In
December 2015, I visited the “Senior’s Enjoy Reading” book club during the
holiday season and presented them with a “Library Summer Reading” tote
bag containing three brand new books for each member of the club donated by the
Haverford Library Staff. The book club members were surprised when Marvin
DeBose (Haverford Branch Supervisor) walked into their monthly book club
meeting at the West Philly Senior Community Center located 41st&
Popular St. in the West Philly Section of Philadelphia with a bag containing
their gifts.
The
“Seniors Enjoy Reading “ book club operates out of the West Philly Senior
Community Center. My job, as their advisor, is to assist this group with
selecting good titles to read and helping them in acquiring enough copies so
that the seniors can borrow the books for free through the “Free Library
of Philadelphia”. Many of book club members are in their mid-70s age-range.
Mrs. Gloria Persia, one of the Free Library most beloved patrons, is the
group's leader. She takes on the responsibly of selecting the titles
for each month and drives to Haverford Branch to pick up the
books for the group. Without her dedication, many of these elderly members
would not be able to receive their books. Mrs. Persia and I have been
collaborating for the last four years to keep this book club running strong. Mr.Philly Librarian
Oprah
Winfrey's OWN cable network is developing stages a mini-series documenting one
of the ugliest and least known chapters in United States history. Oprah is
re-telling the story of the "Tulsa
Riot of 1921". It was once
known as "Black Wall Street”. Some of America's most prominent lived in
Tulsa, just north of downtown. There were black owned grocery store, clothing stores,
theaters and restaurants, but with a few minutes, it was all destroyed. The growth
of the oil industry made Tulsa, Oklahoma a rich town by 1921. Its predominantly
black section, Greenwood, achieved a level of wealth that earned its name as
the "Negro Wall Street of America." African Americans comprised
about 12 % of the overall population. Whites’ responded violently to the
accomplishment of African Americans began organizing "whipping
parties" that arbitrarily assaulted blacks on a daily basis.
Tulsa Riot of 1921,that devastated some 40 city blocks in the
mostly-black Greenwood district of Tulsa, Oklahoma. There had
also been several lynching in the vicinity of Tulsa, a major Ku Klux Klan hub,
and blacks armed themselves for protection. The riot of 1921 was the
culmination of these racial tensions.
In 1921, a 19 year old
black man named Dick Rowland took a break from his downtown job as a shoe
shiner to use the restroom at the top of a nearby building. Sarah Page, a 17
year old white girl who was operating the elevator there, claimed that Rowland assaulted
her. Rowland was arrested the following day and incarcerated at the local courthouse.
Before the incident had
been investigated, the May 31 Tulsa Tribune reported that Rowland, who was
identified only by his color, "attacked Page, scratching her hands and
face, and tearing her clothes off." That evening, a crowd of whites began
to gather outside the courthouse in response to the paper's assertion that
Rowland was going to be lynched.
The sheriff tried
unsuccessfully to disperse the crowd, which by 10:30 PM had grown to nearly
2000. A group of 50 to 75 armed black men, who previously had been turned away,
returned to the courthouse to help the sheriff defend Rowland.
One of the white
men tried to disarm one of the blacks, a shot was fired, and the two groups
opened fire. Vastly outnumbered, the blacks retreated to Greenwood.
Records kept by the Red Cross estimate that "1115 houses and businesses
belonging to black people had been burned down, and that another 314 had been looted".
Sarah Page refused to prosecute
Dick Rowland: follow-up investigation found that Rowland had stumbled into the
girl as he was getting off the elevator, and all charges were dropped.
What’s so unbelievable with
the Tulsa Riot of 1921 is that
all these people lost their life and all those business and homes that
were destroyed based on a LIE. Mr.Philly Librarian
Bibliography
Scott
Ellsworth, Death in a Promised Land: The Tulsa Race Riot of 1921 (Baton
Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1982).
John
Hope Franklin and Scott Ellsworth, eds., The Tulsa Race Riot: A
Scientific, Historical and Legal Analysis (Oklahoma City: Tulsa Race
Riot Commission, 2000).
Eddie
Faye Gates, They Came Searching: How Blacks Sought the Promised Land in
Tulsa (Austin, Tex.: Eakin Press, 1997).
Loren
L. Gill, "The Tulsa Race Riot" (M.A. thesis, University of
Tulsa, 1946).
Robert
N. Hower, "Angels of Mercy": The American Red Cross and the
1921 Tulsa Race Riot (Tulsa, Okla.: Homestead Press, 1993).
Mary
E. Jones Parrish, Events of the Tulsa Disaster (Tulsa, Okla.: Out
on a Limb Publishing, 1998).
Stilettos in the Sun is the story of Roberto Davila, a young
engineer-mathematician from Panama. As a boy, his parents send him to live with
an uncle and his family in Philadelphia. He is full of trepidation, having
never lived outside his hometown, Colon. He spends his days musing over happier
times, writing poems and songs as a way to assuage his longing. If his accent and his being handsome are not
enough to make the boys dislike him, he is a diligent student and excels in his
studies. He finds that while one can be as smart as he wants in the classroom,
he still has the labyrinth of dangerous streets to negotiate.
The story soon moves to Baton Rouge,
Louisiana, where Roberto is a college student. The story takes twists with the
romances he has, one of which is with Euridice, a beautiful and bright
Venezuelan woman. They study and live together, until graduation, when she
returns to Venezuela with her parents, who discourage any further association
with Roberto, as he is too dark, notwithstanding his achievements and ambition.
Roberto throws himself into his studies,
continuing through to his PhD in mathematics. Another short-lived relationship,
with Isabel, ends with her death. Back in Philadelphia for a visit, he once
again meets Yolanda, with whom he has had an on-again, off-again relationship.
They rekindle the romance.
But back in Baton Rouge, he falls for another
woman. Then, on assignment in Kazakhstan, he meets a Turkish professor and is
smitten by her in every way. They make arrangements to meet in Istanbul. In
Kazakhstan, he meets several other women who bring to light the ambivalence he
harbors: He cannot make up his mind. This confluence of females leaves him in a
quandary. He travels to Istanbul, having decided on Sarah, the history
professor. But once there he discovers that Sarah has promised to marry an
Argentinean doctor.This book is a great Read, check it out!Mr.Philly Librarian
Lewis,Tony Jr.
& Reeves,K.L. (2015)Slugg:
A Boy's Life in the Age of Mass Incarceration. Paperback |Hanover
Place Press|
ISBN: 978-0-692-43157-3 | $9.99 |257 Pages
Slugg: A Boy's Life in the Age of Mass Incarceration is a
blueprint for survival and a demonstration of the power of love, sacrifice, and
service. The son of a Kingpin and the prince of a close-knit crime family, Tony
Lewis Jr.'s life took a dramatic turn after his father's arrest in 1989.
Washington D.C. stood as the murder capital of the country and Lewis was cast
into the heart of the struggle, from a life of stability and riches to one of
chaos and poverty. How does one make it in America, battling the breakdown of
families, the plague of premature death and the hopelessness of being reviled,
isolated, and forgotten? Tony Lewis' astonishing journey answers these
questions and offers, for the first time, a close look at the familial residue
of America's historic program of mass incarceration – From the back
cover of the book
"Tony Lewis Jr could have easily taken up the life of crime by being the son of a Washington D.C. Drug kingpin who is in prison for life, but he decided otherwise. Tony Jr. has travel on the highway many days & nights to visits different family member that are incarcerated in State or Federal prison but, he was determine not to become a statistic of the jail system!" This book is a MUST Read!Mr.Philly Librarian
