MIA - Book Fair Issue

AN INDEPENDENT SUPPLEMENT BY MIA MEDIA & COMMUNICATIONS GROUP TO THE MIAMI HERALD

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019

SIGN of

THE TIMES

New Book Reveals How Garth C. Reeves Sr. & Family Used Publication as Agent for Social Change

Featured Authors Inside: Hanif Abdurraqib Jericho Brown Edwidge Danticat Marilyn Holifield & Family Ibram Kendi Damon Young

CELEBRATING

Garth Reeves Sr. NOVEMBER 17 - 24, 2019 AND ALL YEAR ROUND

THE MIAMI BOOK FAIR ISSUE

O F EXCELLENCE

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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019

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AN INDEPENDENT SUPPLEMENT BY MIA MEDIA & COMMUNICATIONS GROUP TO THE MIAMI HERALD

EDITOR’S NOTE

TABLE OF CONTENTS 4. DO & DINE: Experience Overtown 6. ‘HOW TO BE AN ANTIRACIST’

RESHAPES IDEALS ABOUT

RACISM IN AMERICA

By Tameka Bradley Hobbs

8.

COVER STORY New Book Recognizes ‘Miami Times’ for Serving as Advocate for Social Change, Securing Chapter in US History

By William T. McGee

10. POETS JERICO BROWN

AND HANIF ABDURRAQIB

RAISE CONSCIOUSNESS OF

RACE, RELIGION AND SOCIAL BURDENS

There’s a certain privilege that comes with sitting down with a living legend who’s a centenarian and having a candid conversation about his grand life and the not-so-certain future.

Garth C. Reeves Sr., publisher emeritus of The Miami Times who turned 100 in February, is now in the history books.

In full disclosure, The Miami Times and the Fight for Equality is written by this magazine’s copy editor, Yanela G. McLeod, Ph.D. (See book review on page 8.) She examines how the newspaper served as a conduit for social change at a time when Jim Crow laws ruled the South. But as Reeves told me from his formal living room, overlooking Biscayne Bay near North Miami, he initially had his sights set on becoming an engineer, not a journalist. However, his father Henry E. S. Reeves, an immigrant from the Bahamas who founded the Times in 1923, had other plans for Garth.

“I really wanted to build bridges,” recalled Reeves who,

as a young man, was awestruck by the Seven Mile Bridge to Key West. “But dad said you got a newspaper to run. You don’t have time for bridges, son. But I’m glad the way it turned out.”

Reeves assumed the day-to-day operations of the Times in 1940 after graduating from Florida A&M University. While he’s no longer physically a force in his newsroom, these days he’s pondering the future of the 93-year-old black publication and how it will compete and survive in the 21st century.

“I got some ideas but I don’t know if they’ll be fulfilled,” said Reeves, who reads two local newspapers and the New York Times each morning. “I’d like to see the paper become more graphic, more [photographers] taking pictures. I’d also like to see it published three times a week.”

Garth remains heartbroken over the recent death of his only surviving child Rachel Reeves, 69, who served as the newspaper’s publisher. The question now is where does the Times go from here?

“I’m ready to lay my burden down,” Reeves said. “Glory, glory hallelujah.”

Russell Motley Legacy Editor-in-Chief rm@miamediagrp.com

By Darius Daughtry

12. EDWIDGE DANTICAT

CELEBRATES THE MAGIC OF

‘MOMMY MEDICINE’

By Nadege Green

‘SEVEN SISTERS AND A

BROTHER’ HONORS ACTIVISM

OF SWARTHMORE COLLEGE ALUMNI

By Josie Gilliksen

14. CRITIC DAMON YOUNG

EXPLORES THE BATTLES THAT

COME WITH BEING BLACK

By William Hobbs

SUPPORT OUR ADVERTISERS

• The Florida Lottery • Overtown CRA • Commisioner Audrey Edmonson • Commissioner Keon Hardemon • Commisioner Barbara Jordon • Commissioner Jean Monestime • Commisioner Dennis Moss

Subscribe to and view the digital version of Legacy Magazine and view additional articles at http://bitly.com/legacymagazines Facebook: Facebook.com/TheMIAMagazine Twitter and Instagram: @TheMIAMagazine #BeInformed #BeInfluential #BlackHistoryMonth CREDO OF THE BLACK PRESS

“The Black Press believes that America can best lead the world away from racial and national antagonisms when it accords to every one regardless of race, color or creed, full human and legal rights. Hating no person, fearing no person, the Black Press strives to help every person in the firm belief that all hurt as long as anyone is held back.”

