Connections: Oral History By Valerie J. Janesick

after re-reading the text i thought about what it would mean to each of us to have our story told in a way as to reflect our own personal thoughts and beliefs as explained and understood by another hopfully opposing person.  or maybe i meant our controversal thoughts and beliefs, if this was so maybe we would make some important connects in resolving some of our world issues.
when reading this i noted that the author said that she uses poerty to reflect a persons views in some of her Stories, this touched me emincly as i enjoy writing poerty as a way to express my views and yes, sometimes my opinions.
I know that throught out history there were are oral histories that needed to be told, shakespearean time and in many African cultures families (esspecially weathy families) had their own story tellers (called Griots). so i see the importances of this.
how ever as we processed into the future we increased our options of genres, however i personally am not in favor of most things visional (other then readings)  i just think (visional) video things limits our imagnation. 
many years ago i started to listen to audio books: i now own over three hundred titles, and have borrowed another hundred or more from libraries all over the U.S, i learned that this allows you to hear and invision a life or experience that you wouldn't otherwise imagine.
one of the first historial tapes i listened to was an oral history called " THE SUBSTANCE OF THINGS HOPED FOR."  about Samuel D. Proctor:  An African -American  Preacher, college Professor, college administrator, and Associate Director of the Peace Corp. if my life could be told via my choice of techinques it would be audio, i would like for someone to lay back with their eyes closed, and imagine what it was like for me. what my house, kids, etc looked like rather then seeing picture.

How far are we from jim crow laws?

a rose by any other name...

Below is a clip from a news story 12-1-11, from Associated Press.

 

Stella Harville and her fiancé, Ticha Chikuni are seen in Richmond, Ky., in a November 2010 photo provided by Stella Harville. Stella’s childhood church in Pike County, Kentucky, the Gulnare Free Will Baptist Church, voted to ban interracial couples from becoming members at the church after the pair sang a song during a visit to the church over the summer. (AP Photo/Stella Harville)

Legal issues

Jim Crow Laws: so of the most oppressive laws to ever be in affect are the Jim crow laws, these were a group of laws compiled by most of the southern states in the United States. they were laws that effected the personal lives of both blacks and whites however they were inforced only against the blacks or Nergoes.

these were laws that said your money is as good as anyones else so yes, you can pay us, you can buy our goods at the same price or more but you can not share space and time with us as you do it.

there were issue like if you were an African-American you can pay to ride our bus, but you must come to the front and put your money in, go back out and enter the back door and sit in the back of the bus, and if the bus is full you are mandated to give your seat up to a white rider. most of us know this story, we also know that Rosa Parks refuse to give up her seat and thus started the Bus strike of Alabama. however Jim Crow Laws ran further and deeper then that. many people don't know that one of the greatest Blues and Jazz Singers died because of a Jim Crow Law.

Blues singer Bessie Smith (aka)  "Empress of the blues"  the highest paid Black entertainer in the 1920's was leaving a club when she was in an automobile accident, there was a call for an ambulance when it arrive there were white EMT's who refuse to treat or transport the singer because she was African-American and no one told them. the second call out for an ambulance driven by a black driver, that took Ms. Smith to a black Hospital futher out then the white only hospital when she had lost so much blood and died with out regaining conscienceness. 

These laws went so far as to out-law the promotion of equality between black and white, so far as to say that even after you are dead blacks could not be buried in the same cemetaries, and white's could not be handled by black undertakers.

It was these oppressings that facilitated the civil right movements. These laws started in the 1800's as the Black codes and were late enacted as Jim crow laws in the 1880's and was enforced until the civil right act of 1964 and the voting rights of 1965.

amongst the states that had interracial marriage laws were; Fla., Miss., Az.,Missouri,  Georgia,  Maryland and Wyoming. Check out my Next blog and tell me have we really changed that much?