their seats because they had the temerity to join a demonstration at the state capitol. The demo was aimed at gun violence, the most recent murders happening March 27 when six people, including three kids, were gunned down at a Nashville Christian school. The Tenn. GOP like their national leaders have refused to do anything to limit access to automatic weapons. Instead, they send meaningless “thoughts and prayers” to victims’ families and scamper to Indianapolis for the national NRA convention (“14 Acres of Guns & Gear”). I’ll close this out with a quote from U.S. Army special counsel James Welch when hectored by Sen. Joseph McCarthy at a congressional hearing. From the History Channel web site:

“Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness.” It was then McCarthy’s turn to be stunned into silence, as Welch asked, “Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last?” 

Miami Herald drops a word bomb on Florida governor

From today's article in the Business Insider piece about a Miami Herald op-ed about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis and his "Christian Nationalist shtick:”

"The governor's Christian nationalist shtick only separates us," the paper says, adding that Democrats should "counter it more boldly and bring back into their tent voters who feel that, on the issues of religion and faith, the party has nothing to say to them." Read entire article at Business Insider.

I would send you to the full Miami Herald but it has a very sturdy paywall. I already subscribe to several notable newspapers and the Herald is one but not now. Also, it sometimes drops the paywall in emergencies such as killer hurricanes. So stay tuned...

So shtick is the word of the day. You've probably heard it thousands of times. It’s from the Yiddish: Shtik, schtick, shtick, schtick. It means a “bit” or “bits of business” and usually pertains to a performance such as the one delivered to his Trumpian base every day by DeSantis.

Here are precise definitions:

Cambridge Dictionary: a particular ability or behaviour that someone has and that they are well known for (note the U.K. spelling)

Free Dictionary: An entertainment routine or gimmick.

Definitions.net: A contrived and often used bit of business that a performer uses to steal attention

All apply. I suppose you can catch the Governor’s shtick on his official web site. I just couldn’t bear to look.

Wyoming Tribune-Eagle reports on racist behavior in Cheyenne

It was a cringe-worthy headline above the fold in Saturday's Wyoming Tribune-Eagle: 

Air Force base leaders speak out against COMMUNITY RACISM

Yes, that last part was all caps and for good reason. Cheyenne's Warren AFB is home of the 90th Missile Wing and scores of nukes. Like most military bases, it’s self-contained to a certain extent but its airmen and airwomen and civilian employees interact with the community. 

Those interactions, lately, have been nasty. Missile Wing Commander Col. Catherine Barrington called for a meeting with community leaders after Black Air Force families reported racist incidents.

USAF dependents attend K-12 schools located around the county. Many are African-American because, well, it's the United States Air Force and not the Wyoming Air Force. As such, it is made up of young men and women from all over the U.S. and the world. Many have experienced multiple overseas deployments to far-flung bases and war zones. Some have been called racist epithets and discriminated against because of their color in Cheyenne, the place I call home.

The worst local offender reported in the article seems to be McCormick Junior High. This doesn’t surprise me as our daughter was terribly bullied when she attended McCormick. Its students tend to be white and from the mostly prosperous north side of the city where I still live. This doesn’t prevent them from being bullies and racists. 

[Col.] Barrington explained that multiple students have been bullied and called racial slurs at McCormick Junior High. A ninth-grade girl got off the bus the first day of the school year and was immediately called the N-word more than one time.

The girl opted to attend Cheyenne Virtual School rather than to be in this nest of vipers. Others were bullied and called racial slurs which led to fights where black students were suspended and fined. 

One wonders where these 13-year-olds might have learned such behavior. Look to the racist behavior of parents, those people you see at Trump rallies and ranting about Critical Race Theory and face masks at school board meetings. There are consequences for such loathsome behavior.

It's not only school children. One uniformed Black airman bought a gun at a local shop. When he returned in civvies to get the gun serviced, the proprietor said she didn’t have time to serve him.

“Other airmen have also experienced this,” said Warren's Command Chief Master Sergeant Nicholas Taylor. “And when they went in to buy ammunition, they would not sell ammunition to airmen of color at all. So they had to ask their Caucasian counterparts to go in and buy ammunition on behalf of them.”

Let’s be clear – in Cheyenne, we live at the intersection of Guns & Ammo. We have a couple dozen stores and pawn shops where you can buy shootin' irons. We have at least two outdoor firing ranges and one indoors. On Sundays, you can hear the Warren security detachment’s firearm drills. I would venture that everyone in my neighborhood owns at least one firearm. It’s not unusual to see gun stickers on front doors that read “This home protected by Smith & Wesson;” similar four-wheel-oriented stickers adorn pickups. Lest you think only conservatives own guns, you obviously don’t know any Wyoming Democrats. The Second Amendment is religion here, even among heathen Liberals.

So, when you hear that a Black airman cannot buy bullets in a Cheyenne shop when his latest deployment may have placed him armed with a fully-loaded taxpayer-funded weapon in a war zone, you have to say WTF or something similar.

James Peebles also spoke at the public meeting. He’s the director of the Sankofa African Heritage Awareness, Inc., in Cheyenne. His organization conducts seminars about systemic racism, the history of slavery, and the civil rights struggles. All things we desperately need to know about if racist behavior is to stop. Timely subjects during Black History Month.

Peebles described watching the social dynamic in Cheyenne change, with Black families leaving after experiencing racism. There also has been pandemic-driven anti-Asian rhetoric in the past five years.

After a recent ugly incident, Peebles added that “the last year was the first time he even questioned his safety here after living in Cheyenne for 12 years.”

Thanks to reporter Jasmine Hall for covering this meeting and a big thanks to the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle for featuring it so prominently. We need our newspapers to show us when our neighbors behave badly.

As the hymn says, gonna lay down my sword and shield

A viral plague kills thousands and forces millions to hunker down at home and practice social distancing when out in public.

Black Americans killed on the streets by rampaging police.

Millions of Americans lose jobs due to record unemployment.

The President of the United States hides in the White House guarded by armed troops and a fortified fence.

Riots in the streets.