Dexter A. Bridgeman CEO & Founder Russell Motley Editor-in-Chief Yanela G. McLeod Copy Editor Shannel Escoffery Director of Operations Sabrina Moss-Solomon Graphic Designer

Member of the Black Owned Media Alliance (BOMA)

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DO & DINE:

Experience Overtown

HOUSE OF WINGS MIAMI 1039 N.W. 3rd Avenue Miami, FL 33136 www.houseofwingsmiami.com Wings, wings, wings is this establishments forte.

Offering 60+ plus flavors of chicken wings with a choice of grilled or fried seafood.

2 GUYS RESTAURANT 1490 N.W. 3rd Avenue Miami, FL 33136 Have a lunch date at 2 Guys and order from their assortment of sandwich wraps!

The downtown metropolis of Miami is a community of heritage, culture and entertainment. One of the oldest black neighborhoods in downtown Miami, the district of Overtown, is a place to get the true essence of black Miami. Formally known as “Colored Town,” it was the place where blacks (Cubans and Bahamians alike) lived, worked, lodged and entertained during the segregation period because they were not allowed on places like Miami Beach.

Fast forward 60 years or so, times have changed and people have moved on to revitalize the now historic district with art, food and fanfare for both locals and tourists to enjoy and experience. From family activities, delectable restaurants and historic tours, here’s a listing of where to go and what to do to — “Experience Overtown.”

PLACES TO EAT: JACKSON SOUL FOOD 950 NW 3rd Avenue, Miami, FL 33136 www.jacksonsoulfood.com Established in 1946, this comfort style soul food restaurant is the one of the go to places in the Overtown community.

It serves as a foundation for a lineage of first-class establishments. Their fish and grits breakfast platter is enough for two to share.

LIL GREENHOUSE GRILL 1300 NW 3rd Avenue, Miami, FL 33136 www.lilgreenhousegrill.com In the heart of Overtown, this edgy neo-soul restaurant satisfies all your tastes buds especially if you are a foodie.

Try their much talked about BBQ Ribs and Collard Greens.

GROOVIN’ BEAN COFFEE BAR & LOUNGE 801 NW 3rd Avenue, Miami, FL 33136 Overtown based coffee shop serving in-house roasted coffee, along with other beans from various regions of the world. The café offers a full line of coffee drinks, baked goods from SoBe cakes, specialty beignets and tapas menu for breakfast and lunch.

THE URBAN 1121 NW 2nd Avenue, Miami, FL 33136 @TheUrbanMia • www.theurban.miami The Urban is a new 58,000 square foot market place and public venue; offering soulfully curated cocktails and menu items.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019

MRS. MOORE’S BAKERY 122 N.W. 14th Street Miami, FL 33136 www.mrsmooresbakery.com Mrs. Moore’s Bakery is a family-owned and operated bakery.

Mrs. Moore started baking with her mother and offers a variety of delicious cakes and sweet potato pie.

RED ROOSTER OVERTOWN 920 NW 2nd Avenue Miami, FL 33136 www.RedRoosterHarlem.com Red Rooster Overtown serves comfort food that celebrates the roots of American cuisine and the neighborhood’s diverse culinary traditions created by celebrity Chef Marcus Samuelsson. The restaurants opens Jan 2020.

PLACES TO GO:

BLACK ARCHIVES HISTORIC LYRIC THEATER CULTURAL COMPLEX 819 N.W. 2nd Avenue, Miami, FL 33136 www.bahlt.org A 400-seat theater and multifaceted facility featuring high-quality performances, it is the lone survivor of the district once known as “Little Broadway,” which flourished in Overtown for almost 50 years. The theater served as a movie and vaudeville venue, and showcased more than 150 performers, including Aretha Franklin, Count Basie, B.B. King, Redd Foxx and Ella Fitzgerald.

HISTORIC BLACK POLICE PRECINCT AND COURTHOUSE MUSEUM 480 N.W. 11th Street, Miami, FL 33136 www.historicalblackprecinct.org The Black Police Precinct was built in 1950 to provide a separate and segregated headquarters for Black officers.

