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Chapbooks!

Check out the Stories of Access/ Stories of Denial Chapbooks!

Chapbook 1: Woonsocket Civil Rights History

Chapbook 2: Native American History in RI & Cultural Appropriation

#zine #chapbook #civil rights #local history #woonsocket #rhode island history #oral history #research

Linda Farrow shares about her family’s migration from the South (Newberry, South Carolina) to Woonsocket, Rhode Island in the 1950s.

#Second Great Migration #Family Story #woonsocket history

Dream. by Angello Artica

The revolutionary future of whose

With no right to dream

The dream grows like a child’s mind

So does his tomorrow

With no right to dream

The blindfold strongly sits

Hoping for a change in tomorrow

as the pencil awaits its use.

The war on drugs

“THE HOUSE I LIVE IN” is a documentary by Eugene Jarecki an award-winning filmmaker, and is produced by Brad Pitt, John Legend, Danny Glover, and Russell Simmons. It has won many awards such as The Grand Jury Prize at the Sun Dance Film Festival (2012), The Golden Trailer Awards (2013), The AAFCA (African-Americans Film Critics Association) Awards (2012), and The Silverdocs Documentary festival (2012). The documentary talks about the effects of drug laws and the different points of view of dealers, jailers, and a federal judge.

Having watched the movie “The House I Live In,” I learned how people look at the “war on drugs.” People look at the war on drugs like it’s a problem destroying our community. In a way, it actually is because it affects everyone and is used to create an excuse to arrest people to where there are so many lives affected and ruined. Many people believe that the U.S. government will just have to end the war on drugs-- that it’s failed. People also believe America needs to decriminalize drug use and that the United States needs to significantly shift its funding towards education, prevention, and treatment instead of the drug war.

I learned that the U.S. has the largest prison population in the world of about 2.3 million behind bars. Many of these were incarcerated for a drug law violation. Did you know that there are more people in prison today than ever before? In the 1980s about 40,000 people were in U.S. jails and prisons for drug crimes. Today there are currently 500,000 people in U.S. jails and prisons for drug violation. That’s a jump of almost 790 percent.

In 1971, President Nixon introduced the first drug-fighting budget at $100,000,000. In 2011 the Obama Administration proposed a budget of $15,600,000,000. That’s $15,500,000,000 more in 40 years!

In the documentary “The House I Live In,” two people stuck out to me. I like how they voiced their opinions and/ or facts. Pat Robertson, an American media mogul and Executive Chairman _____ was born March 22, 1930 (age 86) in Lexington, Virginia. One thing Robertson said was, “It’s shocking how many of these young people wind up in prison and they get turned into hardcore criminals because they had a possession of a very small amount of controlled substance. The whole thing is crazy.” I agree, its true. Many young adults’ (ages 16-18+) lives are ruined because of a mistake they made. It’s really sad that this happens to many people. You only have one life to live. For these people, that one life is already over, all because of one life-changing mistake.

Carl Hart, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at Colombia University, was born in 1966 in Miami, Florida. Hart said, “I’d like to see empirical evidence be used in our shaping of public drug policy, so people will have more respect for a policy they know is not capricious,” which I thought was interesting. There isn’t really good proof/ evidence that is used in shaping of public drug policy. Do people not have respect for the policy because of that reason?

