Our Brilliant Endeavor

May we do it again.

I’m writing this while stuck in a traffic jam on Staten Island. My husband is driving. We're going 7 miles an hour. Let's hope sentences are grammatical correct and words aren’t mangled and misspelled.~P

The Library of Congress is the great repository of our country's history. One example is the archives of the federally funded Works Project Administration’s artistic programs. The government paid for writers, photographers, and visual artists to record everyday life in America. The times were fraught with concerns about global entanglement, economic uncertainties, government overreach, racial inequality, and labor strife. What a picture of our democracy!

“No Foreign Entanglements” by Herb Block, 1935. It depicted the United States Senate’s refusal to become involved in world entanglements, which left our allies vulnerable to Nazi invasions.

I would say one of the most impotant benefits of this project was in capturing Black, Native American, and immigrant life. Off the writers and photographers traveled to rural towns and cities. They wandered around farm fairs and church gatherings. They spent time with sharecroppers and business people and went to rodeos and social clubs affairs. They listened to rural political debates and crashed a bunch of campaign rallies. Most interesting were the times they were invited to share a meal at poor tables, fund raising barbecue competitions and rent parties in small rooms packed with dancers.

St. Helena Island Marion Post Wolcott, 1939.

Take this photograph of a community celebration on St. Helena, an island where the history of the transatlantic slave trade played out Between 1840 and 1867, it was often the first piece of earth that approximately 27,000 Africans felt below their feet after their devastating ocean voyage.

Lord knows if we'll ever be so brilliant as to see and learn so much about us again.

Happy Juneteenth everyone!

We're now going 10 miles an hour. Unfortunately, “A Horse With No Name” by America has somehow come over the radio. This is one of the most inane songs ever recorded! Worse, my husband is doing a critical analysis of its stupidity which makes it even more excruciating. Lord God Almighty, save me!