Armed secret police of unknown origin face down peaceful protesters in the nation's capital.

This could be a blurb for a best-seller or an action-packed new movie.

Instead, they are news headlines.

That was the week that was. The U.S. is in deep do-do. Trump can't be blamed for it all. But he can be blamed for making it much, much worse. He is totally unfit for the highest position in the land. Where other leaders unite, Trump divides.

What makes it worse is that Trump is a lifelong racist and a narcissist. He can't look weak even when he is. He has all the traits of a schoolyard bully.

What does a person like this due when threatened? We've seen it. Brute force. He is the commander-in-chief and thus he commands unlimited power, or so he believes. He wanted to unleash troops on protesters. It's been done in the past but you have to go back the Vietnam War protests to see it in action. It happened but not to the extent we feared. Heads were beaten, rubber bullets fired, tear gas employed, arrests made. But the protesters didn't give up and critics of both political parties and a phalanx of retired U.S. generals condemned Trump's tactics. Protests have calmed down. The rioters have not been identified but you know they were radicals intent on watching the country burn. White supremacists. Anarchists. Black radicals.

The protesters cause is just. Peace prevailed. Many police sided with the protesters. A Tennessee National Guard unit laid down their shields after protesters sang the anthem of nonviolent protest.

I'm gonna lay down my sword and shield
Down by the riverside.

And study war no more...

I have a part to play in this. Not sure yet what it is. But it's clear we need to change the way government employees treat minorities. Not just police. Everyone up and down the chain of command including police and the President. I was a government employee for 25 years. Now retired, I wonder what I could have done better. As many have said, racism is a systemic problem. I am not a racist. But as a white guy, I worked for a system that perpetuated certain racist policies. It was built that way. I may have thought about that briefly during my public service. But how did I transform it to serve everyone's needs?

I was slightly woke but really blind and now I see.

What did I do in the arts that made a difference? And what can I do now?

Stay tuned...

Profiles in courage: The men and women who fought for civil rights

"Did you say that President Trump wrote a book?"

The questions came from a middle-aged African-American staffer in the Martin Luther King, Jr., room at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta. I had just turned away from the replica of MLK's library that lines the wall to the gallery. My collegian nephew Morgan, pushing me in a wheelchair, had spotted a book by Nixon on the library shelves. "Nixon wrote a book?" he asked.

I told him that all presidential candidates write books. They're campaign tools, a chance to outline their philosophy and goals should they rise to the highest office in the land. I pointed out a paperback copy of JFK's 1956 "Profiles in Courage." I had devoured that book in the months leading up to President Kennedy's election. I was a voracious reader at 9.

"Trump wrote a book," I replied to the question from the museum staffer."They don't always write them. Some use  ghost writers." It was an attempt to explain the inexplicable.

She seemed bemused by the concept. I was too. Trump's book, "Crippled America: How to Make America Great Again," was published in November of 2015, a year before the election that changed America for the worse. A glowering Trump adorns the cover, reflecting the ugliness that waits inside. He looks like your angry old neighbor, the same kind of person who flocks to Trump's white-power rallies.

"They just threw 200,000 people off the food stamp rolls," the staffer said as Morgan, my sister Mary and I exited.

"Can we be any more cruel?" I replied.

The answer, of course, is yes they can be more cruel. Trumpists demonstrate this every day.

We were in a museum that remembered some of the cruelest chapters in American history. The South's Jim Crow laws, lynchings, murders, sundowner ordinances, miscegenation statutes, segregation.

The exhibits remembered those outrages. And also celebrated the response of outraged Americans involved in the Civil Rights struggle. You know some of the names. Those mostly unknown faces look out from the exhibits. Freedom Riders, college students who came from all over to register black voters, priests, ministers, and rabbis who left their flocks to administer to the dispossessed and disenfranchised in the rural South. There are the murdered and the martyred. Four little girls killed when the KKK bombed a black Birmingham church. Emmett Till, tortured and killed in 1955 by redneck vigilantes for allegedly whistling at a white woman. Medgar Evers, the World War II veteran who challenged segregation at the University of Mississippi and was shot down in 1963 by a member of the White Citizens' Council.

Millions now know the names and faces of these brave people who challenged the  status quo.

The most frightening exhibit recreates the sit-ins at the Greensboro, N.C., Woolworth's. You sit on a lunch counter stool, place earphones over your head, and hands flat on the counter. For the next few minutes, you experience what those black college students went through in the name of equality. Name-calling, threats, slaps upside the head. The lunch counter stool vibrates with the kicks from racists in their jackboots. I was shaken when I stepped down. I've heard the same invective coming from 21st century racists.

On the way to the gift shop, we passed a large mural by Paula Scher that features protest posters from around the world. I really liked it so bought a few items in the shop that celebrates that work of art. Christmas is coming, after all. And I want to always remember this place. I also urge everyone I know to visit it.

SANKOFA African Heritage Awareness presents Oct. 12 conference on timely topic of racism w/update

This Cheyenne conference addresses the very timely topic of racism in the U.S. 

From a press release:

Nate Breen, LCSD1 board member, to Speak at Sankofa Conference

Laramie County School District No. 1 and Wyoming State Board of Education Trustee Nate Breen will address the eighth International Africa MAAFA Remembrance Day Conference, "Wake up America and Speak!"

It begins at 9 a.m. on Saturday, Oct. 12, at Laramie County Community College, 1400 East College Drive.

Breen will discuss “Civic Education and Educating to Respect Differences.”  The conference panel includes Dr. Mohamed Sahil: “(Un)Welcome to America, Historical Immigration Practices.” Dr. James Peebles will address  “The Great American Dilemma, Racial Discrimination versus Racist Ideas.”

The conference is free.

