I never imagined that I would end up living in New England, in the Amherst area of Massachusetts. Why is this piece titled Cold Freedom? Because both can be found here in the extreme. I've found a new freedom here. And it is very cold (22 degrees as I type this.) Outside of the freezing temperatures here in the North, the title of this piece also implies another meaning. In the African American vernacular the word "cold" has a different connotation. To use cold as an adjective (or adverb?) does not refer to the lower part of the Fahrenheit scale. If I say, "She cold did that!" I mean that she absolutely and totally did that. The term also connotes bold action. Here in Mass, I am experiencing freedom in both ways. Absolute, total and bold Freedom in frigid temperatures.
Old Freedom in the Old North
For the most part, the North has always meant freedom for African America. During slavery days, the upper area of North America was a refuge for Black folks. It is commonly known that Black folks resorted to desperate measures to get to the North. They followed the stars, rivers banks, paths to safe houses and fought off dogs and greedy, ruthless slave catchers to make it to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Albany, New York and Massachusetts, where I am now. Even to Canada. Jacob Lawrence has a painting that shows freedom travelers running northward in snow with no shoes. He said that he would have also painted their feet bleeding from frostbite in that snow, but that such images were often censored by the White Americans who were controlling his shows. Frostbite and freedom in the wilds of winter was better than still enslaved warmer feet in the mild temperatured South. Cold Freedom.
Two of our most prolific heroes from this period lived in the North. Harriet Tubman had a home in Auburn, New York. And where did Frederick Douglass live? In New Bedford, Massachusetts, about a hundred miles east from where I am right now. Way up here, Mother Harriet, Papa Frederick and many others were safe from human bondage. Cold Freedom. Massachusetts was the hot bed of the abolitionist movement, led by Douglass, William Loyd Garrison and many others. Many others born-free or newly-freed Black folks made their homes in Massachusetts and prospered. After the Fugitive Slave Act passed in 1850, many were forced to relocate to Canada, where it is even colder.
To me, for these chilly places to be freedom centers for Afro descendants is the ultimate irony. African Americans come from a continent where it is mostly warm. In West Africa, there are two seasons, dry and rainy, and it is hot all year long. Some African Americans (like me) also have ancestry in Southern Africa where there are four seasons in reverse order of those in the Northern Hemisphere. But the winters there are nothing compared to the polar vortex that blankets the upper parts of North America. And without getting into stereotyping, it is just the plain truth that Black folks have to engage in a different kind of self-care in cold regions. Extra moisturizer for the skin and hair is an absolute must, especially for knees, elbows and heels, if one is to avoid walking around looking like an ashy mess! Nevertheless, despite the cold, for hundreds of years, this area of the country where we have lived since 1619, is the place where we have experienced the most freedom and opportunity.
New Freedom from (and in) the North
Although the South still holds an ancestral record for our people, and it is lovely, it has for the most part offered to African Americans a warm, oppressive and dangerous beauty. When I traveled to Jackson, Mississippi in 2008 to take a group of music students to perform at the Vicksburg Jazz Festival, I was captivated by the balmy spring evening during which the party was held after the festival's main concert (Roy Hargrove). The air was perfumed with jasmine flowers that were climbing up both sides of charming wooden trellises at the entrance of a pleasure garden in front of the restaurant. My enchantment was greeted with an evasive skepticism, however, every time I mentioned how much I liked the state to the Black folks that we spent time with. Each time I gushed how much I liked the city, they looked at me with eyebrows slightly raised and said "Oh you do now?" leaving me to wonder at the "unsaid" in their words, which was obviously pregnant with meaning. Little did I know that in some parts of the state there were Black folks still being held in slavery (see the Slavery Detective of the South), supported by local police and officials who are still absolutely dedicated to white supremacy and Black domination. This was the case in most of the South during the Jim Crow era. To make any headway in terms of economic advancement and opportunity, Black folks had to migrate North - into the cold. Detroit, Chicago, New York City, Boston and Gary received millions of Black folks from the early 1900s into the mid-century. Factory jobs, other employment, and educational opportunities provided the solid foundation that was necessary to wage war against the Jim Crow System once and for all. Martin Luther King went to Boston University (Massachusetts again) for his Phd in Systematic Theology. He used the philosophies that he studied to help bring down legalized racial segregation in the South. Stokely Carmichael's family lived in the Bronx, where he attended Bronx Science high school. It was there that he was first exposed to the Marxist philosophies that led him to join the Non-Violent Action Group (NAG) at Howard University. As soon as his final exams were finished in 1961, he hopped on a bus headed to Mississippi and joined the Freedom Riders. He went on to join SNCC full time, to help lead the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party during the 1964 Freedom Summer with Fannie Lou Hamer, and to become a leading figure in the Black Power Movement. The northern winds blew our freedom fighters back down south, equipped with education, courage and revolutionary dedication to bring about change for our people. Cold Freedom once again.
