Otelia Cromwell, first African American Smith College graduate.
Otelia Cromwell Day is a Smith College community-wide celebration. Being first to do something and inclusion are the ongoing themes. Traditionally, Fall classes are cancelled and an annual slate of workshops, lectures, films and entertainment are convened to honor Smith’s first African American graduate. New York City Smith College alums gathered on November 4, 2017 to celebrate Dr. Cromwell’s legacy.
Recent campus keynote speakers have included: Roxane Gay, writer-professor; Sonia Sanchez, poet/arts activist; and Dr. Julianne Malveaux, economist-commentator.
Black Alumnae of Smith College (BASC), the College’s first Affinity group, collaborated with the local Smith College Club of New York City to host the event that attracted over 70 alums. To see photos and video highlights, click here.
Prof. Elizabeth Pryor, keynote speaker.
This year was New York City’s second Otelia Cromwell Day. We were honored to feature keynote speakers Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor, Smith Professor of History and Dr. Carla Shedd, Smith alum, Class of 2000, Professor of Urban Education, City University of New York. Their book signing was a double highlight: Smith College Professor of History, Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor (daughter of Richard Pryor, noted American comedian) is author of ‘Colored Travelers: Mobility and the Fight for Citizenship Before the Civil War,’ (University of North Carolina Press, 2016); and Dr. Carla Shedd, Professor of Urban Education, The Graduate Center, City University of New York, is the author of ‘Unequal City: Race, Schools, and Perceptions of Injustice,’ (Russell Sage Foundation, 2015). Last year’s (2016) NYC keynote speakers were Smith Professors Paula Giddings and Riché Daniel Barnes.
Dr. Carla Shedd, keynoted Otelia Cromwell Day 2017.
Background: The first ‘official’ Otelia Cromwell Day was held in 1989 to provide the Smith community with an opportunity for further education and reflection about racism and diversity.
However, 1970s black students started the ‘original’ Otelia Cromwell recognition. Their campus activism on racism, recruitment, and retention, are still important issues today!
My classmates in the class of 1974, the largest class of Black students, considered the question: “If we are the largest black group, who was the first? Our research led to the discovery of Otelia Cromwell and other distinguished nineteenth century African American students! The 70s black students were the first to start the ‘Otelia Society.’ We designed and wore T-shirts with imprints of Otelia Cromwell’s photo.
“People who end up as the ‘first’ don’t actually set out to be the first. They set out to do something they love.” Condoleessa ‘Condi’ Rice.
My ‘Ageless, Fly, Advanced Humans’ Pinterest page is a work in progress. Curated to inspire, I expanded it recently in honor of Women’s History Month. I also inserted ‘Still radical’ to update the title.
Still radical. The recent US presidential election has generated requests for my diversity and anti-racism work just as I moved on to do more fun activities. Political, community activities, like meetings, marching and pressuring elected officials to protect the arts, gardens, schools, housing, and historic sites are still my focus.
As caregiver to an elder relative, I decided to signup at the local senior center. The two feisty, black ladies who welcomed me said: “You live nearby? Great. Can you do a presentation on Langston Hughes tomorrow? These people don’t know a thing about Black History.” The twin sisters, both retired, 80-year-old educators said in unison: “Retirement? What’s old? There’s still work to do!”
The twins reminded me of the women on my ‘Ageless’ page. They are all living with grace, style and purpose. When you get a chance, check out the stunning 86-year-old bride making an entrance in her purple-lavender wedding cape and dress. A buffed 74-year-old athlete showed off her glistening muscles. There’s also an ancient African Queen receiving a kiss on her forehead from a granddaughter with the quote: ‘Peace to my ancestors and my elders. I walk in your strength, legacy, power, today and everyday.” Click here to see amazing images.
Here are my Women’s History Month highlights:
Sisterhood w/Smithie, Janice Morrison, brunch at Lido’s, Harlem.
Sisterhood. Although March is recognized as Women’s History Month, I celebrate women all the time. You may thank Smith College, my alma mater, for that! I always enjoy the sisterhood of Smithies and Sib meet-ups.
United Nations. I attended the UN International Women’s Day’s conference. The theme was women’s work – the unpaid and paid kind. The horror stories that I heard about girls and women’s work around the world filled me with empathy and gratitude.
