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| Delaware Humanities Forum | February 2011 Newsletter |
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Greetings!
Black History Month is an opportunity for every American to reflect on our personal cultural histories; after all, we are a nation of immigrants. The American culture is a quilt, and all cultures are connected, from the First Nation to Cajuns, Muslims to Mennonites. We hope you will take Black History Month as an opportunity to learn something new about someone you know. To that end, I thought I'd tell a personal story in this month's e-newsletter.
No matter where I am, whenever I hear James Weldon Johnson's Negro National Anthem, I always think of my grandmother, born Alice Pauline Landon, and her daughters--my own mother, Pauline Elizabeth, and her sister, my dearest Aunt Lydia Clarice. (My father and paternal grandfather are wedged into the memory, too, for different reasons.)
My grandmother Alice was a quiet woman, always. Like other families in our cohesive 1960s neighborhood of 56 brick houses, our grandmother lived with us, and on Sundays we squeezed around the table for dinner after church. It was on these Sundays, as far back as I can remember (until a 1990 stroke impaired her voice), that my grandmother always sang Lift Evr'y Voice when she saw her grandchildren...and ONLY on Sunday.
My mother claims she sang it six times, once for each grandchild, which included me and my three siblings and my two cousins, Sharon and Marsha. My brother and Sharon share her memory--not that it was six times, specifically--but that she sang it over and over. What's really fascinating is my overriding memory that she sang it only ONCE. It was early on a Sunday, and she sang in a plain voice, reciting lyrics that hardly made sense to me, smiling.
As I got older, I thought it was a Sunday hymn because we sang it our Methodist church, too. I was in college, taking a literature course that didn't use one of Norton's anthologies; instead it was some volume of seldom-celebrated American writers. And there it was..."my grandmother's hymn," printed on a page, in a college textbook, with introductory notes that astounded me. And there I was, reading it in Memorial Hall's basement classroom, being taught by a professor with far more scholarly education than Alice Pauline Landon. A childhood Sunday song, a family-sung song, taught to all of us by the same Alice Pauline Landon. Who knew? Well, my grandmother, for one, and hundreds of thousands who lived a racially-segregated life.
Below you will find the lyrics to this beloved song. Enjoy.
Sincerely,
 Executive Director
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Recent DIHI awards included a project on Milton's buttonmaking industry |
Reminder
Next deadline for grant proposals: April 1, 2011. Click here to see what programs were funded by DHF in 2010. Click the image on the right to get to our grant application information page.
Recent grant awards include:
- White Gold (about Delaware's oyster industry), Berkana, Center for Media and Education, Inc.
- Button Cutting Industry in Milton, Milton Historical Society
- Sunday with Shakespeare, Delaware Branch of the
English-Speaking Union - Pre-Concert Conversation Series, Delaware Symphony Orchestra
- The Art of the Book in the 21st Century, Delaware Center for the Contemporary Arts
- W. D. Snodgrass Symposium, University of Delaware, Department of English
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 Hard at Work
First 2011 Book Series Offered on Sundays in Wilmington
Starting February 27, 2011, DHF presents a book series featuring novels that reflect the history of labor and industry in Delaware. The three novels span two centuries and many settings, from the lives of runaway slaves before the Civil War, to a time when towns and working people changed with the rise and fall of business, up to today.
Participants are invited to read the selected books and take part in three afternoons of book discussion and entertainment at Union City Grille, 805 N. Union St., Wilmington, Delaware. Events take place on February 27, March 20 and April 10 at 2 p.m. Food and drink will be available for purchase.
The series theme is "Hard at Work." Each book is insightfully written by a distinguished contemporary novelist. Actors from Wilmington's City Theater Company and the University of Delaware will begin each program with a brief dramatic reading from the featured novel. In addition, two local scholars will talk about the books' connections to Delaware business and employment.
The book talk events take place as follows:
- On Sunday, February 27 at 2 p.m., for Black History Month, participants will discuss Song Yet Sung by James McBride. Percussionist Kamau Ngom will perform African drum music and talk about the African connection to blues music, country shouts and the Underground Railroad.
- On Sunday, March 20 at 2 p.m., participants will discuss In the Beauty of the Lilies by John Updike. Terry Snyder of the Hagley Library will talk about Delaware's early millworkers.
- On Sunday, April 10 at 2 p.m., participants will discuss Empire Falls by Richard Russo. University of Delaware business history specialist Jonathan S. Russ will talk about the evolution of modern industry.
There is no fee to participate and no registration is required. Food and drink is available for purchase, and Union City Grille has created a special menu for us. Please join us and bring a friend.
This book series is part of DHF's Delaware Industrial History Initiative (DIHI). It is funded with a "We the People" grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. For more information on the book program, contact Rita Truschel, DHF project consultant, by phone (302-838-7288) or by email.
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Lift
Ev'ry
Voice |
Lift ev'ry voice and sing,
'Til earth and heaven ring,
Ring with the harmonies of Liberty;
Let our rejoicing rise
High as the listening skies,
Let it resound loud as the rolling sea.
Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us,
Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us;
Facing the rising sun of our new day begun,
Let us march on 'til victory is won.
Stony the road we trod,
Bitter the chast'ning rod,
Felt in the days when hope unborn had died;
Yet with a steady beat,
Have not our weary feet
Come to the place for which our fathers sighed?
We have come over a way that with tears has been watered,
We have come, treading our path through the blood of the slaughtered,
Out from the gloomy past,
'Til now we stand at last
Where the white gleam of our bright star is cast.
God of our weary years,
God of our silent tears,
Thou who has brought us thus far on the way;
Thou who has by Thy might
Led us into the light,
Keep us forever in the path, we pray.
Lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met Thee,
Lest, our hearts drunk with the wine of the world, we forget Thee;
Shadowed beneath Thy hand,
May we forever stand,
True to our God,
True to our native land. | |
The Delaware Humanities Forum has offered programs that connect people, cultures and ideas for over 35 years. Through literature, art history, material culture, philosophy, civic discourse and other humanities disciplines, DHF helps citizens, scholars and nonprofit organizations accumulate a balanced body of knowledge about Delaware, making it available to the public now and in perpetuity. In 2011 we are pleased to continue our focus on Delaware's industrial history, to safeguard the history of the workers, structures and products that are critical to understanding the culture of the First State.
Please consider becoming a Friend of the Forum today by contributing to our Annual Fund. Friends of the Forum are the first to find out about opportunities, such as our Humanities Salons, and through the generous support of our Friends, the Forum offers nearly all of our programs free of charge to the citizens of Delaware.
Your donation in any amount will be most appreciated and wisely used. Click here to make a donation online today. |
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About the Delaware Humanities Forum
The humanities-subjects which include literature, ethics, political science and history-help people make a connection between their own lives and other people, cultures, and ideas. Through grants and public program offerings, the Delaware Humanities Forum builds bridges to connect the daily life and work of people to the universe of human experience, thought, and imagination. The Forum brings the public together with cultural, educational, and civic institutions statewide, and focuses on issues of public interest and concern.
As a state division of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Delaware Humanities Forum supports organizations by awarding grants and implementing project initiatives such as lectures, symposia, exhibitions, classroom programs, and media projects. Your non-profit organization, school, library, or government agency may qualify for funding from the Forum and can obtain subject matter experts for lectures and presentations. To learn more about funding opportunities and the other resources available through the Delaware Humanities Forum, visit our website at http://www.dhf.org or call 302.657.0650 or toll free 800.752.2060. | |
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