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Mixed Experience History Month 2015: Mildred Loving, social justice pioneer

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Mixed Experience History MonthMildred Loving’s challenge of Virginia’s anti-miscegenation law led to the Supreme Court’s 1967 decision  (Loving v. Virginia) which affirmed the right of people of different races to marry.  Loving and her white husband, Richard, were arrested when they returned home to their rural Virginia town and pled guilty to “cohabiting as man and wife, against the peace and dignity of the Commonwealth.”  It was illegal for whites and blacks to marry in at least 17 states at the time.  In its landmark unanimous ruling the Court stated: “There can be no doubt that restricting the freedom to marry soley because of racial classifications violates the central meaning of the equal protection clause.”  My parents married in 1965 in Denmark; it was illegal for them to marry in South Carolina, the location of my father’s next assignment.  When my father’s work superiors found out that he had married a white woman, he was relocated to the Pacific Northwest instead.  Mildred Loving died in 2008 at the age of 68.-Heidi Durrow

Mixed Experience History Month is the annual blog post series created by The New York Times best-selling author Heidi Durrow celebrating the history of the Mixed experience. Established in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to highlight the long history of folks and events involved in the Mixed experience.  Please look for archived profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May at Lightskinned-ed Girl, the blog!  Thanks for reading.  And check out some of the previous year’s profiles: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012,  2013, 2014. Copyright 2015.

Mixed Experience History Month 2015: Elizabeth Keckley, White House seamstress & memoirist

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Mixed Experience History MonthElizabeth Keckley (1818-1907), a mixed-race woman bought her freedom in 1855 for $1200.  Keckley was an accomplished dressmaker and went on to become the seamstress and confidante of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln.

In 1862, Keckley established the Contraband Relief Organization, a women’s organization that helped former slaves seek refuge in Washington D.C.  In 1868, she published her autobiography Behind the Scenes; or, Thirty Years a Slave and Four Years in the White House.  Her public discussion of White House life was unprecedented and was roundly criticized as a salacious tell-all.  Keckley was ostracized and the book was pulled from bookstores.  She died in the Home for Destitute Colored Women & Children in 1907.-Heidi Durrow

Here’s my Mixed Experience History Minute about Keckley.

Mixed Experience History Month is the annual blog post series created by The New York Times best-selling author Heidi Durrow celebrating the history of the Mixed experience. Established in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to highlight the long history of folks and events involved in the Mixed experience.  Please look for archived profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May at Lightskinned-ed Girl, the blog!  Thanks for reading.  And check out some of the previous year’s profiles: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012,  2013, 2014. Copyright 2015

Mixed Experience History Month 2015: Philippa Schuyler, child prodigy and journalist

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Mixed Experience History Month phillipa schuylerPhilippa Schuyler (1931-1967), the daughter of black conservative writer George Schuyler, was a talented pianist and journalist who demonstrated her gifts at an early age.  At age nine, she was profiled in “Evening with a Gifted Child” by a celebrated New Yorker writer.

As a teen-aged concert pianist, she toured widely throughout the United States and overseas and claimed New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia as one of her biggest fans.

In 1967, Schuyler died in a helicopter crash off the Vietnamese coast where she had traveled as a war correspondent.  Alicia Keys is rumored to star in a film version of Schuyler’s life in development (based on Kathryn Talalay’s book Composition in Black and White).-Heidi Durrow

 

Mixed Experience History Month is the annual blog post series created by The New York Times best-selling author Heidi Durrow celebrating the history of the Mixed experience. Established in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to highlight the long history of folks and events involved in the Mixed experience.  Please look for archived profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May at Lightskinned-ed Girl, the blog!  Thanks for reading.  And check out some of the previous year’s profiles: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012,  2013, 2014. Copyright 2015.

Mixed Experience History Month 2015: Norris Wright Cuney, politician

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Mixed Experience History MonthNorris Wright Cuney (1846-1898) was the son of a wealthy white plantation owner & politician and an enslaved African-American woman.

The fourth of eight children, Cuney was spared the duties and cruelties of enslavement.  He was sent to school in Pittsburgh at age 13.  The outbreak of the Civil War prevented him from attending Oberlin.  Instead, after years of working on steamships traveling between the North and South, he took up self-study of law and literature.  Soon he became involved in politics with the Republican Party.

In 1870, he became sergeant at arms in the Texas legislature.  Cuney went on to hold several important political appointments.  He became chairman of the Texas Republican Party, but was ultimately removed in 1892 when President Grover Cleveland was elected.  Historians have dubbed the years from 1884-1896 as the “Cuney Era” for all of his accomplishments particularly with regard to empowering the black community.-Heidi Durrow

Mixed Experience History Month is the annual blog post series created by The New York Times best-selling author Heidi Durrow celebrating the history of the Mixed experience. Established in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to highlight the long history of folks and events involved in the Mixed experience.  Please look for archived profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May at Lightskinned-ed Girl, the blog!  Thanks for reading.  And check out some of the previous year’s profiles: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012,  2013, 2014. Copyright 2015.