Award-winning actor, Anne Hathaway, this year’s UN Goodwill Ambassador and mother of an infant, spoke about paid maternity leave and how outrageous it is to expect women to go back to work so soon after giving birth.
“The deeper into the issue of paid parental leave I go, the clearer I see the connection between persisting barriers to women’s full equality and empowerment, and the need to redefine and in some cases, de-stigmatize men’s role as caregivers. In other words, to liberate women, we need to liberate men.
Anne Hathaway, UN Goodwill Ambassador, was keynote speaker.
“I don’t mean to imply that you need to have children to care about and benefit from this issue—whether you have—or want—kids, you will benefit by living in a more evolved world with policies not based on gender. We all benefit from living in a more compassionate time where our needs do not make us weak, they make us fully humans.”
American women are still waiting for our country to catch up with Iceland. But the rest of the world’s women need serious help.
“Iceland’s government announced plans to eradicate gender pay disparities by 2022. Four Russian feminist activists unfurled a giant poster outside the Kremlin in Moscow, denouncing the patriarchy (they were arrested). India’s prime minister honored a symbol of rural women’s aspirations for dignity and self-sufficiency — the toilet. The Egyptian authorities said they would allow female prisoners an extra family visit this month.” To read more, click here.
Pamela J. Joyner, art advocate, collector, Brooklyn Museum honoree.
Brooklyn Museum’s Fund for African American Art Benefit honored Pamela J. Joyner for her courageous and tireless commitment to artists. Talk about fly! Ms. Joyner is a beloved and fabulous arts advocate. “She’s a treasure to the black artist. There’s no one like her!” artist Jack Whitten told the audience. A panel discussion ‘Breaking the Canon’ moderated by Rujeko Hockley, featured artists Simone Leigh, Hugo McCloud, Julie Mehretu, and Jack Whitten. A private reception was held in the beautiful Beaux-Arts Court with live music and delicious food. Click here for more about Pamela J. Joyner.
mother Carmen, grandmother, Violet
Maternal Re-post. I always reflect on family during Women’s History Month. If she were alive today, I think my mother would feel proud that her Chinese-Caribbean story was featured in the New York Historical Society’s Museum & Library exhibit (2014) called “Chinese American: Exclusion/Inclusion.” It chronicled the complex history of the Chinese in the Americas and the challenges of immigration and migration. Click here for a link.
Influential Black Women 2017, TNJ25 honorees
Network Journal. We attended the Network Journal’s 19th Annual ’25 Influential Black Women in Business. Aziz Gueye Adetimirin, founder, CEO of The Network Journal Communication Inc., greeted the audience with lovely words of gratitude to my husband Byron. Apparently Byron had keynoted TNJ25’s inaugural luncheon in Brooklyn nineteen years ago. Held this year at the grand Marriott Marquis, TNJ25 is considered NYC’s top networking event for diverse professionals. Here is an official description of the award event from TNJ’s website:
“Launched in March 1999, The Network Journal’s 25 Influential Black Women in Business Awards honors women whose professional achievements have significantly impacted an industry or profession, and who also have made an important contribution to their community. A “TNJ25” honoree typically is a business owner, or a partner, president, CEO, board chair, or other senior-management executive with significant decision-making authority in the corporate, nonprofit (including academia and medicine), or government sector.” Click here for profiles of the women honored.
Jeff Donaldson’s art celebrates black women, Kravet/Wehby gallery.
Art galleries. Visiting museums and art galleries are my favorite weekend activity. On a recent Saturday I wandered around three art galleries with artist friend Martha Mae Jones. We started with expressionist artist Jack Whitten’s show at Hauser & Wirth. We saw a dance rehearsal and art inspired by Romare Bearden’s ‘Bayou Fever’ at DCMoore gallery. Finally, Martha’s late friend Jeff Donaldson’s show currently running at Kravets/Wehby Gallery was the icing on the cake. His affirmation of the ‘Black is Beautiful’ movement shines through with lots of paintings of black women. Go see it! Here’s a link to a Donaldson review.
w/artist Martha Mae Jones, posing next to a Jack Whitten sculpture.
Affirmations for positive vibrations are needed now more than ever. Holiday blues and post-election woes have gotten us down. Rude and racist people are coming out of their closets. I noticed that my snap back timing has been off. When someone was rude to me, I was stunned. I didn’t have a quick comeback. It took me a moment to regroup.