- Mi’ena Love

Untitled

Aaron

untitled

The night marked the beginning of the conflict

Passion grew throughout the passage of time

Anger lead violent opposition

It was clear change was certain

Passion grew throughout the passage of time

Fear heightened as motivation grew

It was clear change was certain

The oppressed finally lead

Fear heightened as motivation grew

All the wrongs felt like they were being undone

Violence marked the beginning of equality

Why does it take violence to realize wrongs

#poetry #pantoum #violence #protest #rage #uprising #revolt

Black Lives Matter vs Civil Rights Movement

Barbara Ransby’s lecture at Brown University covered many recent events that affect the black community, in turn sparking the black lives matters movement. She mentioned cases like George Zimmerman and Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, the Ferguson protests and so on. The main focus of the lecture was black lives being taken by police. Ransby spoke of the groups such as, Dream Defenders, Black Youth Project and Black Bird, that have risen up in light of the recent lives that have been taken because of crimes against unarmed black youth. She spoke on her views of how the times have changed from past Civil Rights movements to modern day movements. What has changed is the politics of respectability. Politics of respectability can be described as an image, the image you portray while conveying a message or idea. It is what you are judged off of. The face of the times have changed. In the past the faces of Civil Rights movements were our Rosa Parks, an attractive lightskin woman, and Martin Luther King’s, young black man, often seen dressed in suits. The modern faces have been black teenage boys who are not the model citizen.

Ransby spoke of how Michael Brown was stealing from a store before he was shot, and how Trayvon smoked weed and had bad grades. However in this modern time, just because someone isn’t a “proper citizen”, or doesn’t act like a role model doesn’t mean that someone on the street has the right to take a black life. This was the message sent from the protesters and Barbara Ransby. BLACK LIVES MATTER, The comparison of these modern made to Martin Luther King only solidified that point, it doesn’t matter what someone’s background is or how they live their lives if they aren’t harming others, It isn’t up to someone else to determine if they can wake up tomorrow and see their loved ones. This related to the politics of respectability which refers to “attempts by marginalized groups to police their own members and show their social values as being continuous and compatible with mainstream values rather than challenging the mainstream for its failure to accept difference.” This speaks to the way that protest have changed, or it speaks to the portrayal of the protests in the media. Our society is more accepting of extreme behaviors than before. This becomes more apparent when you think of how different your views are from your grandparents. We have a desensitized community where almost everything can be found at our fingertips, bad or good. This type of society allows for the change in politics of respectability where protesters are allowed to swear or yell to get their point across because this behavior is more common and is more likely to be shared amongst the internet among friends. This almost produces this kind of behavior because this is what ends up being shown to the masses-- the wild, and the events that stand out. The events I am mainly referring to are the Ferguson protests. When I look up Ferguson the first two options are “Ferguson riots” and “Ferguson shootings.”

Respectability politics can be used as a weapon no matter what the underlying message is. When there is an enemy to your work, they will find a way to take you down. Because of the nature of recent protests, the argument can come about-- “Why should these people be equal when they are so wild?” There is always a most effective way to do something, a way with the least drawbacks. When you are trying to make a change, it is important that you try and avoid being perceived or construed negatively by the media or public. However, there is a point, where no matter how people are seen, if the wrongs to a community are so detrimental, then there will be a course of action to end this. This must be our point now-- the breaking point.

-Aaron Perry Williams

Find more Barbara Ransby information at (https://www.brown.edu/initiatives/slavery-and-justice/2016-annual-debra-l-lee-lecture-professor-barbara-ransby)

#barbara ransby #lecture #brown university #black lives matter #campaign #protests #politics #respectability politics

Photo taken by G Wayne Miller

Our trip to the Tomaquag Museum was very interesting, Loren Spears was kind enough to show us around and explain the thing we were seeing in there. It made me realize how badly Native Americans have been treated throughout the history of the United States. Europeans came in and kicked them out of their homes. That alone is horrific. The thing that stands out about Native Americans is that they were always here. It was their world, their land, their home.

Loren talked to us about how people call her a fake Native American for not wearing regalia all of the time. Just because they don’t always wear it, doesn’t mean they aren’t Native Americans. They are normal people just like you and me. They have jobs and other places to go where wearing full regalia would be inappropriate, but they are still questioned.

She also told us that it is offensive when people use stereotypical images of Native Americans for mascots and logos. It mocks their culture, and the way they are portrayed is very degrading. There is a campaign to help stop schools and sports teams for using Native Americans as sports team mascots. This directly affects me because even the school I go to has a Native American as its mascot. So far they have gotten 12 colleges to change their names.

