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ASALH: Reflections on African American History
Michelle Duster, great-grand daughter of the freedom fight-
er Ida B. Wells-Barnett, who has put together books for
irst there was Bill. He drove us in his taxi from the young people called “Ida in her Own Words.” Michelle is
Pittsburgh airport and welcomed us with a generous leading an effort to build a monument to the memory of Ida
spirit to a new experience: The 97th meeting of the B. Wells-Barnett. This monument is of special importance
Association for the Study of African American Life and since the housing project in Chicago built in 1941 that bore
History. It was my first visit to this conference, but ASALH her name is now closed. Michelle has raised $50,000 of a
has been with us for almost a century. Based in Washington, projected $300,000 to build a fitting artistic monument to
D.C., and founded by the eminent historian, Carter G. her great-grandmother, information about which is avail-
Woodson in the mid-1920s, ASALH brought us Black His- able at www.idabwellsmonument.org.
tory Month and a consistent forum for community-based
Everything about this meeting was both historic and per-
and scholarly research. The
sonal; in that connection was
celebration that will come
its power. I was able to greet
with ASALH’s centennial is
Sonia Sanchez and tell her
“ Say We Are Here: Culture, Community and
something to be celebrated far
personally how much I loved
Activism across Four Generations of Black
and wide. What better time
her. I thanked her for being on
Oregonians ,” drawn from the Verdell A. Burdine
than now to plan for an Ore-
the PSU campus in the early
gon presence at this important
and Otto G. Rutherford Family Collection, opened
70s, reading her poetry, and
marker in our history?
again in the early 1980s, when
on Sept. 24 and will run through December at PSU’s
I attended this meeting to
she addressed the National
Library. A special celebration and panel discussion
participate in an author’s sign-
Black United Front Conven-
will be held on Nov. 8 at 5:30 pm.
ing event for my book,
tion which met in Portland at
published last year, “Remem-
Vancouver Avenue Baptist
bering the Power of Words.”
Church. I also was able to
My book was especially welcomed because the theme of personally thank another of my sheroes, Paula Giddings, at
the meeting was “Black Women in American Culture and a lunch Patricia arranged for the three of us. Paula Giddings
History.” My co-author, Patricia Schechter, and I were just wrote the acclaimed book, “When and Where I Enter: The
one pair among 62 authors of books whose titles and stories Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America,”
I found stirring, like that of Shirley Sherrod, “The Courage back in 1984, a book that I and so many others read avidly
to Hope: How I Stood up to the Politics of Fear” and of and have treasured for many years. By way of thanks, I
by Avel L. Gordly
F
Page 8 The Portland Skanner October 3, 2012
The author signing books at the Association for the
Study of African American Life and History
convention
gave her a copy of my own book. I attended a very special
commemorative panel put together by the Association of
Black Women Historians which honored the “Founders of
the Field,” who started the organization 33 years ago in
1979. Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, emeritus Professor History of
Morgan State University, warmly greeted Patricia and me.
We had met earlier this year in Berkeley, Calif., at another
history conference and we all delighted in the momentum of
our learning and sharing now renewed at ASALH. Terborg-
Penn and her colleague Darlene Clark Hine of
Northwestern University, are the co-editors of “The Ency-
clopedia of Black Women in America,” now in its second
edition. At this session, a special memory of my education-
al experience at Harvard back in the 90s with Judge A. Leon
Higginbotham, Jr., was evoked by the remarks of his
widow, the accomplished Harvard historian Evelyn Brooks
Higginbotham. She told her audience a story about discov-
ering the archive that went into her book about Nannie
Helen Burroughs and the women of the Black Baptist
church. Higginbotham more or less bumped into all the
boxes stored in Burroughs’ school, still operating in Wash-
ington D.C., when she was a young graduate student at
Howard University in the early 1980s. Her story under-
scored the importance of talking to community elders,
preserving our documentation, and sharing our stories.
Each expert, scholar, and artist at the sessions that I attend-
ed talked about black women who answered the call to
activism with an enduring passion for justice.
At a panel on “The Importance of Having African Amer-
ican Archivists Process the Collections of African
Americans,” a number of things stood out for me. First, the
presentations affirmed and confirmed that the work we are
doing to preserve our history in Oregon is of vital impor-
tance. We are accomplishing this work in the Oregon Black
Pioneers organization, based in Salem, at the Portland State
University Library, where the Rutherford (and Gordly)
papers reside, and at Oregon Historical Society, which host-
ed Vancouver Avenue Baptist Church’s exhibit in 2009 and
will soon open a new display on Black Pullman Porters in
the Pacific Northwest.
October is National Archives
Month, the theme of which this year is, “The Power of Col-
laboration.” How fitting that African American history is
moving forward in exactly such ways in our community.
And how important it is that we continue to expand this
work and bring as many people across generations and
neighborhoods together to do it. The exhibit “Say We Are
Here: Culture, Community and Activism across Four Gen-
erations of Black Oregonians,” drawn from the Verdell A.
Burdine and Otto G. Rutherford Family Collection, opened
on Sept. 24 and will run through December at PSU’s
Library. A special celebration and panel discussion will be
held on Nov. 8 at 5:30 pm. You are warmly invited to these
events. Bring a friend. Bring a neighbor. Bring a family
member, old or young, and get involved. It is an amazing
journey from the past into the future, through our shared
present.
At the end of our weekend in Pittsburgh, there was Bill,
again. He had given us his card when he dropped us off at
the hotel and invited us to call him when the conference was
over. During that first drive across the city that he knew so
well, Bill spoke with special love of his eight children and
eight grandchildren. “I can catch all my kids!” he proudly
told us, as he regaled us with little snapshots of himself,
their “Pap-Pap,” enjoying everything from swimming, to
bicycling, to skateboarding with his kids. “It doesn’t mat-
ter if I fall down a lot or even just stand around and watch
them,” he noted, “they just want me there.” Bill’s devotion
and genuine presence with his family struck me. I was
touched when he brought his wife and one daughter with
him to see us off at the end of the weekend. “Now you
know my heart,” he said as we hugged good bye.