Shorewaves The Newsletter for Kumbaya on the Shore A Place for Peaceful Pastime Volume II, Issue 1 January 23, 2020 15226 Lakeshore Boulevard—Cleveland, Ohio 44110 Routine Hours: Thursdays & Fridays 2—7 p.m., Saturdays Noon—7 p.m. www.kumbayashore.com In This Issue Ladybug Lessons, Lyrics & Litanies: 1619. 1986. Yes We Did! This Month at Kumbaya National Institute for Restorative Justice New York Times 1619 Project Discussion Series Save the Date! Valentine’s Day Dinner & Concert with Jazz Balladeer Reggie Kelly The National Institute for Mittie Imani Dreamweaver’s Restorative Justice Ladybug Lessons, Lyrics & Litanies New York Times 1619. 1986. Yes We Did! 1619 Project Sometimes, things Discussion Series just fall together and Tuesdays & Thursdays flow right into place. January 28—February 27, 2020 Like, preparing for the launching of the On August 18, 2019, the New York Times launched its groundbreak- 1619 Project ing 1619 Project, a special edition magazine and subsequent audio discussion series and series on the historic landing and legacy of the first documented screening Boycott in Africans in America. Operative word, documented. remembrance of the life and legacy of Martin Inspired and introduced by NYT staff writer Nicole Hanna Jones, Luther King, Jr, with one of the opening the Magazine includes 32 essays and musing researched and written scenes depicting his penning a speech with the words “in 1619 the first Negros…” by journalists and scholars covering topics from the historic Middle Passage to modern day Atlanta traffic jams. The excerpt is from his speech presented to the First Annual Institute on Nonviolence Beginning January 28 through the commonly designated and Social Change held in 1956 in Montgom- Black History Month, The National Institute for Restorative ery, Alabama. I’ve teased you with a tad of Justice, in partnership with Kumbaya on the Shore, will host a six- its opening paragraphs on page 5. They are week discussion series on these writings under the guidance of the words of King that you don’t hear echoed justice advocates, researchers, educators and authors on the topics. during the celebrated day, or ever. Keeping true to our commitment of “Educating for Advocacy” There have been other alignments during the 1619 discussion series is for the purpose of providing us with these past two weeks as America sanctions the knowledge, framework, inspiration and courage to educate “thinking black” through the days surround- and organize leadership for proactive and sustainable restorative ing the national observance leading into our justice engagement. continued on page 2 continued on page 3 1 1619 Series Continued from page 1 The series is free and open to the public. We are posting the schedule with topic overviews and guides below. Details are provided on both the NIRJ and Kumbaya websites. You may register for all or part of the series by providing your name and contact information at [email protected], or by completing the inquiry form on the Justice Campaign page at www.restorativejusticeinstitute.org, where you can also read about our fourteen previous discussion series and summits presented over the past sixteen years. Registration is required for preparation of study materials which will be distributed during the orientation. We hope that you will join us for these challenging, yet enlightening discussions on the shore. Faithfully ~ Mittie Imani Jordan, Chair, The National Institute for Restorative Justice Tuesday, January 28, 2020 Growing National Tension, Enlisting in a Sidebars: Mortgaging the Future: The North Orientation, Introductions, Distribution of Moral Fight, Always on Your Person, -South rift led to a piecemeal system of bank Materials: NIRJ Board and Participants One Family’s Ledger, Freedom Begins regulation by Mehrsa Baradaran, Good as Tuesday, February 11, 2020 Gold: In Lincoln’s wartime “greenbacks,” a Thursday, January 30, 2020 preview of the 20th-century rise of flat Slavery, Power and the The Idea of America currency by Mehrsa Baradaran, Fabric of Human Cost: 1455—1775 by Nikole Hannah-Jones Modernity: How Southern cotton became the by Mary Elliott & Jazmine Hughes Dolores Person Lairet cornerstone of a new global commodities Sugar by Khalil Gibran Muhammad Board of Directors, NIRJ trade by Mehrsa Baradaran, Municipal Retired Professor of French, Bonds: How Slavery Built Wall Street by Mississippi Charles Bevel Tyra Miles The Wealth Gap by Trymaine Board of Directors, NIRJ Francophone Caribbean & Russian Literature Lee, Traffic by Kevin M. Kruse Performing Artist Civil & Human Rights Advocate AB Wheaton College Tuesday, February 25, 2020 MA Law Candidate, AM Middlebury College Mass Incarceration PhD Case Western Reserve Cleveland State University by Bryan Stevenson Period