Next, she taught us the meaning of the word redskin. The term refers to when there was a bounty to kill natives. To earn your money you would have to give whoever sent the bounty the “redskin,” or in other words the bloody skin of the dead Native American. That is seriously terrible. Why are we appropriating such an awful event in our history. The thing is people do not even understand the true meaning of this term and it is so widely used now, it is just horrible. Our trip to the Tomaquag Museum was very eye-opening and taught me a lot.

-Liam Keen

#tomaquag museum #native american

“As we entered the building of Rhode Island Radio, also known as RIPR we had to wait few minutes before being given a tour around the office. We waited in the lobby of the front building which was surrounded by a golden marble like texture. After being called in for a tour I noticed that the space was small as well as the little space they had between the working desks. It was different than I imagine but more similar to what I thought that I would see. One of the female reporters named Kristin Gourlay [1st photo] showed us a recording device that manny reporters use when recording a certain person that they are interviewing. She told us how it was used and another female reporter named Elisabeth Harrison [2nd photo] showed us how to convert the recordings from there to the computer. We also had the opportunity to watch a live recording of the radio station on air in another room that was sound proof and controlled the majority of the radio broadcasting. Since it was a small office compared to other radio stations, they all had to work together and do their part to make everything run smoothly. At the end, they also talked about their expriences while working at the radio station in addition to giving helpful advice to us on how to do recordings, edit audio and compose compelling stories. Before going to RIPR, I never heard of their radio station. After going to the station, I learned things that I never knew about the radio station. One of the things that I found out was that not only were they a radio station, but they are also connected to other public radio stations as well.” - Emmanuela Alobwede

Rhode Island Public Radio, aka RIPR is a public radio located in Providence. Their broadcast station is on 88.1 FM and while on air they speak of different topics that are the most spoken about among the Rhode Island community along with important discussions that deal with politics or other important event that happens in the state.

They also try to get everyone’s voices to be heard through the topics that involve a certain subject that they are trying to get out. When broadcasting a topic in the recording room, they invite a person relating to that subject and talk with them while on air. Another way they cover stories is by talking to people from the public with their recording gear. One of their interviewing techniques that they do for people to open up is ask questions that would make them redirect themselves to their experiences and fill in a broader picture of what they witness and what they felt about it.

Example:

“What do you make of that?”

“Tell me more”

[not talking and wait; waiting it out until they add more to their story]

In addition to all of this, the RIPR staff were bright and welcoming people who work hard to keep and promote awareness of important current events that can affects people’s lives in a positive or an adverse way.

#radio #rhode island #RIPR #broadcasting #recording #news #public #interview skills #riverzedge

A New Beginning

In the beginning of the “It looked like fire” podcast Ed Crawford has never seen a protest in person and besides to watch one in Ferguson, Missouri. Robert Cohen a staff photographer at St. Louis Post Dispatch had also gone to the protest. He had worked at St. Louis for16 years, 13 as a journalist. During the protest both Ed and Robert were at, the protestors got to much for police to handle billing and refusing to go home. The police threw a tear gas canister which landed near Ed. Ed then picked it up and threw it back the way it came or “just away.”says Ed “I didn’t have time to think where to throw it.” Robert had a headline for the front paper due in the morning, however, he was 15 minutes past the deadline so he instead posted it to his twitter.

Ed Crawford in a full baseball stance throwing tear gas canister. Photo taken by Robert Cohen.

The picture he posted showed Ed Crawford in a full baseball stance going to throw the teargas away so no one got hurt, and experienced that pain. Tear gas is also known as a lachrymator a chemical weapon that causes skin irritation, pain, vomiting, and possible blindness. when Robert woke up the next day he noticed he about 8,000 new followers and knew something is up. Later that day while at another event, he noticed people with shirts and tattoos of the photo of Ed Crawford the day before.

I believe people had taken the photo of Ed as a courageous act. I think this because people had it tattooed on themselves and put on shirts. The picture showed Ed throwing the tear gas canister back toward the police. It looked like he was going against the police or fighting back against another stronger force.

- Mi’ena Love

Wampanoag Land Claims in Woonsocket

Emily Wheaton, Angello Rodriguez and Leslie Rich at Riveredge Arts for an oral history interview. November 2015.

