June Celebrations
Our family is celebrating four special days this month: one wedding anniversary, two birthdays, and one Father’s Day with three honorees. Thirty years …
Proud Shoes
Proud Shoes is the first book I’ve read that presents the Civil War and its aftermath from the viewpoint of a free Black …
St. Augustine 2021
St. Augustine, the oldest city in the United States, is a place Steve and I love to visit. We first went there …
Height of Wisdom
Dr. Dorothy Height was a woman who knew how to get things done. The headquarters building of the National Council of Negro …
Remembering Marie
Today, March 18, 2021, marks 100 years since the birth of my mother-in-law, Marie Barnard Smith Lilly, in Pampa TX. She died …
Finding Repose
Wallace Stegner’s novel, Angle of Repose, is a powerful portrait of pioneers in the Western United States in the years 1876-90, during …
Heart of a Woman
Florence Price was the first Black woman composer to have a work performed by a major symphony orchestra. The Chicago Symphony played her …
The Hill We Climb
After the appalling assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6, I was worried about what might happen two weeks later at …
New Year’s Greetings
Our family greeted 2021 with gratitude for good health and with high hopes for getting vaccinations soon. We hope that you, too, …
Florida Evil Exposed
An evil institution festered in Florida for more than a hundred years. The Dozier School for Boys in Marianna was founded in …