Overview, Queen Nzinga, Cultivating Sidebar: Chained migration: How Slavery Made Its Way West by Tiya Miles D. Anthony Everett Wealth and Power, Race Encoded Into Law, Lead Pastor, University Continual Resistance, Means of Control, Thursday, February 13, 2020 Circle United Methodist Memory & Placemaking, The Deadly Undemocratic Democracy Church, Lecturer, Christian Commodity (Sugar) by Jamelle Bouie Social Activist, BS Paul Quinn College Tuesday, February 4, 2020 Cedric Merlin Powell The Limits of Freedom: 1776—1808 MDiv Perkins School of National Board of Advisors, Theology, DMin Candidate by Mary Elliot & Jazmine Hughes NIRJ, Wyatt, Tarrant & United Theological Seminary Combs Professor of Law, Mittie Imani Jordan University of Louisville Thursday, February 27, 2020 Founding Chair, NIRJ Brandeis School of Law Why We Can’t Teach This Owner, Madiya Ltd: Kumbaya BA Oberlin College on the Shore, New Myths & by Nikita Stewart JD New York University Legends Productions & School of Law Gillian Johns Publications Board of Directors, NIRJ AB Smith College Sidebar: Rainbow Coalition by Kiese Associate Professor and Chair Laymon Oberlin College Period Overview, Describing the Depravity of Slavery, She Sued for Her Freedom, Tuesday, February 18, 2020 Department of English God Wouldn’t Want Segregated Sanctuaries, American Popular Music BA Slippery Rock University A Powerful Letter, The Destructive Impact MA PhD Temple University by Wesley Morris of the Cotton Gin. Auburn Shaeffer Sandstrom Van AnthonyAmos Thursday, February 6, 2020 Board of Directors, NIRJ Adjunct Professor, Cleve State A Slave Nation Fights for Freedom: Educator, Black Studies University, Educator / Writer 1809—1865 & Culture Programmer BA University of Michigan by Mary Elliot & Jasmine Hughes BA, M.Ed PhD Candidate, Kent State University Cleveland State University Zachery R. Williams Vice Chair, NIRJ Thursday, February20, 2020 Scholar, Educator and Author Capitalism by Matthew Desmond BA Clemson University James E. Page Shorewaves is a publication of New Myths PhD Bowling Green State & Legends Productions and Publications, Board of Directors, NIRJ University a division of Madiya LTD, Cleveland Ohio Period Overview, By Black Community Activist 44106. Mittie Imani Jordan, publisher, People for Black People, A Woman Astrologer, Philosopher writer, design. All photographs by M.I. Bequeathed , Generations of Enslavement, Yoruba Priest Jordan unless otherwise noted. © 2020 BA Cleveland State Univ All rights reserved. Liberation Theology, The Slave Patrols, 2 Ladybug Lesson Continued from page 1 I started praying for protection and prepared to be cautious as I checked into the Jackson Sheraton Hotel. socially prescribed period of expounding on our history. To my amazement, I was greeted with smiles and the Our history. Inclusive of all Americans, like it or not. most pleasant hospitality. Either they didn’t know, didn’t oppose it, or didn’t care. Over the past two weeks, congregations in Cleveland and elsewhere have been gathering in movie theaters for the It had been fifteen years in the making since United screening of Just Mercy, the stirring story of the States Representative John Conyers of Michigan had first relentless and heroic legal work of Bryan Stevenson to proposed the bill on the House floor in 1968 following exonerate wrongfully convicted felons. His 1619 Project Reverend King’s assassination. Losing the bid, Conyers essay on mass incarceration will be discussed on the last did not retreat. Eleven years later, supported with bipar- Tuesday of our series. tisan sponsorship of Republican Senator Edward Brooke of Massachusetts, the bill came to a Congressional vote On last Friday before the official holiday, Case Western in 1979 with only five votes shy of passage. Reserve University held its annual King Convocation with an address by Khalil Gibran Muhammad, Harvard Then the American people went to work. professor of History, Race and Public Policy and former director of the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Championed by Coretta Scott King, a public petition Culture. His 1619 Project essay on sugar is included for went into circulation in 1980, undergirded by a Rally discussion in our opening session. for Peace Press Conference with the unleashing of Stevie Wonder’s commemorative anthem. The song quickly He unknowingly promoted our rose to the top of the chart, becoming a nationwide series by mentioning the 1619 resounding chorus of appeal. Six million signatures were Project twice during his collected, the largest number in history at the time, and speech, with some folk not beyond. The power of the people sealed the deal. having a clue as to what he was “Yes, we can.” Hold that thought. talking about until my tri-fold marketing brochure