In 2010, HIV/AIDS is not as scary a diagnosis as it was in the early- and mid-eighties.  Now, almost thirty years since the disease first became part of the public lexicon, HIV/AIDS is no longer a death sentence.  In late-August, StoryCorps Atlanta partnered with Positive Impact to record stories of individuals living with and/or affected by HIV/AIDS.

Trevalle Ambrose arrived early for his conversation with Positive Impact group facilitator Rico Curtis-Davidson.  He found out he was HIV positive on his 21st birthday.  When he told his family that he was positive they, in his words, “just cut me off.”   One year later, he moved to Atlanta, Georgia with his best friend, Devin Murphy.  Three days after they arrived, Devin died.  Trevalle was alone in a new city, grieving the loss of his friend and estranged from his family.  With the help of Devin’s brother, Trevalle found the medical resources he needed.  His spiritual journey, though, had just begun.  Trevalle would face numerous illnesses – many life-threatening – battle drug addiction, and fight to regain his family’s love and respect.  Looking back, Trevalle says, “I was a mess.  I was a lost soul.”

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Josephine Martin (L) and Edna Turner (R).

Edna Turner came to StoryCorps Griot through a partnership with the Birmingham African American Genealogy Study Group. She recalled how attending a workshop at Clark University in Atlanta sparked her interest in the role quilting played during slavery. As Ms. Turner explained, because slaves were kept from congregating, they had to find alternate methods to communicate. One tool they employed was code. The patterns, symbols, and even knots woven into quilts were used to guide people through the Underground Railroad. Ms. Turner described ten patterns depicted in her “Freedom Quilt” (pictured above), a sample quilt she’s been taking to middle schools, universities, and other groups for seven years.

Edna Turner says she shares her knowledge because, “We didn’t get this information when I was growing up. If I knew that we built the pyramid, that we did the first brain surgery, that the world once went to Timbuktu to be educated, then I would believe that Harriet Tubman got 300 people to Canada. But, I have to know that we are a people who were capable of this before. So, I try to share that with my students. I don’t want them to live in darkness as I have, and imagine that one group is less endowed than another.”

Many thanks to Ms. Martin, Ms. Turner, and all the other members of the Genealogy Study Group who came and interviewed at the StoryCorps Griot booth.

Last week, StoryCorps Griot was visited by members of the Birmingham African American Genealogy Study Group. They shared stories of segregation and prejudice, discovering their identities, and uncovering their roots.

For the group’s founder, Josephine Martin (pictured right above), it was her hard work and courage in uncovering her roots, a taboo topic in the family, that helped her gain a stronger sense of identity. “Children just didn’t ask those questions, but I felt like a part of me was missing. I had a right to know,” said Ms. Martin. She traced her roots back to a great-great-grandmother from Nigeria, who was sold into slavery in North Carolina. She learned her grandfather was a white man from Alabama. She was given a picture of a cousin she always heard about, but had never met. And, she learned new details and stories about her many relatives.

“It made the connection stronger for me,” Josephine said of the information she gathered by researching census records and talking with family. “It really made things much easier, the more information I found out about my familyó it gave me more of an identity. This is a family I really am part of.”

StoryCorps Facilitators, Naomi Greene and Mike Rauch, were invited to the Montgomery premiere of the film Honeydripper, starring Danny Glover and Charles S. Dutton. Filmed in Greenville, Alabama, Honeydripper tells the story of Tyrone Purvis, a juke joint owner trying to keep his failing business afloat during the 1950s.

After the screening, writer/director John Sayles talked about how his love of soul and blues artists inspired the film’s story and setting. Producer Maggie Renzi gave thanks to local residents who helped in the production of the film. In fact, the film’s extras are local Alabama residents. The facilitators even recognized a group of Alabama State University students who participated in a StoryCorps interview on opening day. At the close of the evening, Naomi was delighted to receive an autograph from young actor Nagee Clay, who attended the event dressed like a star. The poster now hangs proudly in the StoryCorps GriotBooth.