After the interview with Lesley Rich, I came to realize how Native Americans are represented legally in a gray area of the national government. How the Native Americans are being treated is as if they do not exist. The only laws available to protect them are easily flaunted. For example, when the Seaconke Wampanoag Native Americans were fighting in order to gain their rights to this land in Woonsocket, RI, they were faced with the obstacle of an extinguishment clause that prevented them from being able to gain rights to this land or be recognized fully.

The Seaconke Wampanoag Tribe started the movement to gain rights or access to their land, based on a deed from 1661. The deed said that Wamsutta owned a parcel of land that was to be used by Native people forever. We were using this as an example of how even when Native people have documents that prove their relationship or ownership of land, they are not able to access it in any meaningful way. The extinguishment clause was part of the 1978 settlement and a federal law called the Rhode Island Indian Claims Settlement Act. The reason we believe this extinguishment clause was included in the federal law was to avoid future conflicts [and to avoid] having to give up land in land claim cases to other tribes. This extinguishment clause shows how Native Americans in New England are disenfranchised and legally barred from staking a claim on their land and rights.

Lesley Rich was very detailed on many topics. He shared a clear statement or view point on the questions. He believed that the state of Rhode Island was wrong to deny the Wampanoags’ right. He was unable to gain rights for the Native American Wampanoags. He accepted the fact that it was legally done.

He spoke more about the history of the Wampanoags and brought in a map that showed the Wampanoag names for many areas of Rhode Island and the structure of the area. [Cite the map’s author and date of publishing]

What does it mean for a community to have access to a piece of land?

It gives them a sense of being and recognition that they are part of the society and not just how you might see homeless people. They would have equal rights to be able to own what was theirs in the first place.

What did you learn or know about Native American in this area of RI before this interview?

My education on Native Americans in school was very broad and not detailed which made it seem as if they didn’t exist anymore and it didn’t give any sort of importance to the fact that they are still around.

So, if I didn’t do this project, I wouldn’t have come to the realization that they are still here and fighting just like everyone else. And it’s upsetting because not everyone has the access to this information. It’s something important to know because it makes us - aware of the problems that we are still facing since the start of this nation.

-Angello Rodriguez

Journey to Freedom

Freedom Riders gather with authorities alongside their burning bus after a mob attack outside Anniston, AL Credit: FBI

On May 14, 1961 the Freedom Riders, a group of people who had an opinion on segregation and thought it to be cruel, decided to stand up and fight for their rights. They protested by having black activists sitting in the front and white activists in the back and refusing to move when asked. The Supreme Court ruled that interstate buses would be unconstitutional if they were segregated. They started in Washington D.C. and headed to their intended destination New Orleans. They were threatened and injured in Anniston, Alabama after nearly being burned within a freedom bus. They were beaten to the point where they needed immediate medical attention for their serious injuries. They had yet to face another attack in Birmingham for trying to continue their protest to stop segregation.

In Anniston, the Freedom Rider’s bus eased to a stop in the station parking lot. Moments later, a mob attacked the bus, and blocked any way for the bus to leave. The mob carried knives, clubs, chains, and other weapons threatening their lives before trying to burn them all alive in the bus. The Riders escaped the burning fire but not the merciless beating from the mob when they did. One of the Freedom Riders named Hank Thomas was the first one to get out of the burning bus.

A man rushed over to Thomas and asked if he was okay before striking him in the head with a baseball bat. As Thomas fell almost unconscious the others got out and spread across the grass, finally able to breathe. Many witnesses just stood and watched, but others including a 12 year old girl brought the 13 victims water. The klansmen threw insult after insult at the poor girl, for her bravery to help the people in need. The police did nothing to stop the cruel beatings that the Riders endured. They were later sent to a hospital where the Klansmen threatened they would burn down the hospital.

Later after leaving the hospital when another group of Freedom Riders came to pick them up in eight cars they learned there was another attack in Birmingham. The Trail way Freedom Riders group had gotten a bus with some Alabama klansmen and regular passengers after other regular passengers had already left after being spoken to by the klansmen. The bus hadn’t even gotten out of atlanta the klansmen had already started to threaten the group. Soon the bus driver named John Olan Patterson who had been talking to police came up the steps of the bus with eight “hoodlums” and told them of the other riders in Anniston.