The building is unique as there is no other known structure in the nation that was designed, devoted to and operated as a separate station house and municipal court for Blacks.

THE PURVIS YOUNG MURAL Metrorail Bypass 11street N.W. 3rd Avenue Miami, FL 33136 www.purvisyoung.com Purvis Young was a notable self-taught artist from Overtown.

Often classified as a folk artist, you can find much of his artwork within Miami and at institutions such as Smithsonian American Art Museum and the High Museum of Art.

HISTORIC D.A. DORSEY HOUSE MUSEUM 819 N.W. 2nd Avenue Miami, FL 33136 The Historic D.A. Dorsey House is the former home of Dana A. Dorsey, Miami’s first black millionaire.

HAMPTON ART LOVERS 249 NW 9th Street Miami, FL 33136 www.HamptonArtLovers.com An art gallery, exhibition event space programmed and operated by Hampton Art Lovers.

SPACE CALLED TRIBE CO-WORK AND INNOVATION LAB 937 N.W. 3rd Avenue Miami, FL 33136 www.spacecalledtribe.com If you have to send a quick email while touring Historic Overtown or to meet fellow entrepreneurs in the area, this is the place to be.

EBENE HAIR & SKIN CARE ESSENTIALS 1036 NW 3rd Ave Miami, FL 33136 Hand made skin and hair care products made with the finest ingredients available to ensure the highest quality of skin and hair care products to their customers.

THINGS TO DO: THE URBAN MARKETPLACE Weekly Friday and Saturday Marketplace 1306 North Miami Avenue Miami, FL 33136 www.onthebside.com A weekly two-day (Friday & Saturday) curated event featuring local artisans, one-of-a-kind items, culinary treats, and entertainment.

NEW WASHINGTON HEIGHTS FOLKLIFE FRIDAY Every First Friday of the Month 9th Street Pedestrian Mall N.W. 9th Street and 2nd Avenue Miami, FL 33136 LYRIC LIVE MONTHLY AMATEUR NIGHT SHOWCASE Every First Friday of the Month Historic Lyric Theater 819 N.W. 2nd Avenue, Miami, FL 33136 The Black Archives presents a monthly interactive talent showcase featuring a local comedian as host, a live band, DJ, and the Bahamian Junkanoo serving as the sandman to usher less favored contestants off the stage with a unique Miami flair.

EBENE SKIN & HAIR CARE PRODUCTS At Ebene, products are made by hand using the finest ingredients available to ensure the highest quality of skin and hair care products to their customers. Mixing together nature’s best oils, butters, herbs, and essential oils, the store offers distinctive skin and hair care products. The flagship store is located in Historic Overtown.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019

AN INDEPENDENT SUPPLEMENT BY MIA MEDIA & COMMUNICATIONS GROUP TO THE MIAMI HERALD

EXPERIENCE THE RICH HISTORY, ART AND CULTURE OF HISTORIC OVERTOWN AT THE

9th ANNUAL HISTORIC

OVERTOWN SOUL BASEL WEEK It is the premier showcase of Black art from world-renowned and emerging artisans during Miami’s Art Basel week.

Visit an array of exhibitions, pop-up galleries, art talks and special events.

To see full Soul Basel program of events and art exhibitions please visit

www.ExperienceOvertown/SoulBasel

CHECK OUT THE AUTHORS FEATURED AT SOUL BASEL 2019!

Indaba Art Conversations with Dr. Michael Eric Dyson| | 6:00 P.M.-8:00 P.M. Book Signing “Jay Z: Made in America” Limited Edition Prints by Everett Dyson

The Copper Door Bed & Breakfast announces an historic photo exhibit focused on pin- up and glamour photographer Bunny Yeager’s work with African American and Caribbean models of color.

Exhibition Hours | DECEMBER 2-DECEMBER 8 , 11:00 A.M.-7:00 P.M.

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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019

‘How to Be an Antiracist’ Reshapes Ideals about Racism in America

E

BY TAMEKA BRADLEY HOBBS

arlier this year, I attended a program at a church in honor of Martin Luther King Jr. People filled the sanctuary and a lovely tribute unfolded.