For more information, contact Jill Zarend 307-635-7094 or jillmerry@aol.com or visit www.SankofaAfricaWorld.org    

Sponsored in part by: LCCC Department of Student Engagement & Diversity; Think WY-WHC

Update 9/23/19:

The Sankofa planning committee is happy to announce the addition of three notable scholars, who have given indication to contribute to the historical MAAFA Remembrance Day on October 12: Delvin B. Oldman, Northern Arapaho Tribal Historic Preservation Officer, Wind River Reservation, Riverton, WY; Dr. Justin Conroy, Ogalalla Lakota, Principal of McCormick Junior High School, Cheyenne. Both participants will serve as stand-ins to receive from Reverend Tim Solon, The Article of Contrition to Native Americans. 

 Also joining us, Dr. Frederick Douglas Dixon, Assistant Professor of African American Studies, University of Wyoming, acknowledging the Mis-Education of the Negro, a historical writing by Dr. Carter G. Woodson, Father of Black History Month.

When young people say "I don't feel safe here," you know you have a problem

"I don't feel safe here."

This isn't a Baltimorian, besieged in his (Trump's words) "disgusting rat and rodent infested mess" of an apartment building, one possibly owned by his slumlord son-in-law, Jared Kushner.

They aren't the words of a Salvadoran mother, fleeing with her children to an unknown and possibly worse future in The Land of the Free.

Not a Syrian fleeing his country's mess, one caused, in part, by the USA's ham-handed policies in the region.

The quote above comes from a well-educated, young Caucasian gay man who lives in Cheyenne, Wyo. I spoke to him at a recent party. I don't use his name because I do not have his permission and I'm not sure he'd give it to me if I asked. He's soon to be married and then, he and his Air Force husband, will relocate to Larimer County, Colo. That's the Colorado county that neighbors Laramie County, where he lives now and where I live too. The man and his fiance don't venture outside much, not even during our glorious summers, because they feel threatened by their neighbors. I didn't ask him if his neighbors had threatened or done violence to him. I know what he means. The couple's very presence is an affront to their conservative neighbors. And conservatives these days feel free to let their hatreds run wild. Trump and his henchmen loosed the dogs of hate. Now they unleash their venom at Trump rallies ("Send her back!") and daily in cities and towns across America.

In the Obama days, it seemed as if the U.S. was making strides in tolerating "the other." They were those who looked differently than the average white person, those who practiced a religion other than White Evangelical Protestantism (or no religion at all), and LGBTQ Americans. We should have known that just the act of electing an African-American president couldn't dampen hatreds brewing for hundreds of years. The signs were all around us. Trump's Birtherism. Rise in hate crimes. Tea Party rallies. The tilt to the Right by many state legislatures, especially our own. Even the Republican-dominated Congress's efforts to stymie Obama at every turn had racism at its roots.

With Trump, America's worst instincts have been turned loose.

Wyoming's population ages. Politicians wonder why young people, raised in the "western Way of life," nurtured in Wyoming churches and schools, and beneficiaries of full-ride UW Hathaway scholarships, kick it all over for life in crowded cities. Cities on the Rocky Mountain West have benefited from this great migration from Wheatland, Wyo., and Sterling, Colo. Denver, Salt Lake City, Boise, Albuquerque. That's where the jobs are. That's where young people congregate. They may be afraid of losing their job or their house, but they aren't scared of their neighbors who are a rainbow of ethnicities and lifestyles. They live in peace. Learn tolerance at work. They pack up their family and return to Cheyenne during CFD. Amongst the parades and night shows, they hear Rep. Liz Cheney rant about how Native Americans are ruining our "Western way of life." WTF? They read letters to the editor praising Trump's non-racism and cursing liberals. Republican legislators convene at summer meetings and speak about their latest efforts to curb open voting, immigration, LGBT rights, reproductive freedom, etc. Then they ask: "How can we keep our young people in the state."

Stop being assholes. That would be a start. Then, dear legislator, you can go about the task of funding education, alternative energy, community development, arts and culture and all those amenities that make life worth living.

Then, maybe, young people will stay in Wyoming, maybe even move back home from their $500,000 bungalow in Denver's Wash Park or their $2,000-a-month studio apartment near downtown. They won't be afraid. They will be invested in the present and future of their home towns. They will say, "I feel safe here."

This Baby Boomer grew up hating Nazis -- and still does

The Nazis are in D.C. this weekend.

Sounds weird, doesn't it -- Nazis in our nation's capital city? Last time we contemplated Nazis roaming through D.C. was in "Man in the High Castle," and that was sci-fi. Before that, it was George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of the American Nazi Party, demonstrating in front of the White House against President Eisenhower's effort to send military aid to Israel. Nazis don't like Jews -- you probably heard about that. Rockwell thought there was a Jew in every boardroom and behind every tree. He should have been concerned about members of his own organization -- one of them gunned him down outside an Arlington, Va., laundromat in 1967.

Prior to World War II, Nazis curried favor inside the beltway. They found isolationists and white supremacists willing to listen. As Philip Roth envisioned in "The Plot Against America," Charles Lindbergh and his Nazi sympathizers did not get into the White House in 1940 and keep the U.S. out of the war and the Nazis in power.

Baby Boomers grew up hating Nazis. Our fathers fought in World War II and they hated Nazis. Movies and TV shows extolled the virtues of killing them. Until "Hogan's Heroes," which transformed concentration camp life into comedy. My father refused to watch the show. "None of that is funny," he would say. We kind of know what he was mad about but we did think it was funny. "I zee nuthing!" Oh, Schultz. Ha ha.

Nazis tried to kill my father. Not him, specifically, just any G.I. that wandered into France in June 1944. If they had succeeded I would not be here, in this form, anyway. I might be a grandmother in Belarus. I might be a Pacific Ocean sea slug. As in George Bailey's alternate universe, I may not have ever been born.

At the heart of my Nazi hatred is what Hannah Arendt called "the banality of evil." Hitler and Goebbels and Eichmann were easy to hate. But what about the millions of Germans who followed Hitler? Those who worked as low-level bureaucrats tallying the amount of gold yanked from dead people's mouths at Auschwitz and Birkenau? Someone had to keep those records. How far along are we with The Final Solution? Halfway? Two million more Jews to go!

Most of Hitler's support came from the compliant. This will always be Germany's shame. "We thought that smoke from Buchenwald was a barbecue." We were proud of bringing down this rotten regime.