For the past month StoryCorps Griot has been zigzagging through the red clay roads of Dixie. This week we spent a couple days in Boykin, Alabama in a community known as Gee’s Bend. The women of Gee’s Bend have become famous for their quilt work. Despite the attention they have received it seems like little has changed in this small community. My co-facilitator John and I were deeply touched by the hospitality we received. Out in the country far from stores and restaurants, the women of Boykin took good care of us. For two young men on the road, far from home, nothing comforts like good home-cooked treats. I had as many slices as I could of the best sweet potato pie I’ve ever tasted. If I had to choose between Mary Lee’s sweet potato pie and Mary Ann’s cake, it would be a hard decision. I would have to try both again and again!

Mayor Sam Jones of Mobile, AL

After weeks of wandering along the rambling roads of the Deep South we rolled into the port city of Mobile, Alabama. The stories shared by Griot participants revealed the day-to-day dynamics of a semi-industrial port community. They also reflected the collective experience of systematic exclusion from the electoral process and city government. African Americans in Mobile did not achieve any representation in city government until 1985. It was taxation without representation. Griot participant Sam Jones is Mobile’s first African American mayor. He was elected in 2005 and is currently serving in his first term. The Honorable Samuel Jones owes his accomplishment, in part, to men like James H. Finley and others like him who gave their lives for the health and well being of their community, setting a bold example of possibility. Read the rest of this entry »

After work, Mike and I hit the streets of Mobile for a little Mardi Gras fun. Think Mardi Gras and New Orleans immediately comes to mind, but Mobile proudly lays claim to the first Mardi Gras. The party began in 1703 after French soldiers survived a bout of Yellow Fever. The advent of the Civil War postponed the tradition for years, but it was revived in 1866 when Confederate veteran Joe Cain marched the streets of Mobile dressed as the fictional Chickasaw Indian Chief Slacabamorinico in tribute to that tribe’s sustained resistance to federal troops. Others joined and history was made. A considerably smaller, family-oriented affair, Mobile still manages to fill the streets with floats, people, beads and moonpies. Joe Cain may have died in 1904 but his legacy is celebrated each Mardi Gras with “The People’s Parade” on Joe Cain Day.

Facilitators Mike Rauch and John White celebrated Martin Luther King, Jr. Day by attending a memorial service at Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church. Dr. King was a pastor at the church, which played a central role in the Montgomery Bus Boycotts. After the memorial service, Mike and John enjoyed a parade on Dexter Avenue that included local schools, organizations, regular everyday folks and even a bus that stopped and picked up passengers along the way.

Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church built in 1914.

The Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church was formed in 1870 in a small community near Tuskegee University known today as Notasulga, Alabama. By 1914 the congregation had bought 4 acres of land and completed building a church and the Shiloh-Rosenwald School. The school was completed with financial assistance from the Rosenwald Fund. Endowed by Julius Rosenwald CEO and co-owner of Sears Roebuck & Co., the Rosenwald Fund, was the result of a historic partnership between Rosenwald and Booker T. Washington. With design and engineering help from faculty at Tuskegee Institute, the fund paid for the construction of over 5,000 school facilities from Maryland to Texas. Shiloh’s Rosenwald School was one of six constructed during the inaugural phase of the project. It’s estimated that, at one time, the schools were capable of accommodating the needs of 1/3 of all African American school children in the South. Memories of these schools are colored with a strong sense of pride. In areas with little or no resources and zero state spending, they provided a formidable education to the children who attended.

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No trip to Alabama would be complete without a stop in Tuskegee, Alabama. Evolving from the Negro Normal School in Tuskegee to Tuskegee Institute to Tuskegee University, the school and namesake community have had an intertwining history of great achievement and intellectual prosperity. Under the leadership of Booker T. Washington, Tuskegee rose to national prominence. StoryCorps Griot participant Jimmy Johnson described the Tuskegee community and legacy by comparing Booker T. Washington to the other great luminary of his era, W.E.B. DuBois. DuBois was committed to fighting for total equality, including the right to vote, in the courts. DuBois argued the legal system was the best path. Washington, on the other hand rationalized that if African Americans could achieve intellectual and economic success through ownership and prosperity in business, science, and the trades, equality could not be denied; you cannot be denied what you have achieved yourself. Johnson explains that Washington was saying: succeed intellectually and financially and they will beg you for your vote. Communities like Tuskegee and Mound Bayou, Mississippi are bold examples. It could be argued that history proved that both ideologies were part and parcel of the same path.

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