Pamela Jean Owens off-line

I found this blog item in my documents folder — I can’t quite figure out if I ever posted it.  In the melancholiat at coming to the end of a momentous 2008, personally and for the world, I was feeling rather down, feeling the house too quiet after the holiday bustle of family and a baby once again.  But with so many stars in my sky, how can I not give thanks for my life?  My posting again starts with those who are gone, but it is about life, not death, something I need to daily remind myself to remember:

“Let the dead walk before you and acquaint yourself with their names…”
So speaks the motto splashed boldly across the print Jim Dombrowski gave me of an original poster he created commemorating one of the bloody police massacres of union organizers in labor history.  I do remember those who have walked before me and I endeavor to acquaint myself and others with their names, as my elders taught me to do.   I consider myself to be one of the most fortunate and blessed individuals I know, for the lifetime I have had to sit at the feet and be taught at the knee of such great men and women of social justice history as those with whom I have crossed paths and sometimes shared a day, a week, a month, a year, or more.

Jim Dombrowski — Th.D. Union Seminary, 1920’s sometime — thesis on communistic societies of the early American republic — old line union organizer, North Carolina and throughout the south — beat up and ridden out of town on a rail, countless times and places I’m sure.  C.P. member? Maybe.  Freedom fighter,  Definitely.  Widower, grandfather, lover of justice, of art, of kindness, of life, of family and friends, and of New Orleans.  Mentor to young adult organizers my age, but just as much of budding toddler artists like our little Ruthie.  If I were to “google” Jim today, what would I find?  I wasn’t on-line as I wrote these thoughts, but I’ll check it later.  Would I be as amazed at what I would find about Jim as I was when I “googled” Anne Braden, my old friend, the widow of my primary mentor in organizing, Carl Braden?  I had no idea how widely she was known, being out of the south so long.  Fire brands when I knew them in the seventies, she died not so long ago, respected by all strata of those who love justice.

Anne and Carl were my teachers, my surrogate parents at times; they showed me what parents of activists could be like when I felt far from my own. Carl brought Jim Dombrowski to meet me, interview me, and then go to New York City to raise the money to pay me to organize on the Charolotte Three and the Wilmington Ten.  Carl and Anne were committed to the struggles in North Carolina, in particular, because their own correspondent for the Southern Patriot, Jim Grant, was one of the Black organizers who had been targeted.  And oh, what I learned from Jim, who still lives, as far as I know.

I was blessed to live in the house with T.J. and Vicki Reddy when Julien Bond, then “merely” a poet, came to visit T.J., a fellow poet, in jail.  I was blessed to be sleeping in the apartment whose steps made the platform for the late Allen Ginsberg to do his “after-hours” reading when he came to Vanderbilt University in 1969.  My boy friend’s roommate was Allen’s host, and was sent to buy Allen a toothbrush, since Allen had forgotten his at his last stop.  What little things we remember.  I don’t remember what he read, but I remember that he sat on the stairs as we spilled out of the hallway into the street, because there was no other place to be, and that he waved his hands as he spoke, and that he needed a new toothbrush.  Oh, the importance of poets for our movements.  Denise Levertof, who I never met but who T.J. spoke of as a sister.  So many more.

And the priests — some dead, and some still living, in my life, I’ve known them well.  George Celestian, who took me to hear John Prine in Austin when he had an extra ticket, then soon went to Central America with his order and I don’t know what became of him later.  Tom Sheetz, the Jesuit who was getting a Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Texas so he could vote the Jesuit’s shares in companies such as Gulf and Western, and bring social conscience to the stock holders meetings of large corporations doing evil.  Father Al Moser, Paulist Priest, lover of life and love, gentle soul who told us to name our children something we were comfortable with (when we asked how to do the last name thing), because if they were our children, they would choose their own names when they wanted to anyway.  How right he was!  Still I say the prayer he taught us, “Holy Spirit of God, take me as your disciple. Guide me. Illumine me. Consecrate me.  Be my God.  Be my guide.  Wherever you lead me, I will go.  Whatever you say, I will do.  Whatever you forbid, I will abhore.  Lead me then, into the fullness of your truth.” I think I may have a few of the words wrong, but more or less correctly, that has been my prayer for the past thirty plus years.  Father Al Moser, I don’t know whether you live now on earth or in heaven, but I appreciate you and thank God for your being in my life.

Father Joe Znotas.  The stories I could tell . . . . Another day, another blogging.  We named our first son for you.  That says it all. I strive always to do what I think you would do in any situation of daily life, for you taught me more than anyone that the real work for justice is in the minutes and the hours, not in the campaigns and the headlines.  You died too young.  You are sorely missed.