Everything was fine until the keynote speaker, a minister in his thirties, took the mic and began to take down Black people.

He castigated Black children who knew rap lyrics but underperformed in school. He moved on to a heated critique of the Black Lives Matter movement: “If we want Black lives to matter, they first have to matter to us.”

A line or two about the non-phenomenon of “Black-on-Black crime” followed. The audience, comprised mainly of older, well-heeled professionals, cheered.

A few minutes into the address, I stood and made my way to the door. I could not be party to this uninformed bloviation that failed to acknowledge the history and current state of the systemic issues that continue to hamper the advancement of Black people in America society, especially not on MLK Day. We are not the problem. Racism, in all the many formulations it has embodied over the centuries, was at the root.

Such is the subject of How to Be an Antiracist

by Ibram X. Kendi. Released in August, the work is a condensation of some of the key points in Kendi’s much longer book Stamped From the Beginning: A Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction in 2016.

Part memoir and part antiracist primer, Kendi candidly analyzes his own evolution on the topics of race and power. He begins with a rebuke of his 17-yearold self for a speech he gave as a high school senior.

In it, the young Kendi took the younger generation of African Americans, his generation, to task for failing to live up to the King’s famed Dream.

While he won the competition and the hearts of his audience, with the distance of time and sharpened analysis, Kendi acknowledges that “what came to my pen were all the racist ideas about Black youth behavior circulating in the 1990s….I started writing an anti-Black message that would have filled King with indignity.”

He had been a behavioral racist, ascribing to an entire generation of a race the failings of the few, just like the minister mentioned at the opening of this piece.

Much of How to be an Antiracist is an ode to the culture and scholarship of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, specifically what the author experienced as an undergraduate at Florida A&M University in Tallahassee.

Kendi counts his time at FAMU as a period of

Ibram X. Kendi

discovery and intellectual growth, enveloped in the beauty and diversity of the students, and the rhythm of campus life, not least of which included FAMU’s famed Marching 100. All this leads to an important but subtle point: Kendi’s writing and his personal success confirm not only the value of HBCUs, but their often-questioned ability to produce high-achieving alumni.

Some Black readers may look at a title of a book like this and conclude there isn’t anything in it for them.

Racism, we tend to think, is something of which White people are the main perpetrators. That assumption is incorrect.

The power of what Kendi delivers in this work, along with so many other scholars who are researching and writing in the area of antiracism (think Crystal Fleming and Ijeoma Oluo), is the power of an enriched analysis of the intersection of power, privilege, and race, which is more of a matrix than the pure hierarchy as it is so frequently framed. For Kendi, racism takes place on many planes—biological, bodily, culturally, sexually, and behaviorally.

Perhaps one of the most instructive chapters is titled, “Black.” In it, Kendi disabuses his audience of the notion that Black people can’t be racist. It is an oft-

repeated refrain in conversations about race and power, and one that I have used myself.

Kendi, in his keen analysis, lays bare the other side of that coin: “The powerless defense underestimates Black people and overestimates White people. It erases the small amount of Black power and expands the already expansive reach of White power.”

In truth, there have been increasing numbers of Black people who have been empowered as shot-callers and gatekeepers, and many who have used their position to advance the plight of the disempowered. Kendi is correct: the way we see and language examples of Black power can either work to highlight and expand the phenomenon, or deem it invisible, unachievable, or unrepeatable.

More than anything, the ideas in How to Be an Antiracist are vital for anyone working to dismantle racism in the 21st century. Racism is not a feeling. It is expressed and has its most powerful impact in policy.

To address policy and practice is to further the work of advancing racial inclusion in our society. This is the work that Kendi will continue as the founder and director of the Antiracist Research and Policy Center at American University in Washington, DC. In this book, Kendi has delivered the benefit of his humanitarian vision, shaped by a deep understanding of racial history and social science, replete with examples of successes and failures, that maps an inspiring way forward.

Tameka Bradley Hobbs, Ph.D., is associate provost for Academic Affairs, and associate professor of History at Florida Memorial University in Miami Gardens. She is the author of the award-winning book, Democracy Abroad, Lynching at Home: Racial Violence in Florida, published by the University Press of Florida in 2015. n

IBRAM X. KENDI Saturday, November 23, 10 a.m., Chapman & 4 p.m., Chapman

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019

“

AN INDEPENDENT SUPPLEMENT BY MIA MEDIA & COMMUNICATIONS GROUP TO THE MIAMI HERALD

I would like to commend publisher emeritus of The Miami Times

Garth C. Reeves Sr.

for being a pioneer in publishing, a living legend, and a powerful voice for the black community.