Mixed Experience History Month 2015: James Mye

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The Mixed Experience history MonthJames Mye (ca. 1823 – ca. 1890) was a descendant of Africans who escaped slavery in the British colonies and found refuge in Native American communities.  He was of Mashpee and African descent.  Mye was an indentured servant to the Hall brothers beginning at age 11.  However, in a 1804 legal case that became an important precedent in subsequent cases concerning child labor, the court determined that his servitude was akin to slavery and not legal.  This daguerrotype of Mye was taken circa 1840 in Cape Cod.–Heidi Durrow

Mixed Experience History Month is the annual blog post series created by The New York Times best-selling author Heidi Durrow celebrating the history of the Mixed experience. Established in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to highlight the long history of folks and events involved in the Mixed experience.  Please look for archived profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May at Lightskinned-ed Girl, the blog!  Thanks for reading.  And check out some of the previous year’s profiles: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012,  2013, 2014. Copyright 2015.

Season 2, Episode 27: Author Viet Thanh Nguyen, The Sympathizer

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Nguyen, SYMPATHIZER jacket artRECORDED 6/1/15: I was excited to speak with Viet Thanh Nguyen, author of the newly released novel, The Sympathizer.  The novel centers on the story of a Eurasian spy and begins just as Saigon is about to fall.  The narrator tells us from the beginning: “I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces. Perhaps not surprisingly, I am also a man of two minds.” You can listen to the interview here or download it on itunes.-Heidi Durrow

“I am a spy, a sleeper, a spook, a man of two faces. Perhaps not surprisingly, I am also a man of two minds.” @viet_t_nguyen

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Nguyen, Viet Thanh photo credit BeBe JacobsViet Thanh Nguyen was born in Vietnam and raised in America. His stories have appeared in Best New American Voices, TriQuarterly, Narrative, and the Chicago Tribune and he is the author of the academic book Race and Resistance. He teaches English and American Studies at the University of Southern California and lives in Los Angeles.

Don’t miss my interview with @viet_t_nguyen 6/1 5:30pm Eastern! author of The Sympathizer @groveatlantic

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Mixed Experience History Month 2015: Charles Chestnutt, writer & activist

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Mixed Experience History MonthCharles Chestnutt (1858-1932) was an accomplished writer and important civil rights activist.

Chestnutt was born in Ohio.  His parents were “free persons of color.”  Chestnutt could easily pass as white.  However, he identified as black and noted that he was 7/8ths white.

Charles Chestnutt, writer & activist. Mixed Experience History Month 2015. #multiracial

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At age 9, Chestnutt’s family moved to North Carolina.  He studied to become a teacher and eventually became the assistant principal at a school that trained black students to become teachers.

In 1878, Chestnutt married.  The couple moved to Ohio where Chestnutt studied law.  He made a good living from the court reporting business he established.

On the side he wrote fiction and published his first short story in 1887 in The Atlantic Monthly.

Chestnutt published two short story collections (The Conjure Woman and The Wife of His Youth and Other Stories of the Color Line) before publishing his first novel, The House Behind the Cedars in 1900.

He continued to write and publish but his books were not commercially successful.  In 1928, he was awarded the Spingarn Medal for lifetime achievement.  He died in 1932.

Mixed Experience History Month is the annual blog post series created by The New York Times best-selling author Heidi Durrow celebrating the history of the Mixed experience. Established in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to highlight the long history of folks and events involved in the Mixed experience.  Please look for archived profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May at Lightskinned-ed Girl, the blog!  Thanks for reading.  And check out some of the previous year’s profiles: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012,  2013, 2014. Copyright 2015.

Mixed Experience History Month 2015: William H. Johnson, artist

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Mixed Experience History Month

Born in 1901, William H. Johnson was a talented artist who became famous for his Scandinavian landscape paintings and “primitive” scenes of black life.

A South Carolina native and son of an African-American/Sioux woman and a white man, Johnson moved to New York in 1918 to study at the National Academy of Design.  In 1926, he was passed over for a traveling scholarship because of his race.  Considered one of the school’s most talented students, a teacher gave him $1000 to travel abroad.

Whjohnsonpainting2Johnson would spend most of the next twelve years in Europe including France, Norway and Denmark.  In 1930, he married a Danish artist, Holcha Krake.

