Literature Link for Jan 30,2022- Community Organizing w/ Rev. Johniker
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• Manifesto: On Never Giving Up by Bernardine Evaristo. When Rev. Johniker spoke about the impoverished but persistent widow seeking justice and how she “prayed with her feet,” the review of this book reminds me that we can also “pray with our voices” to organize and to build the beloved community. “The first black woman to win the Booker recounts her lengthy journey from grotty London flats to making history with Girl, Woman, Other in her eventful hymn to perseverance.” In a quote from the book, “in Manifesto, reflecting on when she started learning about Black history. Now, she admits, she no longer “throws stones at the fortress” and, instead, sits inside its chambers “having polite, persuasive and persistent conversations about how best to transform outmoded infrastructures.” Here is a review from The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/oct/10/manifesto-on-never-giving-up-by-bernardine-evaristo-review-voyage-of-discovery
• 60 Minutes: The Story of New Orleans’ St. Augustine High School Marching Band [from Jan 30, 2022, in case you missed it] Sharyn Alfonsi reports on the band that desegregated Mardi Gras parades in New Orleans and played through the pandemic. The story of this band is one of building the beloved community. About 14 minute video https://www.cbsnews.com/video/st-augustine-marching-band-new-orleans-60-minutes-2022-01-30/#x
• “Good Bones” by Maggie Smith in an article about “Poetry for Building Community. “Building community in a diverse, fragmented society is like the work of poetry . . . And a multiplicity of meanings comes forward in poems, just as it does on any block in any neighborhood. Slowing down, paying attention to details and empty spaces, expecting an abundance of meaning and gifts: all the things that make poetry important also make for good community building work.” from her poem: “Life is short and the world/ is at least half terrible, and for every kind/ stranger, there is one who would break you,/ though I keep this from my children. I am trying to sell them the world.” https://commongood.cc/reader/poetry-for-building-community/
• Kamala and Maya’s Big Idea by Meena Harris
INSPIRED BY A TRUE STORY FROM THE CHILDHOOD OF VICE PRESIDENT KAMALA HARRIS! “A beautiful, empowering picture book about two sisters who work with their community to effect change, inspired by a true story from the childhood of the author’s aunt, Kamala Harris, and mother, lawyer and policy expert Maya Harris. This is the uplifting tale of how the author’s aunt and mother first learned to persevere in the face of disappointment and turned a dream into reality. This is a story of children’s ability to make a difference and of a community coming together to transform their neighborhood. A New York Times bestseller! Here is a YouTube of VP Harris’s niece, the author, reading this children’s book. [10 mins, ages 4–8] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pGbZudjkFs
In faith,
Dale Dunnigan