Now we have our own rotten regime. Arendt would recognize the signs of totalitarianism. Trump is a liar and a braggart. His followers are true believers. Bad combination.

The Nazis march in D.C. today. Would I kill a Nazi just for being a Nazi? I don't think I have it in me. Would I punch a Nazi? Too old for that. Do I oppose everything that these people stand for? Absolutely. I wish I could be in D.C. this weekend at what are being called "counter-protests." Thing is, how can you counter such a rotten philosophy? This is a white pride rally. A bunch of goofballs, including KKK Grand Wizard David Duke, who say that the white race is superior and your Indian/Somali/African-American/Nicaraguan neighbors are inferior. This cannot be as you have seen the proof with your own eyes. Your neighbors from India shoveled your snowy sidewalks after your heart attack. You watch the Academy Awards with your Somali friend who had no movie theater in his village. You've been a member of NAACP and seen the good works on this organization and the  stalwart stance it has taken against white supremacy. Your Syrian cardiologist saved your life. And so on.

The Nazis marching today in Washington aren't worth spitting on. Same goes for their leader, Donald Trump. They are beneath contempt but we must be ready to fight them with the tools we have. Truth. The Free Press. Poetry. Maybe violence, if it comes to that. It did once.

Cohort replacement is the only cure for Trumpism

It's an "age" thing.

In September 2016, just weeks before Trump's election, writer Chris Ladd in Forbes foretold the future. The article, "The Last Jim Crow Generation," spells out the roots of white anger that led us to this earthly paradise called Trumplandia. If you were a 70-year-old white man at the time of the election, you had led a mostly white life in the U.S. Here's a sample:

Like Donald Trump, white voters turning 70 this year had already reached adulthood in 1964, the year that the first Civil Rights Act was passed. They started kindergarten in schools that were almost universally white. Most were in third grade when the Supreme Court decided Brown v. Board of Education. A good number of them would complete their public education in formally segregated schools. 

Read the rest here.

Is it just me, or some of the best articles on Trumpism have been in Forbes and the Wall Street Journal.? This liberal baby boomer must be getting soft in his old age.

I am in this same cohort, those of us born in the first five years after World War II. I was born in December 1950. All of us boomers born in December of 1950 share one thing -- we were born in the same month and year. We do share some touchstones of our journey from birth to 18. Depending on who you were and where you lived, you had at least a passing knowledge of the Civil Rights struggle and Vietnam. You may have been involved in them, or blissfully ignorant. "Turbulent," they call the sixties. That term came up more than once last night in the first two segments of CNN's "1968."

Children and teens, as a rule, are focused more in school and sports and dating than they are in social justice movements. In my senior year of high school, my attention was on getting my basketball team to the state tournament, finding a date for the prom, and deciding on which college I could (or couldn't) afford. I was a good student, but not great, and a pretty good surfer. I had a car that ran most of the time. My parents were good people, but imperfect, which describes most of us humans trying to do our best. At 18, I complained about my parents to my friends. At home, I was respectful as any tormented teen.

My school was integrated, sort of. An all-white Catholic school recruited black athletes. My class of 69 had three African-Americans, two of whom were my teammates. Some of the football players were recruited from our town's all-black high school. Integration was still a few years in the future. My class also had an Iranian place-kicker and first-generation Cuban immigrant who looked more Irish than me. That was the extent of our ethnic diversity.

Ladd's Forbes article  talked about a workplace, unions, schools, churches, military -- all dominated by white males. That was our experience in our formative years. So, is it any wonder that men from the early baby boomer cohort look around, see a changing America, and freak out. And that is the cohort that turns out to vote, this time for Trump.

I am 67. I did not freak out in 2016. I am freaking out now. Racism and jingoism have returned with a vengeance. I was susceptible to these influences when I was 18. I am susceptible to them now. I choose a different path. The question remains: How did I get here?

How did we get here?

Dear White People: Columbia University wants to know what you think about the issues of the day

Columbia University's Interdisciplinary Center for Innovative Theory and Empirics (INCITE) wants to find out what white and partially-white folks in Cheyenne think about their role in society.

They came to the right place as Cheyenne is mostly white and partially white, ethnically speaking. The latest census figures for Laramie County, Wyoming, shows that 89 percent of the population checks the Caucasian or "white" box under the question about race.

I haven't yet received the results from DNA testing from ancestry.com, but I can attest I am probably all-white, or at least mostly white. I would love to see a percentage come back showing I am partially sub-Saharan African or Latino or Asian. But anyone can look at me and say, "Damn, I've never seen anyone so white." If I didn't have freckles where I was kissed by the sun, I would be so white that I would glow in the dark.

One more thing. I could be a little Basque on my maternal grandfather's side. He came from Ireland but had a very un-Irish name in Hett. Some genealogical research by my cousin showed that the name probably was de la Hett, possibly from the genes of a Spanish Armada sailor or maybe one of the French soldiers who occasionally ventured into Ireland to join the Irish in a doomed uprising. Ever read "The Year of the French?" I'm not giving anything away to say that it ends badly.

So I am European of the northern variety with maybe a dash of southern Europe.

Which brings me back to the Columbia University INCITE study. At the county Democratic Party convention at LCCC a few weeks ago, flyers circulated that promoted a survey for white people. Here's the basic text:

Columbia University is conducting a study here in Cheyenne on race and ethnicity, specifically about how white or partially white people think about their own race/ethnicity. If interested, you can take their survey by going to www.cheyennestudy-columbia.org/participate/ 

How could I resist? I went to the site and filled out the survey. It included questions about race, religious preference and political affiliation, among other things. I checked "none" for religion. This is a tough one for me. I do not go to church. But I spent my early life in churches and catechism classes and Catholic schools. I spent much of my adult life working hard at being a Catholic who believes in the social justice gospel. It was a losing battle. So I don't go to church. Shoot me. Fortunately, the bill to allow firearms in churches did not make it through the crackpot legislature this year. But it may in 2019.

