Image Text Ithaca: Photos of Alex Haley's Memorial & Birth HomeThe

As I mentioned in my previous post, on one of my first afternoons in Ithaca, as a group of the faculty walked to Jason Livingston's car, parked on Cascadilla Street, to head out to the rural barn where the creative seminar took place, Jason pointed out to me one of the town's mostly hidden monuments: author and cultural icon and activist's Alex Haley's birth home, which features a memorial stone and garden right outside. I mentioned in the earlier post that Haley, co-author of The Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) and Roots: An American Family Saga (1976), was born in Ithaca during the period when his father, Dr. Simon Haley, a noted professor of agriculture at Alabama A&M, among other historically black institutions, was enrolled in a master's degree program in agriculture at Cornell University, one of the northern universities that admitted black students in small numbers before the wide-scale US college and university integration of the 1950-1975 period.

I visited the site several times and took a number of photos, thus the repetition in some of the shots. As I also mentioned in my earlier post, the tall stone detailing Alex Haley's life was almost completely obscured by plants, as was the little brick patio and bench; had Jason not pointed it out to me, it would have been easy to walk right past it. It wasn't clear to me whether the homeowner or the city was responsible for maintaining the site, but as things stand, neither was doing much at all even to clear away the branches. Had I more time, I would have rung the bell of the homeowner for a chat; perhaps on another visit.

The memorial stone

The house on Cascadilla Street

The Black Lives Matter
sign in the window

The stone up close

Branches obscuring the memorial stone

The stone up close

The overgrown mini-patio

The bench

Another view of the garden

The patio 

The bushes near the memorial 

The patio up close 

The bench

The stone from another view

The stone buttressed 

Another view

Yet another view

Cascadilla Street

Daisies near the bench

The daisies up close

The stone up close

The memorial stone

Cascadilla Street

Image Text Ithaca 2018 (+ Photos)

The barn, a/k/a art-space

I recently returned from Image Text Ithaca (ITI), the superlative art-text program at Ithaca College organized by Catherine Taylor and Nick Muellner, that I attended in 2015, and which is now a thriving MFA program. I once again participated as a Fellow, and so was only on campus for the first half-week, before the seminars began. As was the case last time, I was in perpetual creative motion the whole time I was there (sleep not included), so I once again had no chance to post about the projects I got involved in, initiated by the students, faculty and fellows, and interns, but suffice it to say that I think I did more in that week than in the previous six, so it was a fruitful mini-sojourn, to put it mildly. This time I presented on only one project, a "handbook" of "unusual emotions" that had begun as a list poem, but which came to involve a lively cast of those present.

The chickens who were present
while we were there

The chickens often
came to greet us

In addition to Nicholas and Catherine, also present as Faculty or Fellows were Stephanie Barber, Nydia Blas, Tisa Bryant, Jason Livingston, Luke Stettner and Carmen Winant, and Nina Strand. Heading up for the seminars the following were are Melissa Cattanese & Ed Panar, Bruno Ceschel, Tonya Foster, Emma Kemp. Elana Schlanker, and Jo Ann Walters. Bruno and Tonya attended back in 2015, and Elana was the designer of what became GRIND, my collaborative project with Nicholas. The amazing students included (and I will inevitably leave someone's name off the list, so my apologies in advance) Justin Audet, Matt Baczewski, Andre Bradley, Mel Collazo, Edith Fikes, Hugo Gallo, Marcella Green, Jeewon Kim, Pablo Lerma, Carla Liesching, Jason Lipeles, Melani Lopez, Martha Ormiston, John O'Toole, Laura Pierson, Nicolina Schonfarber, Nina Perlman, John Rufo, Kirslyn Schell-Smith, Amy Schuessler, Janet Solval, Kesley Sucena, Grant Willing. This year's interns were Sophia Feuer, Eadan Halloran, Maxwell, Innis, Tyler Macri, and Shane Reynolds. My heartfelt thanks to all of them!

Cascadilla Creek

On one of the first afternoons in Ithaca, as a group of faculty walked to Jason's car, parked on Cascadilla Street, to head out to the rural barn where the creative seminar took place, Jason pointed out to me one of the town's mostly hidden monuments: Alex Haley's birth home, with a memorial stone and garden. The co-author of the Autobiography of Malcolm X (1965) and the force behind the cultural phenomenon book and landmark series Roots: The Saga of An American Family (1976), Haley, a distant relative of mine whom I, like many people, tend to associate with Tennessee and the South, was born in Ithaca during the period when his father,  Simon Haley, a noted professor of agriculture at Alabama A&M, among other historically black institutions, was enrolled in a master's degree program in agriculture at Cornell University, which did admit black students in small numbers before the wide-scale US college and university integration of the 1950-1975 period.

Socializing in the barn

The stone detailing Alex Haley's life was almost completely obscured by plants, as was the little brick patio and bench; had Jason not pointed it out to me, it would have been easy to walk right past it. I revisited the site the following day, and snapped a number of photos, which you can see in the next post, and collected notes about Haley's life, for a short piece I began--but have not finished--titled "Unremembered." (At least that's the working title.) It wasn't clear to me whether the homeowner or the city was responsible for maintaining the site, but as things stand, neither was doing much at all even to clear away the branches. Had I been in town for an extended period of time, I might have done it myself. Additionally and interestingly enough, while Haley's birth memorial and the house next door (which even had a Black Lives Matter sign in the window) do not appear on maps, there is an Alex Haley Pool, just a few blocks away on North Albany Street. I did not have the opportunity to visit the pool, but perhaps it featured information, somewhere onsite, about the birth house and memorial stone. At any rate, Haley, and Malcolm X, whose autobiography's history I discussed with Jason, were with me throughout my short visit.