Snap back: Recently, at an event for small business owners and an art exhibit launch, an angry woman with cornrowed bangs stood over me, pointed a finger and snapped. She was rude and racist. “How could you side with those immigrants when your own sisters can barely survive? They are working for minimum wage at Mickey Ds trying to raise a family with four kids. And you want the immigrants to get more?” Where did that come from, I thought.
I was seated with two other black women having wine and cheese. During small talk, the famed Waldorf Astoria Hotel closing and layoffs came up. Miss Angry Lady, who was not part of our conversation but standing nearby, chimed in: “I’m glad they got fired! Those immigrant washroom workers were paid $25 an hour. They will get $130,000 severance pay! I’m glad Trump got elected. He helped a lot of black people, especially rappers like P. Diddy become rich and successful!”
So, I said something lame like: “Oh wow, that’s not right!” She shot back at me: “Oh, you must be one of those Spanish-speaking types!” I shot back: “What does that matter?” She snapped: “You know, I’m tired of bitches like you. Kiss my black ass!” She walked away.
I was stunned. I looked to my companions. They consoled me. “Girl, don’t worry about her. We should have warned you. She’s kind of cre-cre.”
As a native New Yorker, my radar for crazy people is finely tuned. But the atmosphere of the elegant Municipal Building art galley and the wine must have put me at ease.
Angry lady was lucky she got me. Had she run into my sister, it would have been a different story. There would have been a rumble. My baby sister, who is twice my size, inherited the family’s drama genes. She has a short fuse and relishes a public street scene. When we were kids, I used to threaten playmates with her: “Don’t let me call my ‘Karate Ca-razy’ sister on you!
Razor’s Edge: When I got home, I didn’t tell my husband. I was too upset. Over dinner the next day I told him. He chuckled and knowingly shook his head. “Everybody’s on razor’s edge since the election,” he said. In his 80-plus years on this earth he said he has seen his own share of angry black women. “It’s not myth! It’s truth. Black women have every right and good reasons to be angry,” he said.
Angry black women: Check out insightful counseling segments about angry black women with TV host Iyanla Vanzant. “A white woman’s emotional reactions, regardless of how outlandish or inappropriate, are perceived differently than those of black women. When white women express their emotional state, it is perceived as a “bad hair day” or perhaps, a hormonal imbalance.” Click here to read more.
Furthermore, some black women proudly own their ‘angry black woman’ journey. “Because I was in 8th grade the first time I was called an Oreo and told that I “wasn’t really black” like it was a compliment.” To read more, click here.
Affirmations can help and heal. Here are a few of my favorites from the Happy Black Woman site:
I choose to radiate love, joy & gratitude today. I know life is too short to dwell on negativity. I walk in the light!
I am calm in the face of conflict. I brush annoyances off quickly & easily. I agree to disagree. I am bigger than that! Click here for more affirmations.
Witness and memory captures that sweet time between summer and winter called autumn. ‘Witness’ and ‘memory’ are also theme words used in an essay about the new Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture #NMAAHC. Poet Elizabeth Alexander’s piece Can I Get a Witness justified nicely why we need a place to recall our collective memory. Click here to read the full essay.
I was honored to attend the recent museum opening events, September 21-25, 2016 in Washington DC. At every entry point, the museum is filled with our ancestor’s precious objects, lost & found American history, and prideful moments.
#NMAAHC opening day
Witnessing the museum was a sacred experience. It brought back nostalgia for the March on Washington. The museum opening was a giant black family reunion. Streets were blocked as busloads of excited folks arrived from Deep South places like Alabama and Tennessee.
For sure, many white and other ethnic cousins were there too! No other museum in the world can boast this kind of gathering of ‘beloved people,’ as Congressman John Lewis called us in his welcoming remarks. This is by far the best place to experience the meaning of multi-generational and multi-cultural. The displays above and below ground moved from slavery to freedom. Expect to witness people of all ages and backgrounds go from tears to joy during the course of a visit. Then, there was soul food. The cafe alone proves why there would be no America without us black folks!
Autumn was THE perfect time to launch THIS museum. It gave everyone a jolt – that this is a new day, a new season. I invite everyone to go. Wear comfortable shoes. Click here for information.