I invite my fellow Cheyenne residents to fill out the survey. It would be fun to skew the results in favor of liberals. Imagine the eggheads at Columbia looking at their results and deciding that Cheyenne, Wyoming, was the most liberal place on the planet, more so than Boulder, Colo., and San Francisco and some of those college towns in Vermont. Wouldn't that be an eye-opener?

So take a fifteen-minute break and fill out the survey. You'll be glad you did.

Black History Month takes on special significance in 2018

Black History Month holds special meaning to me this year.

I am reading up on black history during World War I and immediately thereafter. It's mainly research for a novel, but it's also a fascinating time, a tumultuous time. Black soldiers helped win the war.. Black southerners migrated to the north for defense jobs. Ragtime and jazz flowered. Traditionally black colleges and universities were thriving. Returning soldiers were less likely to suffer the prejudicial attitudes of whites, only one reason that the summer after the war is called Bloody 1919 or Red Summer. There was other bad news: the KKK was on the rise from Stone Mountain, Georgia, to the Rockies of Colorado.

As far as the big picture, nationwide prohibition began in 1920 and women got the vote. Blacks faced Jim Crow laws in the South, a big factor in suppressing their vote, a trend that Republicans continue today. .

There was no integrated army in 1917. Black troops volunteered and many were drafted. They served in all-black units, often commanded by white officers. The troops proved their mettle under fire. But, in the beginning, Pershing's generals wanted them to serve only as labor troops. This prejudicial attitude was evident in a memo sent out in 1917 titled "Secret Information Concerning Black Troops," written by Colonel Louis Linard, Pershing's liaison offer to the French ministry. Here's a sample:

"The American attitude upon the Negro question may seem a matter of discussion to many French minds. But we French are not in our province if we undertake to discuss what some call "prejudice." American opinion is unanimous on the "color question" and does not admit of any discussion."

As Andrew Carroll writes in "My Fellow Soldiers," this was "blatantly false; millions of white Americans were sympathetic to the plight of blacks in the United States." But that didn't get in the way of the memo writer. He warned French officers not to treat African-American soldiers "with familiarity and indulgence." The French, it seems, saw African-Americans as Americans and not a separate breed. Back to the memo:

"...the black American is regarded by the white American as an inferior being with whom relations of business or service only are possible. The black is constantly being censured for his want of intelligence and discretion, his lack of civic and professional conscience, and for his tendency toward undue familiarity."

The odious memo was circulated to the French officer corps. They ordered copies collected and burned. They already had witnessed the bravery of black American troops under fire. In fact, the French had several units of black troops woven into their army. When the beleaguered French asked for help, Pershing assigned black units to the front. He was adamant in keeping white troops under American command. He wasn't so selective with his black troops.

To learn more, read Carroll's excellent book, notably the chapter "Black Jack and the Hellfighters." If you're partial to graphic novels, I recommend the excellent "The Harlem Hellfighters" by Max Brooks with illustrations by Canaan White. Brooks is the author of "World War Z" and "The Zombie Survival Guide." White illustrates the World War II comics series "Uber." The Hellfighters was the name the Germans hung on the 369th Infantry Regiment from New York. According to the book jacket copy:

"They had spent more time in combat than any other American unit, never losing a foot of ground to the enemy, or a man to capture, and winning countless decorations."

Not only that. The unit's ragtime and jazz band, led by James Reece Europe, was borrowed by many white units, and wowed the French with le jazz hot. After facing the usual racism at home, scores of African-American soldiers returned to France to settle and to ignite the Roaring '20s music scene in Paris. .

While we have many examples of books and movies featuring African-American troops in World War II and after (watch the Oscar-nominated "Mudbound" on Netflix), books about black soldiers in World War I are just hitting the shelves. Stay tuned for a six-hour Harlem Hellfighters History Channel series later this year.

Just a few examples of how much we have to learn about U.S. history. Read! The truth is out there!

Donald Trump's Know-Nothing attitude would have doomed my Famine Irish ancestors

A Thomas Nast cartoon in Harper's Weekly depicts ape-like Irishmen beating up police on St. Patrick's Day 1867.  

Great read from a 1/10/18 article on Irish Central by Cahir O'Doherty: "President Donald Trump would have turned away the Famine Irish just like the Salvadorans."  Go to https://www.irishcentral.com/opinion/cahirodoherty/donald-trump-famine-irish-el-salvador

I don't know much about my great-great grandfather Thomas Shay.

He was Irish, as you might deduce from his last name, born in County Clare.

He left Ireland in the late 1840s (probably 1848) bound for the U.S.

He married Anna Agnes Burns and had three children when they were recorded in the 1850 census as residents of Monroe County, N.Y. By the 1870 census, the Shay family had moved to Iowa and eight children were listed on the rolls.

Thomas died in 1879 and is buried in Johnson County, Iowa.

His first name is my late father's first name and my middle name

My late Aunt Patricia researched these details before the wide use of the Internet and the advent of ancestry.com. She printed out a family tree on a dot-matrix printer. She put the evidence into a memory book for my daughter, born in 1993.

That's what I know. I also have read about anti-Irish sentiment in the mid-19th century. White people feared non-white people, although they were willing to use them as slaves and indentured servants. Strange to think that Irish immigrants were depicted in American papers as unwashed, uncouth bumpkins, or as monkeys and apes. They were Catholic, too, as were their swarthy cousins from Spain, Italy, and Mexico. You know, "Shithole" countries as Trumpists say.

The Know Nothings live. They were out in force last fall in Charlottesville, them and  their vile attitudes and precious tiki torches. They are descendants of the anti-Irish Know Nothings, although I would guess that some of them have Irish or Scots-Irish bloodlines. Scary to think how many Trumpists have Irish surnames. They do not know their history, and they don't care to learn.

Trump's policies may have doomed my Irish ancestors. But who knows -- maybe the Irish Shays would have survived in Ireland and my DNA would have never taken the pathways that eventually led to me. The Shay line would not be in its seventh generation of causing trouble in the U.S.

Immigration can sure be a random thing. You never know where curtailing it or encouraging it will lead. Sometimes you get a Barack Obama.

