Under the Freedom Tree

Finding an unknown bit of history is fascinating to me, especially when I realize I have even a small personal connection to it. As a teenager, I spent several summers with my aunt and uncle at Fort Monroe, Virginia. One of my most vivid recollections was the way all traffic stopped, both automotive and pedestrian, at the sound of the five o'clock reveille bugle. If you were in a car, you stopped in the middle of the road, opened your door, got out and stood at attention (hand over your heart if you were a civillian like me) until the bugler's call was done. Then life went on as usual. 

I recently read Susan Van Hecke's Under the Freedom Tree. It's a beautiful book, illustrated by London Ladd, published by Charlesbridge last year. Susan's lyrical picture book uses dramatic free verse to tell the story of three slaves who escaped a Confederate work team to cross the river to Fort Monroe. The author explains details of the story that couldn't be included in the short poem in her author's note. General Benjamin Butler, the Union commander, refused to return the three slaves to their Virginia masters because the state had seceeded from the Union just days before and declared them contraband of war. Others followed. Many others. They built the Grand Contraband Camp near what is today Hampton, Virginia. A missionary teacher, a free black from the North, came to the camp and taught the former slaves to read beneath a large, spreading oak tree. The celebration is contagious when a newly literate contraband reads the Emancipation Proclamation to the community. 

An excerpt from the book:

Days are for Union work,

dragging,

hauling,

digging, 

stacking.

Nights, they fall,

spent and hungry,

on cold dirt floors.

But here at Slabtown,

here at the Camp,

they are not

what they once were.

Matt Forest hosts the Poetry Friday Roundup at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme.

Poetry Friday: Black History Month

I want to celebrate the first Poetry Friday in National Black History month with one of my favorite historical figures--George Washington Carver. On my list of "people I'd like to talk to when I get to heaven," this sweet man is in my top ten. In my county, students study Carver in the first grade and again in the fifth grade. Last year I wrote a first grade level biography of him for State Standards Publishing, but I loved him long before that. I think he must have captured my imagination when I was in elementary school. Maybe it was the flower in his lapel or the kindness in his eyes or the fact that I love boiled peanuts and parched peanuts and peanut butter. Or maybe it was simply the genius of the man.

I recently discovered Marilyn Nelson's book, Carver: A Life in Poems. It is a beautiful tribute to marvelous life. I know I came to this book late. It was a Newberry Honor book and a Coretta Scott King Honor book in 2002, but somehow I missed it back then. I was back in school that year and busy writing papers and being a good non-traditional student. Nelson's poems capture the essence of Carver's life.

Here are a few excerpts I especially liked:

from "Watkins Laundry and Apothecary"

He was the child the good Lord gave
and took away before I got more
than the twinkle of a glimpse at the man he was going to be.
It happened one Saturday afternoon.
George was holding a black-eyed Susan,
talking about how the see
this flower grew from
carried a message from a flower
that bloomed a million years ago,
and how this flower
would send the message on
to a flower that was going to bloom
in a million more years.
Praise Jesus, I'll never forget it.
He left to find a teacher that knew
more than he knew.

from "Chemistry 101"

A canvas apron over his street clothes,
Carver leads his chemistry class into
the college dump. The students follow, a claque
of ducklings hatched by hens.

from "Coincidence"

He looks down at the brown road map
printed in his yellow palms.
Your life may be the only Bible
some people will know.

from "Mineralogy"

He showed Ford his phosphate pebble,
found in an Iowa creek bed,
his microcline feldspar, found
in the Alabama woods, his smoky quartz,
kicked up by his boot toe
in a Kansas wheat field, his fluorite,
sent by a Kentucky spelunker, his
marcasite, sent by an English mineralogist
in exchange for a piece of information,
and here it was, his diamond, the gift
of his dear friend, Henry.

Pages before the book ended I was wondering how she would manage it, how she would close the door on  this remarkable life. In the final poem, entitled "Moton Field," Carver is still living. His "palseyed right hand/stutters answers to letters heaped beside his bed" while pilots of the Tuskeegee Airmen train--"a P-40 zooms in at five o'clock/ high as a Negro has ever been./.../and makes a sky-roaring victory roll." It was perfect. Absolutely perfect. I wanted to write her a letter and say thank you for her work, for the way she captured his heart, for showing how much his life counted.For ending with that victory.

The story of the Tuskegee Airmen has been told over and over. Made into movies over and over. It's been made into movies over and over. It's just such a great story, people will keep on telling it over and over. I went with my dad last wee to see "Red Tails." We both loved it.If you haven't seen the new George Lucas version yet, it's worth seeing.




I live about an hour and a half from Tuskegee on the Georgia side of the Chattahoochee River. It's been a few years since we drove over and went through the museum. My hubby was cleaning out some drawers in is office this weekend and brought me a pamphlet he had picked up while we were there. It's called "How to Grow the Tomato and 115 Ways to Prepare it for the Table." by George Washington Carver. Maybe if I followed his advice I could actually grow a tomato. See my post "No More Veggies" for my history with tomato growing.


Stop by The Iris Chronicles for more Poetry Friday.

Black History Month

It's the final week of Black History Month. I was in a school last week in Columbus. The fourth graders lined the hallways while the kindergardeners marched through them to the music of "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" piped over the loud speakers. It was a delightful celebration.

If you're looking for some of the best books written by people of color, truck on over to The Brown Bookshelf. I wish I had discovered this blog earlier in the month. It's a treasure trove of interviews with well-known and not so well-known authors, complete with images of their books. A great resource.

Three more weeks until spring. I'm counting!