I am thankful that Angela Davis and I crossed paths for a few days in North Carolina, shared a bedroom in Professor Helen Otho’s home, sat through a trial together and spoke on the same rally platform.  I learned from you, my tall black sister, and I think perhaps you learned from me as well, though I will probably never know.  I saw you vulnerable, soon after you had been those many months in solitary confinement in jail, for no reason, innocent but held anyway, with no blankets but the ones they let you crochet to pass the time, with poor food, for you were a vegetarian, with nothing but time to think, to meditate, possibly even to pray.  I wondered if you, an avowed Communist, were truly an atheist.  You seemed full of the spirit to me.

Some are dead: Elizabeth Chavis.  Igal Rodenko. My grand parents.  My Aunt Maude. Rachel Henderlite. John Jansen.
And some are living:  Ralph DiGia.  David McReynolds, Karl, Judith, Walter Harrelson, Martin Marty, James Gustafson, David Tracey, Anthony Yu, Prescott Williams, Bob Shelton.  In my life, I’ve loved them all.

I have roots.  I have a base to stand on and a reservoir of wisdom to tap and call upon.  I have never gone out into the world alone, even when I knew no one in the room, for the cloud of witnesses behind me are always with me.  The cloud of witnesses is not just a pretty platitude from the epistle to the Hebrews; it is reality and I feel it daily, hourly, minute by minute.

I am so very very blessed by those I have known, loved, and been loved by.  How, then, can I want for anything?

When I first started a personal blog last year, not having any real plan in mind for it, someone who had meant a lot to me had just died. Not surprisingly, I decided to write about her. I was blogging every Sunday night, or that was the plan, and by the following weekend I had gotten news of the deaths of three more people important to me. And again the next week. Suddenly it seemed like, one after another, all my teachers were dying. Then I realized that I was experiencing the same thing that everyone my age must be experiencing.

I had already known that my Aunt Eva, who died in 2004, was the first of what will inevitably be eight deaths of beloved relatives from the World War II generation. Since all my aunts and uncles are now in their eighties, most likely their deaths all will come in the next ten to fifteen years. Since nearly all of my ancestors lived long lives, well into their eighties or nineties, I’m not expecting any less of my immediate aunts, uncles, or parents. But they are only eight of many elders of their generation who have enriched my life and made me who I am. Read the rest of this entry »

Monday, April 24, 2006
On the death of William Sloane Coffin
Another one has died. Another of the giants.

William Sloane Coffin — Bill Coffin — has died and is being mourned by all kinds of people who never agreed with him but sure don’t want anyone to know it now. He is being called a prophet. Maybe he was. He definitely was an icon, a symbol — a model for what all activist preachers and pastors wanted to be like.

I met Bill Coffin twice. I was more impressed the second time than the first.
The second time I met him was at the Disciples Peace Fellowship meeting at a Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) General Assembly. I don’t remember the city or the year, but I haven’t been to one in at least ten years, so it wasn’t any more recent than the mid-nineties, and it may have been earlier than that. Bill Coffin was the speaker at our breakfast (and I don’t do breakfasts well, but more about that later). I don’t really remember much about the breakfast. What I remember was a smaller get-together in the late evening, just a group of people and Coffin sitting around talking. He made a statement that night which I have quoted countless times since. Read the rest of this entry »

What am I doing here anyway?

I had not intended my blog to be about dead people.

I had expected to record my intellectual wanderings, my political brainstorms, and maybe a bit of old-fashioned story telling, for posterity, or whatever passes for posterity these days.

I hoped, probably vainly, that my blog might interest some people and get popular. I’ve always wanted to be one of the popular crowd, even though I know they are usually pretty shallow and even rather boring sometimes.

But I couldn’t be part of that crowd anyway, because I was just never willing to permanently move to the other side of the tracks. I get uncomfortable there and come back as fast as I can. Here in Omaha, the other side of the tracks for me is west of about 102nd street, or even west of 90th or so. I’m even a bit uneasy west of 82nd and Dodge. And I think it looks like Mars out Radial Highway past 90th. Or at least what I imagine Mars looking like once we colonize it. I know for sure west of 680 is the other side of the tracks, the popular side. I practically have an anxiety attack when I have to drive that far west. People drive like maniacs over there. And there are just way too many scarey white people west of 680 for me. Read the rest of this entry »

Sunday, April 9, 2006

We are fast losing the giants.

Yesterday I received my copy of the newsletter of Texas Baptists Committed and learned of the deaths of two of the giants in the struggle to preserve religious liberty and uphold the separation of church and state. Earth has lost two men whose name were household names all my life, two of the men (to use someone else’s metaphor) who belong on the Mount Rushmore of Baptist heros of the twentieth century: Phil Strickland and Foy Valentine.