Regarding my forebears, three great-aunts' journeys north brought about a stronger economic foundation for our family. Even though they received their undergraduate degrees from Florida A&M, an HBCU (Historically Black College and University), they could not pursue further graduate studies in the state because of the segregation laws. (The only graduate degrees were offered at the racially segregated, White-only University of Florida). To avoid desegregation, the state of Florida paid for them to receive their Masters degrees at New York University (Aunt Marion and Aunt Juanita) and Columbia University (Aunt Jeanie). My grandfather, because of Civil Rights Movement led desegregation in higher education, was later able to get his Phd Florida State University. In New York City my great-aunts lived with their step-grandmother (long story) named Missy, and entered into the glamorous Black world of 1950s Harlem. They enjoyed late nights at Small's Paradise and my grandfather saw Billie Holiday and many others perform. Their advanced degrees laid the foundation for my father's Ivy League college education and for mine.
That generation of my family witnessed the apex of the jazz world, in New York City, where many Black musicians migrated from different parts of the country. The music that began in the South flourished in the North where there was an economy to support its development. Dizzy brought his sound from South Carolina. Charlie Parker from Missouri. Coltrane from North Carolina (via Philly). Max Roach from North Carolina. It is the legendary Max Roach, and his work, that has everything to do my journey here.
UMass Amherst and New Africa House
I always wondered where the Black activists ended up after the Movement ended in the 1970s. There is really no way to track down thousands of people scattered all across the country. Little did I know, last year when I submitted my Phd application to UMass, Amherst, that a great number of them went on to lead the Black Studies Movement. They founded the WEB Dubois Department of Afro American Studies, one of the first Black studies departments. They created a haven in this cold place, Amherst, Massachusetts, that has led even further to freedom for Black folks. Here is the short of the story.
In the winter of 1970 a group of Black undergraduates took over the Mill House building with a sit-in. They were tired of racist harassment from campus police, and a curriculum that did not include Black history and culture. During the takeover, they sent a letter to the university's administration that declared that the building would be the site of a new Black studies department. They messaged admin that they would be in touch about budget and had renamed the building New Africa House. Thus, through a non-violent civil rights battle, a Black colony of sorts was ironically established in a longstanding European one (New England), dedicated to the study of African American history and culture. The WEB Dubois Institute of Afro American Studies was born.
I became interested in the Dubois Institute because the university where I received my ethnomusicology MA offered no Black studies at the graduate level. Also, I needed to move away from the isolation and racism that I experienced on the campus and as the only Black student in my program. So, I applied to the Dubois Institute's Phd program and was accepted.
Old Freedom in the Old North
For the most part, the North has always meant freedom for African America. During slavery days, the upper area of North America was a refuge for Black folks. It is commonly known that Black folks resorted to desperate measures to get to the North. They followed the stars, rivers banks, paths to safe houses and fought off dogs and greedy, ruthless slave catchers to make it to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Albany, New York and Massachusetts, where I am now. Even to Canada. Jacob Lawrence has a painting that shows freedom travelers running northward in snow with no shoes. He said that he would have also painted their feet bleeding from frostbite in that snow, but that such images were often censored by the White Americans who were controlling his shows. Frostbite and freedom in the wilds of winter was better than still enslaved warmer feet in the mild temperatured South. Cold Freedom.