Besides museum and gallery visits, autumn is a time to re-join swimming class at the YMCA. I’m in the kitchen more these days too. I’m inventing smoothie drinks with my new Vitamix blender. I’m also having fun making noodles out of root veggies with a new kitchen gadget.
Here is an excerpt to some my other autumn reflections, posted last year.
“Do you have Autumn rituals? I do. It’s about accepting change in mind, body and soul. Nature changes with each new season. So must we. I believe that we all follow seasonal rituals whether conscious or unconscious that were passed down or learned along the way. I wonder what could be in an autumn ‘tool kit’? What do we need to do to open our hearts for this new season? What do you do to indulge your senses with sights, sounds, and scents of Autumn?” Click here to read more.
Liberty was a transcendent theme this year for my combined Fourth of July – Juneteenth post. I celebrated Juneteenth at a rally to save an abolitionist house in New York City. I rarely paired these two current holidays. Yet, they are so connected.
With Friends of the Hopper-Gibbons House, historians, and preservationists, we gathered to honor abolitionism and Juneteenth. The house is New York City’s only Underground Railroad site, where enslaved people were sheltered. This was a place where black and white abolitionists sat at the table together to plot and plan their joint mission. The Emancipation Proclamation was also celebrated there. Most importantly, the house is a monument to the 1863 Draft Riots that tore NYC apart regarding the Civil War. Many free black New Yorkers were lynched and attacked, and white abolitionists feared for their lives. The rooftop of this special building and its neighboring row houses provided an escape route from the angry mob. Hopper-Gibbons House is located at 339 West 29th street between 8th and 9th avenues.
Click here for the Chelsea Now article about our activism to save this building. You can also see a photo of me placing patriotic flag buntings on the illegal scaffolds in front of the building. Click here for more news coverage in The Villager.
Liberty and Juneteenth: The more I learn about Juneteenth, the more I see its relevance to Independence Day, from different perspectives, of course. Colonial America sought liberty from Great Britain’s tyranny; enslaved Black folks sought freedom from racist, genocidal, colonized Americans.
Juneteenth for all: Do you think of Juneteenth as a black holiday? Here is one author’s take on why everyone should celebrate it: “We should care because the very fabric of our society depends on our shared religion of inalienable rights. A celebration of freedom for any American is a celebration of the ideals that make our country what it is today. American identity emerged from shared faith in the transcendental ideal of liberty, not from shared blood. Therefore, any celebration of American freedom is a celebration for us all. Juneteenth is about liberty not about race.” To read more, click here.
As a national holiday: Some people believe that Juneteenth should be a national holiday. “There’s just no way around it: There was an irreconcilable clash between the colonists’ war of independence and the freedom of African Americans. Historian Gerald Horne even casts the colonists’ secession as a counterrevolution against the erratic progress of the British Empire to limit slavery. In Brooklyn, New York’s own piece of the Deep South that was roughly one-third slaves, the British army liberated slaves and stationed them in their former masters’ houses. Which side was the revolutionary one? “ To read more, click here.
Freedom, resistance, empowerment: Isabel Wilkerson’s book The Warmth of Other Suns covered Juneteenth’s relevance to the Great Black Migration, an epic freedom, resistance, and empowerment movement: “Juneteenth has been a state holiday in Texas since 1980, and has long been celebrated in California, where many Texans journeyed during the Great Migration. Now, a total of 42 states and the District of Columbia recognize it as a state holiday or special day of observance. Celebrations now often include parades, storytelling, barbecue and red soda pop, prayer and recognition of the elders. The building from which General Granger read the Proclamation all those years late is now a historic landmark. In honor of the last enslaved Americans to be set free.” To read more about the author of The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America’s Great Migration, click here.
First black culture holiday: I wrote about Juneteenth from a race and culture perspective. Here’s an excerpt from my post last year: “Juneteenth is our first African American holiday. But it almost did not happen. The word Juneteenth is colloquial phrasing for an approximate June date when enslaved African Americans in Texas learned that they were free. June 19, 2015 marks the 150th anniversary of Juneteenth, also known in Texas as Emancipation Day. But like many black folks, I knew nothing about it growing up in New York. I learned about Juneteenth as an adult while living in Oakland during the eighties.” To read more click here.
