Dear Reader:
I know my grandchildren must run when I get on my platform and start lamenting the loss of written letters and cursive writing… but it breaks my heart when I hand a birthday card to one of the grandchildren who struggles to read it… because ” You forgot Boo Boo and wrote it in ” cursive”… you would have thought, by the tone, I deciphered it in pig Latin! ”
Yesterday was Martin Luther King , Jr. Day and it brought back memories of Anne, Lorraine, Mandy, and I taking the newly formed ( very diversified) Gullah Club students to Penn Center in beautiful St. Helena Island near Beaufort, South Carolina. Penn Center was the first school in the South for formerly enslaved West Africans to learn to read and write…in the very heart of Gullah culture!
At the end of the first session the students were all laughing and yelling out in unison ” We be Gullah!” The vivacious tour leader had started out asking who in the group thought they were “Gullah” and only a couple students raised their hands and mentioned a grandmother or ancestors who spoke some Gullah.
But the guide continued…started giving examples of coming home and seeing a pot of rice on the stove frequently and/ their mother , father, or grandparent stirring in left over meat or other vegetables from the night before to stretch another meal… serving ” perlo!”
She then started on popular slang expressions and had everyone shaking their heads in delight at the discovery of the Gullah origin!
The session ended with everyone singing ” Kumbayah” -( Gullah for ” Come by here”) … wonderful memory.
Too many times on MLK Day… we hear ” I Have a Dream” speech over and over to the point that most public school children only associate that one speech with Martin Luther King, Jr.
Most historians instead point to the powerful letter King wrote from his jail cell in Birmingham , Alabama… on April 16, 1963. He was exhausted and despondent… tired of marching and being thrown in jail, missing his wife and children.
But his passion in his letter spoke volumes… ” Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere! ”
Does there seem to be a familiar ring or theme to these words…
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, uses the same central ring when he addresses all democratic countries- ” The fight for Ukraine is the fight for democracy everywhere.”
So until tomorrow..,
Today is my favorite day… Winnie the Pooh