Two of our most prolific heroes from this period lived in the North. Harriet Tubman had a home in Auburn, New York. And where did Frederick Douglass live? In New Bedford, Massachusetts, about a hundred miles east from where I am right now. Way up here, Mother Harriet, Papa Frederick and many others were safe from human bondage. Cold Freedom. Massachusetts was the hot bed of the abolitionist movement, led by Douglass, William Loyd Garrison and many others. Many others born-free or newly-freed Black folks made their homes in Massachusetts and prospered. After the Fugitive Slave Act passed in 1850, many were forced to relocate to Canada, where it is even colder.
To me, for these chilly places to be freedom centers for Afro descendants is the ultimate irony. African Americans come from a continent where it is mostly warm. In West Africa, there are two seasons, dry and rainy, and it is hot all year long. Some African Americans (like me) also have ancestry in Southern Africa where there are four seasons in reverse order of those in the Northern Hemisphere. But the winters there are nothing compared to the polar vortex that blankets the upper parts of North America. And without getting into stereotyping, it is just the plain truth that Black folks have to engage in a different kind of self-care in cold regions. Extra moisturizer for the skin and hair is an absolute must, especially for knees, elbows and heels, if one is to avoid walking around looking like an ashy mess! Nevertheless, despite the cold, for hundreds of years, this area of the country where we have lived since 1619, is the place where we have experienced the most freedom and opportunity.
New Freedom from (and in) the North
Although the South still holds an ancestral record for our people, and it is lovely, it has for the most part offered to African Americans a warm, oppressive and dangerous beauty. When I traveled to Jackson, Mississippi in 2008 to take a group of music students to perform at the Vicksburg Jazz Festival, I was captivated by the balmy spring evening during which the party was held after the festival's main concert (Roy Hargrove). The air was perfumed with jasmine flowers that were climbing up both sides of charming wooden trellises at the entrance of a pleasure garden in front of the restaurant. My enchantment was greeted with an evasive skepticism, however, every time I mentioned how much I liked the state to the Black folks that we spent time with. Each time I gushed how much I liked the city, they looked at me with eyebrows slightly raised and said "Oh you do now?" leaving me to wonder at the "unsaid" in their words, which was obviously pregnant with meaning. Little did I know that in some parts of the state there were Black folks still being held in slavery (see the Slavery Detective of the South), supported by local police and officials who are still absolutely dedicated to white supremacy and Black domination. This was the case in most of the South during the Jim Crow era. To make any headway in terms of economic advancement and opportunity, Black folks had to migrate North - into the cold. Detroit, Chicago, New York City, Boston and Gary received millions of Black folks from the early 1900s into the mid-century. Factory jobs, other employment, and educational opportunities provided the solid foundation that was necessary to wage war against the Jim Crow System once and for all. Martin Luther King went to Boston University (Massachusetts again) for his Phd in Systematic Theology. He used the philosophies that he studied to help bring down legalized racial segregation in the South. Stokely Carmichael's family lived in the Bronx, where he attended Bronx Science high school. It was there that he was first exposed to the Marxist philosophies that led him to join the Non-Violent Action Group (NAG) at Howard University. As soon as his final exams were finished in 1961, he hopped on a bus headed to Mississippi and joined the Freedom Riders. He went on to join SNCC full time, to help lead the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party during the 1964 Freedom Summer with Fannie Lou Hamer, and to become a leading figure in the Black Power Movement. The northern winds blew our freedom fighters back down south, equipped with education, courage and revolutionary dedication to bring about change for our people. Cold Freedom once again.