”

Miami-Dade County Commissioner Barbara J. Jordan District 1

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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019

COVER STORY

New Book Recognizes

‘MIAMI TIMES’

for Serving as Advocate for Social Change, Securing Chapter in US History Garth C. Reeves Sr.: “The only thing that makes the Black Press strong is a solid advertising base.”

Y

BY WILLIAM T. MCGEE

anela McLeod was a graduate student at Florida State University when she started digging into the legacy of the Miami Times, a historic blackowned newspaper, established in 1923. The result of McLeod’s nine-year research project and labor of love is The Miami Times and the Fight for Equality: Race, Sport, and the Black Press, 1948-1958 (Lexington Books, 2018). The book focuses on the civil rights activism of Times founder Henry E.S. Reeves and his son, longtime Times publisher Garth C. Reeves Sr., who were linchpins in the effort to integrate the city of Miami’s municipal golf course.

“The Miami Times is just a representative of so much that the Black Press has done for dignity and equality,” said McLeod, an educator, journalist and social historian who serves as director of Communications and Alumni Relations for the College of Social Sciences, Arts and Humanities at Florida A&M University, where she earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism. “What they were pulling off behind the scenes to try to grasp equality was incredible.”

McLeod, who earned both a Ph.D. in AfricanAmerican history and master’s degree in U.S. History from Florida State, said one of her proudest moments was sending a copy of the book as a gift to Garth C. Reeves Sr., in celebration of his 100th birthday in February. “Garth Reeves is 100 years old and he’s still fighting,” McLeod said. “This is an effort to preserve this history and make people aware of the story, but it’s also a way to say thank you.”

In her book’s “Acknowledgments,” McLeod offers a personal message to Reeves: “Our society is a much

better place because of your commitment to your community and to improved race relations. God’s continued blessing over your life.”

The primary focus of the book is the Times’ role in Rice v.

Arnold, a 1949 lawsuit filed by black professional golfers to desegregate Miami’s public golf course. Black patrons at the time were allowed to play at the course only once a week.

The Miami Springs Golf Course was desegregated after the city lost in appellate court on April 11, 1958. The case helped usher in the fall of Jim Crow at municipal courses across Florida.

McLeod served as senior reporter and associate editor for a Tallahassee black newspaper, the Capital Outlook, during the publishing tenure of influential columnist Roosevelt Wilson. Her research shows how, through editorial advocacy, community organizing and strategizing with local and national activists, the Times helped lay the groundwork for Rice v. Arnold and successfully navigated resistance efforts and legal challenges in an “organized movement to tear down an unjust symbol of domination and control.”

In addition to chronicling the celebrations and everyday concerns of black Miami residents, the Times galvanized a marginalized community struggling to secure equality following World War II in a city being marketed to Northerners and Europeans as a carefree destination for sports and leisure activities, McLeod shows.

Garth Reeves, who is now the Times’ publisher emeritus, said he’s proud of the stance his publication took, which ultimately helped break racial barriers. “If you give up ground, you’ve betrayed our forefathers,” Reeves recently told MIA magazine. “They didn’t give up ground.” Reeves, who as a young man helped his Bahamian father run the newspaper, took the helm as publisher and chief executive officer in 1970 after his father’s death. He retired in 1994 and handed the reins to his daughter, Rachel, who died in September. For now, Reeves says he looks forward to the renovation of his landmark newsroom and office building in Liberty City. Currently, the Times is being published from temporary offices during the construction.

McLeod, who is venturing into filmmaking, is currently working on producing a documentary about legendary FAMU head football coach Jake Gaither. She sees telling the story of the Times and other black publications as a calling. Among her long-term goals: a documentary that pays tribute to the Black Press in Florida. “The whole point is to enlighten people and increase awareness about the impact of black newspapers,” McLeod said. “I had to get this story out to the world.” To order the book, email yanelamcleod@gmail.com for complete details.