I sincerely doubt that anyone reading my blog regularly (if there are any of you out there, be sure to let me know!) will recognize either of those names. Southern Baptists are not common heros to most people I know. But these two men, plus a few others, including in particular James Dunn, their close colleague, and Bill Estep, who passed on in 2000, are the reason I remain proud of my strong Baptist heritage. They are examples of the reason so many Cherokee, of those who became Christians, became Baptist Christians, not Methodist or Presbyterian or anything else. Read the rest of this entry »

Saturday, March 18, 2006

prompted by the death of Anne Braden, July 28, 1924-March 6, 2006

Reflections of an aging soul from the “New Left”

“Who can fill her shoes?” That was what one of Anne Braden’s obituary writers asked, and he answered himself, “No one can, don’t even think about it.”   Maybe he’s right, but I pray he is not, or God help us all. I believe the God who called and strengthened Anne, will indeed help us fill those shoes.

When I assigned the names “Carl and Anne Braden” as glossary entries to be identified for my class in Religion and Social Movements, I wondered if my students would be able to find anything. Silly me!  I hadn’t “Googled”  the names, or I wouldn’t have worried. You must forgive me, for you see, I was living the history now written about the Bradens when it wasn’t yet written, and it’s hard to think of it now as history, in the past, already summarized as an encyclopedia entry.

I’m glad it’s available.  I’m glad to see how much is available. I knew the Braden’s papers were being left to libraries, and I trust scholars will pour over them at length, but as I read what is out there now, I think of so much more, so much that isn’t there, so much about Anne and Carl and about so many more like them.

I remember the way I felt when I first walked in their house. Looking around and seeing nothing but books. Books from floor to ceiling in every room, and stacked on the floor beside every chair. I remember the ubiquitous 3-by-5 index cards, the staple of every organizer’s trade in the days before computers and data bases. I remember realizing that Anne was too busy to clean house and knew what really mattered wasn’t the dust bunnies in the corners but the life and warmth in the rooms. I remember not yet thinking that Carl might be just as likely to clean house as Anne, or not. Feminism was only beginning to address housework when I met the Bradens.

I stand proudly as one of those aging radicals of the late sixties and early seventies who were the original “New Left,”  knowing full well that we stood on the shoulders and had learned our craft from the veterans of the Old Left. I was part of the younger half of what my students now teach me is called “Second Wave Feminism,” and I’m still proud of it.

We women now in our fifties and sixties invented feminism all over again, out of our experiences in the civil rights and anti-war movements, when it had been long forgotten. And we did it in the same ways and from the same roots as the suffragists who invented “First Wave Feminism” out of their experiences in the abolition and temperance movements a century earlier.

I mourn today for the loss of Anne Braden, and for the losses of so many of the Old Left who made me who I am. They weren’t afraid to be called “communists,”  and they refused to deny the name, even when they were not C.P. members themselves, out of solidarity with those who could not deny it because they were. They trusted us kids to carry on. They never allowed us to consider the possibility of NOT carrying on. The work was there to be done. Of course we would do it. How could we not?

The courageous crusaders of the Old Left knew their work was only the beginning, even while we of the giddy sixties thought the new day was dawning and the revolution was at hand. By observation we learned to do what we could not not do. We learned that when we did it, others called us “courageous,” just as we had seen our mentors in the Old Left as courageous. How strange to be called “courageous,” simply for doing what we couldn’t not do!

I have lost giants of my life already:  Carl Braden, way too early, in 1975; Jim Dombrowski who raised money to fund my work in North Carolina and wrote me the most beautiful letters; Ralph Townsend of rural Michigan, who met Gandhi as a young man and then went to jail with me and to trial on conspiracy, as an old man, and his wife Mildred; Elmer Mass of New York City Plowshares community, who taught me so much about patience in the years we served together on the WRL NC; Igal Rodenko of the WRL, and then others I never met in person, Phil Berrigan, especially.

And we dread that so many more will be lost to us in the coming years; they are in their eighties and nineties and even saints don’t live forever. Will my generation measure up? Can we carry the burden? Dare we not?

In one of her last essays, Anne wrote, “If we are serious about the challenge of the unfinished business of racism, we must start by realizing that this is not a task we must complete. It is one we must begin” (Fellowship Magazine, Jan-Feb 2005). How humbling to realize that a veteran of anti-racism campaigns going back six decades still saw the task as only just beginning. God willing, we aging radicals of the New Left will finally see the task begun. Perhaps our children can see it through to its end.

7:58 pm cst,  Omaha, Nebraska, March  18, 2006