And sometimes you get a Donald Trump.

A cartoon from the 1850s by the "Know-Nothings" accusing the Irish and German immigrants of negatively affecting an election. From Victoriana Magazine.

I agree -- No Nazis at the University of Florida! W/Update

Neo-Nazis support President Trump.

President Trump supports the neo-Nazis.

We know that now. Whatever you choose to call them -- neo-Nazis, alt-right, white supremacists -- they are intolerant bastards who attacked and killed and injured people in a university town, Charlottesville, Va., over the weekend. They do not deserve a soapbox at any of our universities. Yes, that also is intolerant. But they are taking a page from the Brown Shirts Playbook and want to raise havoc wherever they can. They look at campuses as fertile ground for their racist bilge. Campuses are liberal bastions, politically correct bastions where people bend over backyard to accommodate The Other. But what happens when speakers arrive on campus with messages of hate against The Other. And those speakers operate with the imprimatur of the president of the U.S.? We have never faced this before. That's why we must stop the alt-right and their leader who is a stand-in for Trump. Let's start with stopping Richard Spencer.

Here's some info on a proposed Sept. 12 Spencer appearance at my alma mater (class of '76), the University of Florida. It comes from The Chronicle off Higher Education, which has been featuring some great articles about how campuses are trying to deal with this issue. Texas A&M recently cancelled a speech by Spencer. Now it's UF's turn. This was in today's Chronicle:

In a statement on Saturday announcing that Mr. Spencer's group was seeking to rent space at the University of Florida, W. Kent Fuchs, the university’s president, suggested that his institution might have no choice but to grant the request, so long as the group covered the associated expenses and security costs. He called Mr. Spencer’s potential appearance there "deeply disturbing" and contrary to the university’s values, but said "we must follow the law, upholding the First Amendment not to discriminate based on content." 

Mr. Fuchs urged the campus community not to engage with Mr. Spencer’s organization and "give more media attention for their message of intolerance and hate." Soon after he issued his statement revealing that the group had sought to rent space there, however, a Facebook page titled "No Nazis at UF" sprang up to summon people to the campus for counter-protests. 

Check out the No Nazis at UF page. Comment. Write Pres. Fuchs. Tell him that "Make America Hate Again" is not part of the Gator Spirit. 

UPDATE 8/17/17: UF Pres. Fuchs has cancelled the event. See press release here.

Read it all -- you might be a winner on Jeopardy

The history teacher from Texas won the $100,000 Teachers' Challenge on Jeopardy last week. He clinched the championship because he knew that New Orleans was the U.S. city that dropped off the top-50 cities list but reappeared 10 years later. He permanently moved into first place the day before because he because he knew the author of a very famous book. This very famous book, written in 1936, is 1,037 pages long and the only novel published by the author in her lifetime. You won't find it on any literary lists, mainly because it is basically a southern romance. Not only that. If it doesn't exactly glorify the southern cause in The Civil War, it does portray members of the KKK as brave protectors of southern womanhood.

You know the answer: "Gone with the Wind" by Margaret Mitchell of Atlanta. A big potboiler of a book that was transformed into a big potboiler of a movie in 1939. The book sold well in its time, but it really took off when the star-studded movie came out. The movie is considered a classic. The book, not so much. That's probably why the two English teachers in the Jeopardy semifinals did not know the answer. They guessed Edith Wharton and Jane Austen. Very smart modern women who knew two members of the American Literary Canon. But didn't know a best-selling author who died too young when run over by a car in downtown Atlanta in 1949.

These two English teachers didn't know GWTW because schoolkids don't read it. I know why (see reasons above) but still, they are all missing out on something good. Have you ever read a big, fat, bloated novel? Of course you have. James Michener excelled at these. In "Hawaii," it takes the reader a 100 pages to get to the spot where human beings actually appear on ancient Hawaii. In "Centennial," set in my part of the country, the author takes his time reaching the arrival of Native Americans to pre-state Colorado and Wyoming. Neither of these books are part of the canon, although you might find both in history classes or, worse, in multicultural studies classes that exhibit books of "cultural appropriation."

Political correctness rears its ugly head.

My liberal self knows that the whole anti-PC movement is an excuse by racists to be racists, misogynists to be misogynists, Trump to be Trump, etc. Still, we are caught up in a ridiculous fight over who has the right to speak for who. Is it valid for a white writer such as myself to speak in the voice of a black woman or a Native American? Yes, because writers have the freedom to write from any POV, including non-human and intergalactic ones. What's that Harlan Ellison story told from the POV of a planet-exploring dog? Fantasy and sci-fi are filled with mythical characters who come alive in the hands of skilled writers. We live in an era of fantastic beasts and superheroes. Not enough of these writers are women or people of color. But that is changing, albeit slowly. The push is on for a balanced perspective, pushed by the country's changing demographics and tastes

But back to "Gone with the Wind." My grandfather Shay boasted that he read GWTW once a year. He was not  a Southerner but an Iowa farm boy who served in the Great War and came home to be a Denver insurance salesman for 60 years. My father was a GWTW fan, which is probably how I came upon the book, sitting forlornly in Dad's library after he and my mother finished with it. I was thrilled by the war narrative but rushed through the mushy stuff, hoping to find sex scenes, but in vain. Meanwhile, I was trying to get my hands on Terry Southern's "Candy." A copy was circulating through Sister Theresa's eighth grade class at Our Lady of Perpetual Chastity Grade School. The girls bogarted the book, which led to the ringleaders being discovered and forbidden from graduating with the class. Some of the boys read it too, although only the girls were punished. Catholic school was instructive in so many ways.

I knew that GWTW was the answer to the Jeopardy question.

"The English teachers will know that," said Chris.

"No they won't."

She seemed shocked when I was right. I told her about the status of GWTW on college campuses and in high school classrooms. At the same time, Mayor Mitch Landrieu had crews dismantling Confederate symbols around New Orleans. A week ago, alt-right demonstrators carrying torches (really guys, torches?) showed up to protect a statue of Robert E. Lee in Charlottesville, Virginia. Some guy drives around Cheyenne in a white pick-up flying a large confederate flag.