To order the book, contact the author at YanelaMcleod@gmail.com for complete details. n

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019

AN INDEPENDENT SUPPLEMENT BY MIA MEDIA & COMMUNICATIONS GROUP TO THE MIAMI HERALD

Congratulations, Garth Reeves Sr., on your amazing contributions to our community!

On behalf of Miami-Dade County, I salute you on your extraordinary life!

As a trail-blazing Black publisher and civil rights activist, you have advanced the cause of social justice in our community, and we salute you and thank you!

You are truly a living legend.

Sincerely,

Audrey M. Edmonson Miami-Dade Chairwoman

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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019

Poets Jericho Brown and Hanif Abdurraqib Raise Consciousness of Race, Religion and Social Burdens

I

BY DARIUS DAUGHTRY

n J.D. Salinger’s Catcher in the Rye, the enigmatic narrator/main character, Holden Caufield defiantly asks and answers, “Who wants flowers when you’re dead? Nobody.”

My grandmother, whenever Mother’s Day or her birthday comes around, echoes, “Give me my flowers while I’m here.”

In the most recent offerings by dynamic poets Hanif Abdurraqib and Jericho Brown, A Fortune for Your Disaster and The Tradition, respectively, the poets explore themes of life, death, love and reimagining oneself poignantly and pointedly in a manner that give flowers today without disregarding what it means to be plucked from the ground.

The front cover of Brown’s The Tradition is a slight glimpse into the many layers present in Brown’s third and latest collection. On the cover, a dark-skinned child is adorned with a crown of baby’s breath. The child, wearing a melancholic visage, stands in an idyllic field of flowers but there seems to be something brewing in the ocean behind. The waves ripple, possibly foreshadowing a danger to come. Brown’s poems are that ripple in the waves.

He expertly blends explorations of blackness, history, queerness and love with a deftness that mixes subtlety with unabashed truth.

In the poem Riddle, Brown takes aim at colonization when a personified America states:

…We use Maps we did not draw. We see A see so cross it.

We see a moon So land there.

We love land so Long as we can take it. Shhh...

Similarly to Brown’s powerful book, Abdurraqib’s newest collection also revels in both the personal and universal. He gives voice to cultural icons like Marvin Gaye, Michael Jordan, Nikola Tesla and the lesser-known songstress Merry Clayton while challenging what it means to be human, Black,

American, and in and out of love.

“This project is an exploration into the idea of reinvention,” Abdurraqib said in a recent phone interview. “It’s about how we define ourselves for ourselves.”

He also explains that the impetus behind the thirteen poems titled “How Can Black People Write About Flowers At a Time Like This” was that phrase coming from the overheard voice of “a white woman whispering to her friend at a reading of a black poet.”

Hearing her question led him to dive deep into the world of flowers and what it means to go beyond aesthetic admiration and come to terms with, like flowers picked and commoditized, having “a definitive end to your existence.”

Both of these books draw from the exterior to paint pictures that feel like conversations one would have with close friends or, more likely, themselves.

Like flowers, Brown and Abdurraqib’s poems show that beauty is often rooted in the dark and dirt of our histories – the trauma and transgressions buried beneath the surface.

Because, like Abdurraqib writes:

It is impossible to name the blood leashed to your own until you, like the orchid, fold into anything outside with skin close enough to yours and sprout a newer and more violent body. It is impossible to know what you’d kill. n

HANIF ABDURRAQIB Saturday, Nov. 23, 3:30 p.m., 2106

JERICHO BROWN Sun., Nov. 24, 2:30 p.m., Audit

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019

AN INDEPENDENT SUPPLEMENT BY MIA MEDIA & COMMUNICATIONS GROUP TO THE MIAMI HERALD

Mr. Reeves you are a pioneer and a trailblazer, a true example of a leader.

It is great to see that you are living your best life as a centenarian.

“If Oscars were given for a job well done, I would nominate you”.

Congratulations Mr. Garth Reeves Sr. on your success!

Commissioner Jean Monestime Miami-Dade County, District 2

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MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019

Edwidge Danticat Celebrates the Magic of ‘Mommy Medicine’

E

BY NADEGE GREEN

very mom knows the exact moment she has to shed ordinary-mom-mode and tap into her magical healing mom powers when her child is sick or just isn’t feeling their best.

