We Built This City...

There are folks in our world who've let me know how their feelings are hurt over the fact that we've blogged almost nothing over the last few months. This here is a mere beginning at rectifying the situation, the first of some tiny reports and a request for assistance. Among the courses I'm teaching this summer is a Wednesday night class called "Literature of the Civil Rights Era," and it meets in the Tennessee Prison for Women. We've had a very rich time so far in our conversations involving the likes of Toni Cade Bambara, James Lawson, Angela Davis. Will Campbell, Malcolm X, Anne Moody, Bernard Lafayettte, Daniel Berrigan, and Richard Goode to name a few. I know that much of the lively back-and-forth of online interaction that used to occur on blogs seems to happen via Facebook and Twitter mostly these days, but I wanted offer anyone who might seize it a chance to weigh in with an opinion, an appreciative word, or a provocative question on the subject(s) of our course. I'll dutifully take whatever anyone has to say, ask, or wonder over to the class and report back. I'm also wondering if anyone might enjoy entering the fray by buying our class a copy (or copies) of a couple of titles. Once we have twenty-eight copies of James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time and Howard Thurman's Jesus and the Disinherited, we'll be all set. Used copies are welcome, and I went ahead and made a "wish list" should anyone like to render us the kindness via Amazon. And if anybody wants to make a contribution to the Life Program (through which all of this is happening), the link should get you through to the necessaries. If it doesn't, just shoot me an E. That's about it for now. But I'll throw in that I do, at long last, have full-time employment for the Fall. More on this anon.