Patterson had tried to have the black Freedom Riders move to the back of the bus so they wouldn’t get caught in another insident like the other Riders when one of the riders reminded him it was a Freedom Bus. They could sit where ever they wanted ,it didn’t matter. One of the hoodlums wasn’t happy about the response they had gotten and answered "Niggers get back. You ain't up north. You're in Alabama, and niggers ain't nothing here." He then punched person to prove his point and another struck Harris. When Peck and Walter Bergman ran up to try and stop them as the klansmen pummeled Harris and Person who were barely conscious, the klansmen attacked the two men for trying to protect their colleagues.

This kinda reminds me of how things are today, black citizens are still being treated like they aren’t human as well. People still judge because of the color of skin and/or race. People are still protesting for their rights all around the world. Sometimes violence is still used to try and solve problems as well. The last time I learned about The Freedom Riders was a year ago when we watched youtube videos and read an article about it in school. Since then, I have learned the level of violence used by people protesting the Freedom Riders and a little bit more about the Klu Klux Klan. I’ve also learned how similar the times are and see the risks taken for us, to live the way we do.

-Mi’ena Love

#freedom riders #civil rights history

Black Codes

In order to edit our audio from a workshop with Marco McWilliams on Slave Codes and Black Codes, we turned to Daniel Stern. Daniel is an educator for Wheeler School who teaches audio and recordings to youth. In addition, he had a radio program at Brown Student Radio (BSR). On December of 2015 Daniel came to Riverzedge Arts Project in hopes of teaching the students about the process of editing and refining audio recordings.

Daniel first introduced us to Garageband and its audio editing features before we broke into small groups to put our new skills to use.

Emmanuela, Vanesa, and Sarina worked one on one with Daniel. Together they worked on recordings of Marco McWilliams’ visits. Being one of our first times recording a speaker, there were recording issues we faced. Some of these included sound quality due to our lack of a quiet work space. We ran out of battery while recording which cut down the recording of a two hour workshop to twenty minutes. With only one microphone on Marco, we did not capture the responses from the students. The recording does not reflect how interactive his workshop was.

This audio that we worked on introduced the origins of police departments in America which was linked to slavery. We looked into examples of slave code in the southern states which oppressed the black community in detailed and scarring way.

For example, a law in North Carolina which was maintained in 1865 at the end of the Civil War said, “Where the punishment of a white person might be imprisonment. The court may sentence the free negro to be both whipped and imprisoned.” [Africana Encyclopedia page 249]

These codes turn into new laws that only applied to black people called the Jim Crow Laws that still had similar laws to slave codes.

Here is a clip of Marco McWilliams’ workshop. He explained how the white ruling class of the South controlled social relations between themselves and their slaves through slave patrols. Poor whites became aligned with the white ruling class through this system, solidifying the racial caste system against people of color.

“If you have a plantation with 150 slaves-- George Washington had a lot of slaves— the first president. Do you think he was running around out there with a whip himself finding out who was doing what? You need some kind of patrol. You need some patrolmen. At this point, Sheriff’s Departments didn’t really exist yet. What they need to develop is some kind of policing force and patrols to enforce and manage this - just the rules that we read [Slave Codes which were put in effect before the civil war. Black Codes were put into effect in the South after the end of the Civil War]. So they’re going to use poor white folk who were maybe indentured servants that came over and got nothing going for them anyway. They don’t own any land. They don’t own any slaves. They might think they’re only two steps away from being out in the tobacco or cotton fields picking cotton alongside some Negroes. And that would be the last place if you were white indentured servants you’d want to find yourself. They used to say that was ‘nigger work.’”