It might be a cold, a broken toe or a mean bully at school. Healing Mom emerges with the power to soothe their little love bugs, no matter their age, with mommy kisses and cuddles, a pot of their lovingly-made favorite soup or one-on-one time playing a game of cards.

My Mommy Medicine, by author Edwidge Danticat, is a sweet ode to mothers everywhere who fix booboos, the physical and emotional kind.

In the everyday hustle and at times madness of motherhood, it’s can be easy to overlook the magic that

happens while we tend to and care for our children, but to them, these moments leave a lasting impression.

In My Mommy Medicine, Danticat places what can be missed as ordinary acts onto a celebratory pedestal for young readers and their mommies.

The narrator, a precious little brown-skinned girl, walks the reader through a myriad of ways her mommy makes her feel better: “Sometimes it’s a cuddly nose rub” and “sometimes it’s a silly dance.”

I read the book with my two sons, Jacob, 5, and Noah, 7. We went through each page, beautifully illustrated by cartoonist Shannon Wright in her first picture book debut.

As we read, my sons started talking about the many times I was their mommy medicine.

“Like when I broke my toe and you made me pumpkin soup, that’s mommy medicine,” Noah said.

Jacob added, “Mommy medicine is when mommy lets me sleep in her bed when I have a cold.”

Mommy medicine is all of those things. This is a delightful children’s book — and a pleasant reminder for

mothers and caregivers that their soothing powers are special.

In her author’s note, Danticat writes about her inspiration for this book, her daughters Mira and Leila.

She writes, “...whenever they weren’t feeling well, I would lavish them with what we called ‘Mommy Medicine.’” n

EDWIDGE DANTICAT Sat., Nov. 23, 1 p.m., 8301 Sun., Nov. 24, 11a.m., Audit; 1:30pm, Audit; 4:30 p.m., Wembley

‘Seven Sisters and a Brother’ Honors Activism of Swarthmore College Alumni

T

BY JOSIE GULLIKSEN

he history-making events at Swarthmore College in 1969 where eight students staged a sitin in hopes of increasing black student enrollment and administration is the subject of the book “Seven Sisters and a Brother,” set to be released on Dec. 12.

Joining forces with a strategic plan of action were: Marilyn Allman Maye, Harold S. Buchanan, Jannette O. Domingo, Joyce Frisby Baynes, Marilyn Holifield, Myra E. Rose, Bridget Van Gronigen Warren and Aundrea White Kelley. They were part of the Swarthmore Afro-American Student Society.

The group was inspired to write the book after Filmmaker Shayne Lightner, who was working on “Minding Swarthmore,” his 2014 film celebrating Swarthmore’s 150th Anniversary, reached out about including the sit-in in the film.

“Twenty minutes of the film

details the college’s black struggle,” said Marilyn Holifield, an attorney and partner with Holland & Knight.

“We began conducting research and interviews and gathering facts. We rolled up our sleeves and began doing the work.”

The college dubbing it the “Crisis of 1969” drew them into action, explained Holifield, who added the foot soldiers wanted to reveal their names and the names of decades of ensuing alumni because they felt “invisible to the media.”

The eight began meeting around 2013 when they pondered writing the book. They met and discussed their memories, both the visual and collective ones. “We had fun and were inspired trying to remember, especially nowadays when people are being encouraged to take ownership of their own stories and narrative,” Holifield said. “We felt we had to do the same with Swarthmore dating back to the 1960s.”

Over the next six years they met

in New Jersey and in Panama, via teleconference, at Garnett Weekend Swarthmore’s Homecoming and Swarthmore Black Alumni Network events.

“We exchanged thoughts on what we remembered about ourselves, each other, professors, different events and Swarthmore,” she said.

Divided into 12 chapters, the book recounts eight days, one chapter at a time, with an introduction detailing the plan and their uncertainty about how long the sit-in would last.

Choosing to include group-written and individual chapters, the book’s final structure came late in the process.

They all participated in writing, constructing and later reviewing the chapters.

Holifield said coming together to create this piece of history was a pleasure for all eight and helped them discover what they had in common as well as some differences.

“Creating the book was a source of inspiration bringing us together though

we all have busy lives,” she shared.

“It’s a source of immense pride and joy, what we created collectively.”