Regarding my forebears, three great-aunts' journeys north brought about a stronger economic foundation for our family. Even though they received their undergraduate degrees from Florida A&M, an HBCU (Historically Black College and University), they could not pursue further graduate studies in the state because of the segregation laws. (The only graduate degrees were offered at the racially segregated, White-only University of Florida). To avoid desegregation, the state of Florida paid for them to receive their Masters degrees at New York University (Aunt Marion and Aunt Juanita) and Columbia University (Aunt Jeanie). My grandfather, because of Civil Rights Movement led desegregation in higher education, was later able to get his Phd Florida State University. In New York City my great-aunts lived with their step-grandmother (long story) named Missy, and entered into the glamorous Black world of 1950s Harlem. They enjoyed late nights at Small's Paradise and my grandfather saw Billie Holiday and many others perform. Their advanced degrees laid the foundation for my father's Ivy League college education and for mine.
That generation of my family witnessed the apex of the jazz world, in New York City, where many Black musicians migrated from different parts of the country. The music that began in the South flourished in the North where there was an economy to support its development. Dizzy brought his sound from South Carolina. Charlie Parker from Missouri. Coltrane from North Carolina (via Philly). Max Roach from North Carolina. It is the legendary Max Roach, and his work, that has everything to do my journey here.
UMass Amherst and New Africa House
I always wondered where the Black activists ended up after the Movement ended in the 1970s. There is really no way to track down thousands of people scattered all across the country. Little did I know, last year when I submitted my Phd application to UMass, Amherst, that a great number of them went on to lead the Black Studies Movement. They founded the WEB Dubois Department of Afro American Studies, one of the first Black studies departments. They created a haven in this cold place, Amherst, Massachusetts, that has led even further to freedom for Black folks. Here is the short of the story.
In the winter of 1970 a group of Black undergraduates took over the Mill House building with a sit-in. They were tired of racist harassment from campus police, and a curriculum that did not include Black history and culture. During the takeover, they sent a letter to the university's administration that declared that the building would be the site of a new Black studies department. They messaged admin that they would be in touch about budget and had renamed the building New Africa House. Thus, through a non-violent civil rights battle, a Black colony of sorts was ironically established in a longstanding European one (New England), dedicated to the study of African American history and culture. The WEB Dubois Institute of Afro American Studies was born.
I became interested in the Dubois Institute because the university where I received my ethnomusicology MA offered no Black studies at the graduate level. Also, I needed to move away from the isolation and racism that I experienced on the campus and as the only Black student in my program. So, I applied to the Dubois Institute's Phd program and was accepted.
After receiving a spectacular offer for a PhD fellowship, I journeyed North. In late August, I drove from Southern DC to my new apartment in Springfield, Massachusetts. My car was full with a caring and concerned mother, a supportive and comedic auntie, my sweet, loving (and quiet) Pomeranian and an affectionate but whiny cat who got sick on the way. Little did I know that when we finally arrived, with me passed out in the back from exhaustion and my mother at the wheel, that I had actually arrived to one of the most beautiful and fruitful times of my life.
When I first walked into New Africa House, I was pleasantly surprised to find the Movement that I had been looking for my whole life. The first floor lobby was festooned with photos of major African culture bearers who had been on faculty - James Baldwin, Chinua Achebe, Johnetta Cole, Civil Rights Movement activists like Michael Thelwell and of course, Max Roach. The prolific Sonia Sanchez was a friend to the department. Wow!
The Teaching Assistant's office had a big, beautiful photo of Stokely Carmichael, who is one of my heroes. As I walked into the admin office, greeted by another photo of Carmichael, sitting at a small round table was the legendary Dr. John Bracy. Amilcar Shabazz sat at a computer station. Max Roach, whose scholarly lineage is the foundation for my dissertation, was on faculty in the Department for years. I had found my peeps at last. And found them in a place where I had been warned about the brutal winters and endless snow. But here was a haven of the Movement that had shaped my life and inspired my career in ethnomusicology. Amen! Cold Freedom.