-Marco McWilliams

Emmanuela Alobwede

#slave codes #black codes #marco mcwilliams #slave patrols #police

The original Freedom Riders: Front, left to right: Joe Perkins, Charles Person, Frances Bergman, Genevieve Hughes, and Jimmy MacDonald; Back, left to right: John Lewis, Jim Peck, Ed Blankenheim, Hank Thomas, Walter Bergman, James Farmer. Not pictured: Rev. Benjamin Elton Cox, and Albert Bigelow. (Credit: Johnson Publishing Company)

Mi’ena, a participant in Stories of Access/ Stories of Denial, read and engaged with a lesson plan created by Facing History Facing Ourselves entitled “Riding for Change: Nonviolence.” This source helped her dive deeper into the history of the Freedom Rides. She learned organizations that she had not heard of before-- including the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), Student Nonviolence Coordinating Committee (SNCC), Souther Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), and the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR). After answering some questions to help her share her learning, she came up with a discussion question to share!

James Farmer, Freedom Rider, and member of CORE (Congress of Racial Equality)

Q & A with Mi’ena Love about the Freedom Riders:

Question: Who are some figures and what are some organizations that you learned about while reading “Riding for Change: Nonviolence”? Answer: Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., Bayard Rustin, and Henry David Thoreau who is a writer from the nineteenth century.

Q: Why do you think that the activists in SNCC and CORE thought that they had to dramatize the injustice? A: To get people in the community to think about and draw attention to the issue they had with segregation so the government would be forced to pay attention for there to be a change.

Q: How did Gandhi influence these activists who organized and conceived of the Freedom Rides? A: He gave them new ways without violence to creatively get the people to listen. He gave them more ideas and ways of actions to use.

Q: Was the Freedom Rider Movement inter-racial? What role did black activists play? What role did white activists play? A: Yes, the freedom rider movement was inter-racial because whites and blacks both had to work together to create. Black activists had a role of refusing to follow the segregation laws. White activists would also act against the segregation laws by doing the same as black activists to get the federal government to re enforce the laws. They would have black activists sit in the front of buses and white activists in the back and refused to move when asked or told to.

Q: Have you ever thought about activists being creative? Do they have to come up with good ideas for actions? Why or why not? A: I have thought about activists being creative because if they just use actions the government sees everyday, it will just be brushed off giving no thought. They do have to come up with good ideas to catch people’s attention so that the government will address their issue/problem.

Discussion Question for others:

Do activists have to be good historians or does learning the past history help them?

-Mi’ena Love

#facing history and ourselves #freedom riders #creative resistance #civil rights

Assistant secretary of the NAACP Providence Branch Pilar McCloud came to visit Riverzedge Woonsocket on November 12, 2015 to give us a workshop on the meaning of civil rights. She shared how the Declaration of Independence was not made for everyone like we believed it to be.

“When the Declaration of Independence was written people of color were slaves. So we were not considered- even though it says "All men are created equal" they didn't consider us or women equal. [It was] written for Anglo Saxon American men, white men, not women, not even white women, although white women fared better than women of color.”(Pilar McCloud)

This was very surprising to me because I never thought of it like that. I just believed it had always been the same way as today, but I came to realize times have changed a lot. We have made great advances, but there are many things that could be better. That change is in our hands-- the youth. Pilar McCloud made it very clear that if we unite and work together, we have the power to do and change anything.

“How many people think that you don't have a voice? Whatever happens in your community, in your school, on your block, in your home, in your church that this is the way it is, be honest. I am here to tell you that you are wrong. Young people have had the power to change things in this country- the majority of the people in the civil rights movement, although older now are your ages when it started. They were the ones doing the sit-in. They were the one doing the marching, doing the protesting. They were the ones being chased by dogs. They were the ones being jailed. They were the ones being hosed down by fire hoses. Don't get me wrong, old folks played a lovely role. A lot of them were your age or college students...”(Pilar McCloud).

We are very happy and appreciative of the fact that she came all the way here to educate us. Many of us had never met a member of the NAACP, and it was a great and eye-opening experience, helping us understand civil rights and how it plays out and affects our daily lives.

-Angello Rodriguez

photo credit Steve Ahlquist

#NAACPprovidence #civil rights #youth education #arts #riverzedge

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