Their eight-day sit-in helped increase the number of black students at the college by the following year. In 1970, students pushed for and received a Black Cultural Center. Later, a Black Studies program was established, and the first- black admissions dean and black counselor were hired. n

MARILYN HOLIFIELD Sat., Nov. 23, Sat., Nov. 23, 11 a.m., 8203

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019

AN INDEPENDENT SUPPLEMENT BY MIA MEDIA & COMMUNICATIONS GROUP TO THE MIAMI HERALD

Through the years, you have been an agent for change throughout our community.

I sincerely thank you for your service.

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AN INDEPENDENT SUPPLEMENT BY MIA MEDIA & COMMUNICATIONS GROUP TO THE MIAMI HERALD

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019

Critic Damon Young Explores Battles that Come with Being Black

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BY WILLIAM HOBBS

ou might feel like a Latte-sipping, incense-from-the-Rasta-on-thecorner-buying, Robert Glasper jazz-loving hipster after an essay or two by cultural critic Damon Young. The co founder of the cultural critic website Very Smart Brothers delivers each essay with the same humor and cheeky irreverence that has become his brand. It has garnered the attention of the likes of Ebony, GQ, and New York magazine. As one thumbs through the pages of Young’s What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker: A Memoir in Essays, the inevitable question comes to the fore: can there be too much of a good thing?

What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Blacker has its moments of depth and vulnerability. Young starts off in his young Paul Beattyesque sarcasm with “Living While Black is an Extreme Sport.”

It is a comical but shrewdly perceptive look into the heroic levels of stress black people deal with for anything as common as being pulled over for a busted taillight.

A strange thing takes place as you read essays such as “Your Turn” and “Street Cred.” Although there are moments, as in “Driver’s Ed,” that feel like he belabors some ancillary point for the sake of dramatic buildup, there are more than enough offerings with considerable depth. They veer into questions of classism, black identity, masculinity and sense of purpose with an angst reminiscent of David Sedaris at his most vulnerable.

Damon Young

Young goes in hard about his hip-hop trivia and skills on the basketball court, cultural cache should he come up short in some other hallmark of authenticity. There is a drawn out explanation of the difference between the N-word ending with an -a and the more traditional variety ending with an -er.

Most of black America, from Generation X to Millennials, accept going into this as someone carving out a platform of cultural critique within the lanes of Tupac and Dave Chapelle.

Young achieves it when he addresses his male insecurities in the essay “No Homo” and issues

of social mobility in “Broke.” The use of Young’s hometown of Pittsburgh being a character on its own within the memoir gives the collection a landscape to better conceptualize Young’s labyrinth of selfdetermination as a writer, tastemaker and intellectual. With the idiosyncrasies of Pittsburgh in play, it is easier to see Young seeking to forge a wider bandwidth for black identity: “So much of the national dialogue about race deals with either terrible trauma or black excellence,” Young said in an interview with the New Yorker. “I was more interested in the space in between, because that’s where I exist.”

Glimpses of that space in between are seen in awkward moments in the memoir with girls, anticlimactic rhetorical face-offs with high school bullies and white racists. It shines in moments where he, like the rest of us, fall short of the woke, uber-sophisticated bad asses we portray on our Facebook pages. n

DAMON YOUNG Sunday November 24,2019 3:30 p.m., 2106

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019

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Salute to Garth C. Reeves for dedicating your life’s work to position The Miami-Times, the oldest and largest blackowned newspaper in the Southeastern United States, as the gold standard and most comprehensive source of local and national news.

As a Commissioner for Miami-Dade County, on behalf of the residents of District 9, I thank you and the Reeves family for the work you have done and continue to do to provide thoughtful reporting on issues that affect the quality of life for residents of Miami-Dade County.

Sincerely, Dennis C. Moss Miami-Dade Commissioner District 9

CREDO OF THE BLACK PRESS "The Black Press believes that America can best lead the world away from racial and national antagonisms when it accords to every one regardless of race, color or creed, full human and legal rights. Hating no person, fearing no person, the Black Press strives to help every person in the firm belief that all hurt as long as anyone is held back."

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AN INDEPENDENT SUPPLEMENT BY MIA MEDIA & COMMUNICATIONS GROUP TO THE MIAMI HERALD

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 4, 2019