The view looking out toward the road

Here are photos from the stay; just imagine constant movement, numerous collaborative, simultaneous art, video, performance, and writing projects, intent visages and whirring printers and lots of laughter, as well as delicious meals punctuating everything, and you get a hint of what ITI was like. If you are interested in the program, please click on the link above or this one to learn more.

The beginning of Melani Lopez's
haircutting performance

During the performance
(Tisa in the foreground)

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Melani Lopez (in t-shirt), beginning her
ritual performance

The performance

During the performance

Melani Lopez

Andre Bradley cutting
Melani's hair

A photo shoot involving
getting up (as opposed to falling) 

Nicholas taking a picture

Sketches 

Responses to one of the prompts

The tent behind the barn

Nicholas, looking from above

Rev. Dr. MLK Jr. Day: His 1965 Interview with Alex Haley

Selma-Montgomery March: Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King leading march
from Selma to Montgomery to protest lack of voting rights for
African Americans. Beside King is (l-r), Ralph Abernathy, James Forman,
Reverend Jesse Douglas and John Lewis, March 1965.
(Photo Credit: Steve Schapiro/Corbis)

Today on Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, I thought I'd post a link to one of the best interviews Rev. Dr. King (1929-1968) ever gave, with journalist and author Alex Haley, of Roots fame. The interview took exactly 50 years ago today, in January 1965, the year of the Selma-to-Montgomery March--and of the story underpinning Ava Duvernay's highly acclaimed new film Selma--and appeared in Playboy magazine, preceding the famous Alabama march and the assassination of Malcolm X, but following many other landmark moments in Rev. Dr. King's and the Civil Rights Movement's long march towards social, political and economic equality and freedom.

It's worth reading the entire interview (linked from AlexHaley.com), which gives a far fuller portrait of Rev. Dr. King's mindset in the mid-1960s. In it he talks about mistakes he felt he made, his disappointment of the lack of support and righteousness from white Christian ministers and churches in the cause of Black equality, the moving resistance of young people, the concept of "militant nonviolence," strategizing for the future for Civil Rights, a critique of the Nation of Islam and Malcolm X, the challenges of nonviolence and the dangers of violence as a solution, racist science and white supremacy, the relationship between African Americans and Black people around the globe, and so much more. Here is one quote:

King: I mean to say that a strong man must be militant as well as moderate. He must be a realist as well as an idealist. If I am to merit the trust invested in me by some of my race, I must be both of these things. This is why nonviolence is a powerful as well as a just weapon. If you confront a man who has long been cruelly misusing you, and say, “Punish me, if you will; I do not deserve it, but I will accept it, so that the world will know I am right and you are wrong,” then you wield a powerful and a just weapon. This man, your oppressor, is automatically morally defeated, and if he has any conscience, he is ashamed. Wherever this weapon is used in a manner that stirs a community’s, or a nation’s, anguished conscience, then the pressure of public opinion becomes an ally in your just cause.

and here is another, concerning the Civil Rights Act, which Rev. Dr. King didn't think went far enough:

King: One of these decisive developments was our last major campaign before the enactment of the Civil Rights Act—in St. Augustine, Florida. We received a plea for help from Dr. Robert Hayling, the leader of the St. Augustine movement. St. Augustine, America’s oldest city, and one of the most segregated cities in America, was a stronghold of the Ku Klux Klan and the John Birch Society. Such things had happened as Klansmen abducting four Negroes and beating them unconscious with clubs, brass knuckles, ax handles and pistol butts. Dr. Hayling’s home had been shot up with buckshot, three Negro homes had been bombed and several Negro night clubs shotgunned. A Negro’s car had been destroyed by fire because his child was one of the six Negro children permitted to attend white schools. And the homes of two of the Negro children in the white schools had been burned down. Many Negroes had been fired from jobs that some had worked on for 28 years because they were somehow connected with the demonstrations. Police had beaten and arrested Negroes for picketing, marching and singing freedom songs. Many Negroes had served up to 90 days in jail for demonstrating against segregation, and four teenagers had spent six months in jail for picketing. Then, on February seventh of last year, Dr. Hayling’s home was shotgunned a second time, with his pregnant wife and two children barely escaping death; the family dog was killed while standing behind the living-room door. So S.C.L.C. decided to join in last year’s celebration of St. Augustine’s gala 400th birthday as America’s oldest city—by converting it into a nonviolent battleground. This is just what we did.

and a third, concerning the relationship between Black Americans and Black Diasporic peoples:

King: Yes, I do, in many ways. There is a distinct, significant and inevitable correlation. The Negro across America, looking at his television set, sees black statesmen voting in the United Nations on vital world issues, knowing that in many of America’s cities, he himself is not yet permitted to place his ballot. The Negro hears of black kings and potentates ruling in palaces, while he remains ghettoized in urban slums. It is only natural that Negroes would react to this extreme irony. Consciously or unconsciously, the American Negro has been caught up by the black Zeitgeist. He feels a deepening sense of identification with his black African brothers, and with his brown and yellow brothers of Asia, South America and the Caribbean. With them he is moving with a sense of increasing urgency toward the promised land of racial justice.

Do read the entire interview; so much of what he says still pertains today, a sign of his extraordinary vision and of the challenges we still face.