"The past is never dead. It's not even past."

So wrote William Faulkner in "Requiem for a Nun."

In the South -- and in some parts of Wyoming -- the past is present.

So public school teachers in California don't read and don't teach GWTW. So, the Cali school teacher on Jeopardy was an also-ran in the big Teachers' Challenge prize.

While all of the Cali population was not alive in 1865, about half of the state's population is now non-white. GWTW would hurt their feelings. But they will always miss out on a compelling story. They might know the movie but not Mitchell's language and style, which is a damn shame, my dear. They may be an English major at UW or Stanford. They will get to know Austen and Wharton, Toni Morrison and and Jame Baldwin, Sandra Cisneros and Flannery O'Connor.

I've read Michener and Michael Crichton and tons of thrillers and detective novels. I've read treacly romances and predictable Zane Grey westerns.

Read it all.

Don't limit your world. That's how we got into this mess.

Part V: Mudder's World War I diary

September 5
Took a trip to Nancy, had a dandy time. Bought a few things, came home in an ambulance. A date at night, a Calvary officer. 

September 6 
A date in the evening with Lt. B, nothing exciting to report. 

September 7 
To the Officer’s Club for breakfast, hot waffles gee but they are good. A big dance tonight. The dance was a great success, almost eighteen couples, a coon* band and they sure could play. We all went up in a big truck; had loads of fun. 

September 8 
Horseback riding in the afternoon, my second experience, I did enjoy it so much, went with Captain Taylor, Lieutenant Peabody and K. Afterwards, we went to dinner, had a short ride in a flier with four officers. 

September 9 
Felt just a little stiff this am but I did enjoy the ride so much. Went machine riding in the afternoon. At night, a date with an infantry lieutenant. 

September 10 
To the dentist in the a.m., sure did hurt me too. Miss Martin, two officers and I went out for dinner, had a dandy time. 

September 11 
Miss Martin and I got up a dance, and it sure was a success. Cleaned one of the wards, fixed the floors, had the best sandwiches and lemonade. Two of the boys played for us, one the violin, the other the piano, which we borrowed next door. I think everyone had a real good time. Met Captain Thomas, who knows a lot of people I know from the University of Maryland. 

September 12 
I imagine our pleasure is at an end for a while as the guns kept up the whole night, so look out for patients. I really thought we were going to be killed, the guns illuminated the whole sky, and someone said they thought it was an ammunition dump destroyed. Did do some work today, the patients just rolled in, poor boys, they are ready to go back to lines again. 

September 13 
Nothing of importance, I was sick all day, feeling rotten. Beaucoup patients arriving, hear that Mt. Seu has been taken. A letter from the major today, delighted I’ll say. 

September 14 
Feeling better today but not on duty, callers in the evening. War news is very encouraging. 

September 15 
On duty again, and some work to do, believe me. Had a date with Captain D at night. 

September 16 
Served with K today, she peeves me occasionally. Rumors of us moving, it is about time, we have been here in Toul longer than any place. 

September 17 
We are to move, no more patients are to be admitted, talk of a dance tomorrow night, I hope so. Made up with K, we are just as happy. 

September 18 
Packing up to move, got to dinner with K and two officers. In the afternoon we (K and I) went over to one of the officer’s homes. There were 2 French officers there, one of our boys played and we had the best time dancing. The French didn’t dance like we do but they will learn. 

September 19 
Oh we had a wonderful time at the dance last night, the best band and refreshments. Sure am tired today. The nurses are going over to #45 and the men are going on. We will join them soon. 

September 20 
Evac #14 gave us a dance last night; I went but am sure sick today, influenza. 

September 21 
Sick 

September 22 
Sick 

September 23 
Sick 

September 24 
Much better, went out to Evac #1, Goldie had lots of mail for me, one from Percy, dear old soul. Steve is near here, we all took a walk last night, went for a short joy ride. To bed early. 

*Definition of coon as in “coon band” comes from the Slang Dictionary: “offensive term for a black person; (racist) dark-skinned person, as a Negro or Aborigine (originally US slang (mid-19th C.); shortening of raccoon).” 

My sister and I were a bit shocked to find this term in our grandmother’s diary, since we never heard her say anything similar during her lifetime. We thought it deserved a definition. An explanation? Florence Green was a woman of her times. She grew up among white people in Baltimore which was drawing a large number of black immigrants from the traditional South, an immigration tide that would only accelerate after the two world wars, as African-American soldiers returned home and found better opportunities and, possibly, better treatment, “up north.” Thing is, Baltimore and the entire state of Maryland are located south of the Mason-Dixon line. Its racist past recently grabbed headlines with the Freddie Gray murder and police over-reaction. 

One question I had: Why was a black band playing for a dance for a hospital unit in Toul, France? What I found both surprised and amazed me. Twenty-seven African-American regiments from the U.S. served in World War I. Of these, all had regimental bands. Young jazz musicians were recruited from Chicago, New York, New Orleans and elsewhere. Some were drafted as Selective Service began in 1917 and blacks and whites were put into segregated units, with black soldiers doing all the heavy lifting. Here’s a great resource: Black US Army Bands and Their Bandmasters in World War I by Peter M. Lefferts, University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Quote from the manuscript: 

By the time of the Armistice on November 11, 1918, the regiments had been abroad for anywhere from one to eleven months, and in some cases their bands had never left the side of the troops. After the Armistice, the majority of bandsmen faced an additional three months or more of camp life in mud and rain alongside all the other doughboys, with boredom, pneumonia, and the flu epidemic as unpleasant companions, before transport home. 

Lefferts writes that 

much of their wartime activity is extremely hard to trace. In the combat zone, when they were playing at all rather than ducking artillery shells and helping the wounded, they were not going to get much if any press due to a news blackout on account of the need for secrecy about unit whereabouts “Somewhere in France.” Such accounts as do turn up in the US press could be printed months after the fact due to censorship and transportation delays for mail. An article in the New York Herald (Paris ed.), quoted in a New Jersey paper after the Armistice, reveals how band activities could be sensitive news: “The appearance of the band of the 350th Field Artillery Regiment in Nancy for a concert was the first notice here that the only brigade of negro artillery every organized had been defending Nancy by holding the Marbache sector, south of Metz.”