Johnson returned to the U.S. in 1938 with his wife.  When she died in 1944 of cancer, he returned to Europe only to return to New York three years later because of his own failing health.  Johnson died in 1970 after being hospitalized for the last 20+ years of his life.

Today Johnson’s work is represented in many important collections, including National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; The Columbia Museum of Art, South Carolina; Library of Congress, Washington, DC; and Kerteminde Museum/Johannes Larsen Museet, Denmark.

More information: William H. Johnson Foundation (provides grants to artists); biographical essay.

Mixed Experience History Month is the annual blog post series created by The New York Times best-selling author Heidi Durrow celebrating the history of the Mixed experience. Established in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to highlight the long history of folks and events involved in the Mixed experience.  Please look for more profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May!  Thanks for reading.  And check out some of the previous year’s profiles: 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012,  2013, 2014. Copyright 2015.

NOTE: This is a repost from a previous year as I re-visit the Afro-Danish connection for the first week of this month’s profiles.

Season 2, Episode 26: Mixed And Irish

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RECORDED 5/18/15: I really enjoyed speaking with a group of Mixed/Irish writers who discussed the spectrum of what it means to their writing and what they claim as their heritage when Mixed Irish-ness is a discussion that the Irish are just beginning to explore.  You can listen to the episode here, or download the episode from itunes.-Heidi Durrow

murphemail-1-214x300Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu is an Irish-Japanese psychologist, author, and storyteller. Born in Tokyo, raised in Massachusetts, educated at Harvard, his life has been between Japan and the U.S., exploring borders of cultural identities. He uses this life experience in his writing about mixed heritage for both academic and general audiences, most recently in When Half is Whole and a blog for Psychology Today. He teaches mindfulness and narrative psychology at Stanford. @drshigematsu

 

 

 

 

 

 

What are you? Mixed and Irish! Listen in to this great conversation! #multiracial

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Clare-Ramsaran Clare Ramsaran was born and raised in England, but checks “other” on forms when asked to define her heritage – or creates her own category of “Indo-Guyanese/Irish”.  She is an alumna of the VONA Voices workshop and is an MFA candidate at the University of San Francisco. She is currently working on a novel about two Caribbean brothers who join other young immigrants to London in their pursuit of love (of the inter-racial and queer varieties) and justice. She blogs for Mixed Remixedand her writing has been published in anthologies in the USA and England, and in journals including the St Sebastian Review. Visit her blog at: clareramsaran.blogspot.com

dylanDylan Amaro-McIntyre is a reformed former misanthrope who finds beauty in the details because the big picture terrifies him. He draws words and writes pictures. He also writes poems, sometimes well. He has been published in various poetry collections and has been featured as a performer at well known venues throughout the Bay Area. On Thursday nights he binge eats peanut butter; he recently discovered Macadamia butter and it is ruining his life.

 

 

 

 

Caroline Mei-Lin Mar was born and raised in the Bay Area. Carrie is a queer mixed-race Chinese-Irish femme who was raised to cause trouble by her radical lefty parents (her first childhood St. Patrick’s Day parade participation involved staging a pro-IRA “die-in”). She currently works as a secondary Special Education teacher and owes great gratitude to her students and colleagues for Carrie-Marwhat they teach Flag-Pins-Ireland-Guyanaher every day. A recent graduate of the MFA Program for Writers at Warren Wilson College and an alumna of the Voices at VONA workshop, Carrie is seeking publication of her first book, Special Education. Her poems have been published in The Collagist, Shadowgraph, As Us, and others.

Season 2, Bonus Episode 4: Writer Jim Grimsley, How I Shed My Skin

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How I Shed My Skin Jim GrimsleyRecorded 4/29/15: I had a great talk with writer Jim Grimsley, author of How I Shed My Skin: Unlearning the Lessons of a Racist Childhood.  In the memoir, Grimsley looks back at his own childhood, growing up poor and white in the South, and how he experienced the desegregation of schools in the aftermath of the Brown v. Board of Education decision.  Now decades later, he has written about coming into his own understanding of his own prejudices and looks at how far we have come as a nation in our understanding of the racial and cultural connectedness of different races.  You can listen here, or download the episode from itunes.-Heidi Durrow

An interview with Jim Grimsley on his new book. “A powerful meditation on race.” —Natasha Trethewey, US Poet Laureate

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Grimsley, Jim_credit to Kay Hinton Emory University_HRJim Grimsley is the author of four previous novels, among them Winter Birds, a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway Award; Dream Boy, winner of the GLBTF Book Award for literature; My Drowning, a Lila-Wallace-Reader’s Digest Writer’s Award winner; and Comfort and Joy. He lives in Atlanta and teaches at Emory University.

An interview with .@JimGrimsley1 : Unlearning Lessons of a Racist Childhood #multiracial

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