God's Faithfulness
To close this meditation, all I can say is that God has been good. The Bible says in Psalm 91:1
He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow, protection and provision of the Almighty God. He will cover you with his feathers and under his wings you shall find refuge.
As I write these words, I take pleasure in sitting under His wings. His feathers. While going through a personal tragedy in my family, I heard a sermon by Pastor John Fichtner on Psalm 91. He explained that God's feathering is personal. Feathers are strong - strong enough to carry the weight of an eagle. But if you bend those same feathers to cover someone, they will fit to the person's shape exactly. God feathers each of His children differently. To help me to heal, my good and wonderful heavenly Father has given me a new life. My apartment in DC, paid for by a great second semester, high salaried music educator position with DCPS, was a blush pink dream. I love pink - always have. My pink princess furniture, shiny Kawai piano and new, antique white princess bed adorned my healing cocoon. My apartment was a perfect transition to the next phase of my life. There was literally a cocoon hanging on a slim tree branch just outside of my window the whole time I was there. That window offered a perfect view of the flowering garden that grew in the inner court of the apartment building. My desk overlooked the garden and the beauty helped me to successfully complete my thesis and other, numerous writing projects.
His faithfulness shall be your shield and rampart. (Psalm 91:4)
While we cannot always count on the faithfulness of people, the Lord Jesus is always faithful. I found that out through the pain of last season. He has provided me with a beautiful loft apartment and a reliable car that is large enough to cart my pets, groceries, suitcases to the airport and whatever else. I have a closet full of beautiful and fashionable clothes that are just my style (which I call Afro-chic). I have two canaries that sing in the morning and a full fellowship to complete my Phd at UMass Amherst in Afro-American studies with a concentration in ethnomusicology (without having to work an outside job). And, I have peace. Yes, it is colder than DC, and my African homeland, but He has given me complete freedom in this 22 degree weather.
I am still in the refuge of his wings. His faithfulness is my shield and rampart. And I am enjoying His feathering that is the perfect fit for me. As I write, I am in Canyon Ranch Spa Resort, sitting in front of a fire in the library. It is the perfect library, with extremely high ceilings, velvety chairs and sofas that surround the fireplace, walls lined with old books and huge picture windows overlooking a skyline of pine trees. I just enjoyed a healthful lunch in the resort's beautiful restaurant, after a wonderful morning bath ritual. My bath ritual involves moving from the steam room, sauna and whirlpool, while applying skin treatments with the special lavender body oil that I make for myself. I suppose this day is a celebration for my recent successful presentations at the Society for Ethnomusicology conference this year, bound up in the self care that I am fully committed to. After all, I am a princess! In one hour, I will go through another bath ritual and then have a massage.
Under His wings, you will take refuge. (Psalm 91:4b)
Blossom time is here. The butterfly, which is my personal symbol, is launching into full flight. I just debuted my scholarship at the premier conference in my field. Both presentations went extremely well. It looks like my Ethnomusicology In Action Curriculum Project will fully launch this year. This is a project designed to use Black music research towards heritage education for African American students. I am off to a good start with my mission to reclaim the music known as jazz - my people's sounded hallmark of our experience as African Americans. A music known all over the globe.
The Bible says that weeping endures for a night, but joy comes in the morning (Psalm 30:5). Little did I know that I would experience my joy in New England. But, if this is where it is, so be it. I also know that the work I am doing here is designed to connect my people with Africa in new ways. Because for us, our freedom began there and will end there. Traveling through the continent, and experiencing many different African cultures for myself has helped me to see clearly the Africanity of Black Americans. We started in Africa, and there we will end. I want my work to serve as a pivot towards that direction by revealing our Africanity towards the renewal of our identity. Just like in the Black Power Movement, every time we claim Africa, we claim freedom and make advances toward that goal.
Therefore, if helping to bring a restored African identity for my people means weathering a few brutal Amherst winters in order to complete my Phd program, then so be it. Because in the end, I mean for this cold that I endure to aid in bringing about stone cold, absolute and total freedom for my people.