My grandmother could have been dancing to the 350th. Or maybe it was the 368th:

And we know that the band of the 368th played concerts “in Toul, Saizerais, Nancy, Brest, Le Mans and other places,” but also had to put down their instruments to become stretcher bearers in the Argonne fighting in September. 

Or maybe it was the Baltimore’s own 808th: 

Baltimore's 808th Pioneer Infantry band under Native American “Chief” Wheelock was proclaimed for bringing ”the real America Jazz, as it should be played, over here,” to France and was celebrated for staying close to the troops: "This band of colored musicians has indeed upheld the tradition of its race, for their music contributes much to make the name of the 808th Pioneer Infantry popular at the front. To begin with, they are right at the front being only a few kilometers behind the line, and although in danger of attracting the attention of hostile forces, they realize that the spirit of the boys must be kept cheerful and refreshed. So, often they assemble in a well- protected spot and play for the constant line of khaki as it moves along the road toward the enemy." After the Armistice, when the bands of the black combat regiments had embarked for home, Wheelock’s unit remained in camp and garnered all the prizes: the band of the 808th was judged the best infantry band in the A.E.F., white or black, in a contest held at Camp Pontanezen, Brest, France, on June 2, 1919. Additionally, it won the signal honor of playing for President Wilson's departure for home from Brest on June 29, 1919.

Whichever band played at Mudder's dance, many black musicians came back to the States and embarked on music careers: 

The new jazz was the special thing most distinguishing these bands musically, and everyone claimed it as their own. It was not just Jim Europe's band [369th Infantry Regiment, “Harlem Hell Fighters”] that brought jazz to the continent; rather, it was something on the order of two dozen bands. Moreover, they played the jazz of Kansas City, Chicago, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington as well as of New York City. Upon the return of the bands from the war, touring back in the States brought the new jazz music to dozens of smaller cities and towns, and to white audiences who had never before heard these exotic, lively sounds. The response was strong and positive. By one report, “Since the return of colored military bands from France to these shores the country simply has gone wild about jazz music.”

This map provides some perspective as to where the action was as the war drew to a close. The town of Toul, which Mudder visited often, is located just to the west of Nancy, not far from the offensives of St. Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne in Sept.-Nov. 1918.

803rd Pioneer Infantry Band, A.E.F.

NAACP and KKK reps meet in Casper

As a human, a writer and a card-carrying member of the NAACP, I find this story fascinating: John Abarr of the Ku Klux Klan (Klans of America) and Jimmy Simmons of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People meet in Casper. Result: Simmons schools Abarr on the history of the KKK, and Abarr joins the NAACP. Casper Star-Tribune reporter Jeremy Fugleberg has an eye for detail and an ear for dialogue which makes this piece rise above the usual daily newspaper fare. I read the version reprinted in the Billings Gazette. Go here.

One fascinating fact: Did you know that the Klan wants the northwest states of Wyoming, Idaho, Montana, Washington and Oregon to secede from the union? The states are predominately white so the Klan apparently figures that WyWaMtIdOr will make an ideal Caucasian country. Abarr says that African-Americans and other people of color will be allowed to stay but others will not be admitted. How would that work, exactly? No non-white inventors, artists, CEOs, pilots, poets, soldiers, athletes, legislators, moms, dads or kids allowed in Whitelandia? What a bland place this would be.

In Randy Newman's new satiric song, the narrator dreams about a white man for president

Nonesuch Records is offering a free download of Randy Newman's new song, "I'm Dreaming." I've always been a fan of Newman's songs is which an unidentified narrator is singing about a controversial topic. In "Sail Away," the narrator (a slave trader?) is urging black Africans to go to America:

In America, you get food to eat  
Won't have to run through the jungle and scuff up your feet 
You just sing about Jesus, drink wine all day  
It's great to be an American
 
Ain't no lions or tigers, ain't no mamba snake  
Just the sweet watermelon and the buckwheat cake 
Everybody is as happy as a man can be  
Climb aboard little wog, sail away with me

In "Short People," short people are singled out for ridicule by someone who may or may not be serious. In "Political Science," the right-wing Bircher narrator urges us to "drop the big one now" and "Boom goes London, boom Paree." In "Louisiana 1927," the rich and powerful are shown as oblivious to the plight of victims of natural disasters. This song received lots of airplay after Hurricane Katrina:

Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away
Louisiana, Louisiana
They're tryin' to wash us away
They're tryin' to wash us away

President Coolidge came down in a railroad train
With a little fat man with a note-pad in his hand
The President say, "Little fat man isn't it a shame what the river has done
To this poor crackers land."

"I'm Dreaming" is also one of Newman's "character" songs. Here's an interview with him on the Nonesuch site (thanks to Meg Lanker-Simons in Laramie for the tip):

Randy Newman’s new song, “I’m Dreaming,” is available as a free download below, where you can also watch the accompanying video. With lyrics from the viewpoint of a voter who casts his ballot solely based on skin color, the song draws attention to something Newman has noticed and written about for 40 years: racism in America. (The complete lyrics are below as well.) While the song, which Newman performs solo at the piano, is free, anyone wishing to contribute is encouraged to donate to the United Negro College Fund at www.uncf.org.

Newman explains, “No other Western industrialized nation would’ve elected a black president. I’m proud of this country for having elected Obama in 2008. But from the beginning of his term, I noticed a particular heat to conversations that wouldn’t ordinarily generate that kind of passion: The budget, appointments, health care.” He continues, “I think there are a lot of people who find it jarring to have a black man in the White House and they want him out. They just can’t believe that there’s not a more qualified white man. You won’t get anyone, and I do mean anyone, to admit it.

“I often write songs in character. You can’t always trust or believe the narrators in my songs. So why listen? Good question.

“Anyway the guy in this song may exist somewhere. Let’s hope not. Vote in November.”