International Museum Day

Today is International Museum Day.  Here is a list of museums in Southern Ontario:

1.  Bell Homestead, Brantford (Home of Alexander Graham Bell when he first moved to Canada.  Much of the work for the telephone was done here.)

Photo courtesy http://upload.wikimedia.org.

2.  Casa Loma, Toronto (Home of Sir Henry Pellatt)

Photo courtesy www.concierge.com.

3.  Dundurn Castle, Hamilton (Home of Sir Alan McNab, one of Canada's first premier, this castle sits on the shores of Lake Ontario.)

Photo courtesy www.hauntedhamilton.com.

4.  Westfield Heritage Village, Rockton (Pioneer village with Methodist Church, General Store, former Jerseyville Train Station, etc)

Photo courtesy http://farm3.staticflickr.com.

5.  Fort George, Niagara-on-the-Lake (Site of War of 1812 battle)

Photo courtesy http://4.bp.blogspot.com.

6.  Laura Secord Homestead, Queenston (Laura Secord alerted the British to the secret attack planned by the Americans during the War of 1812.)

7.  Wings of Paradise Butterfly Conservatory, Cambridge

8.  Backus Mill, Port Rowan (The Backus Family owned a farm and mill near Lake Erie.  The area also features a schoolhouse, general store, etc.)

9.  Uncle Tom's Cabin (Escaped American slave Josiah Henson's homestead, the man on whom the novel was based.)

10.  Point Pelee Conservation Area (A conservation area turned cottage resort turned conservation area on the shores of Lake Erie, this is the southernmost point of Canada, excluding Pelee Island.)

For a complete list of Ontario Museums, visit:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_museums_in_Ontario

Brown vs. Board of Education

And I remember going inside and my dad spoke with someone and then he went into the inner office with the principal, and they left me out to sit outside with the secretary. And while he was in the inner office, I could hear voices and hear his voice raised as the conversation went on. And then he immediately came out of the office, took me by the hand, and we walked home from the school, and I just couldn't understand what was happening, you know, because I was so sure that I was going to get to go to school with Mona, Guinevere, Wanda, and all of my playmates.

*This is a quote from Linda (Brown) Thompson, daughter of Oliver Brown, plaintiff in the case Brown vs. Board of Education, taken from 2004 PBS Documentary.

Linda Brown grew up in Topeka, Kansas in the 1950's.  Although she was black, she lived in an integrated neighbourhood where she had many white friends.  The neighbourhood school Sumner Elementary, however, was segregated.  Eight-year-old Linda watched her friends Mona, Guinevere and Wanda walk the seven blocks to the white school while she walked six blocks in the other direction and then hailed a bus to the black school one mile away. 

Black families in the neighbourhood joined forces and with sponsorship from the NAACP, they filed a lawsuit called Brown vs. Board of Education of Topeka, Kansas.  The lawsuit tried to undo the case of Plessy vs.Ferguson of 1896 which stated that all schools must be "separate but equal".  As long as the black schools were equal to the white schools, the lawsuit claimed this practice to be consititutional.

Although Brown was the plaintiff, the lawsuit included 12 other parents and was filed on behalf of their 20 children.  Oliver Brown, a lifelong resident of Topeka, was a welder in the shops of the Santa Fe Railroad.  He was also an assistant pastor at his church; perhaps his leadership in the church made him a good candidate to lead the lawsuit.  According to Oliver's youngest daughter, Cheryl, the black school buildings in Topeka, Kansas were equal to the white school buildings (unlike many of the schools in the Deep South).  The black teachers were well educated.  However, for the Brown's, it was the principle of the matter.

The lawsuit was filed in the district court of Kansas on February 28, 1951, but the plaintiffs lost.  However, Oliver Brown took the case to the Supreme Court and on May 17, 1954, Justice Earl Warren and his court ruled 9-1 in favour of the plaintiff.  Segregated schools were declared unconstitutional in the United States.

Linda Brown was able to join her friends Mona, Guinevere and Wanda at Sumner Elementary thanks to the courage of her father, Oliver, and the 12 other parents.

Photo of newly integrated classroom courtesy www.gpb.org.

Ten Things You Didn't Know About Paris

1. The best views of Paris can be had from Montmartre, which is home to the famous Basilica of the Sacré Cœur. It has also been home to Dali, Picasso, Monet and Van Gogh and now has many unusual and interesting shops and cafés.

2. It’s easy to get around by public transport on the Metro, which has a comprehensive network, the RER, to take you out to the suburbs. If you’re going to be making a lot of journeys it’s cheap to buy books of tickets or carnets. You can also use the Vélib’, bicyles which cost €1 a day in subscription, plus charges for every 30 minutes, although if you use them for less than half an hour there’s no additional charge on top of the subscription.

3. There are numerous parks and gardens where you can relax and watch the world go by.

4. On the first Sunday of each month you can get into the larger museums, such as the Louvre, the Musée d’Orsay, the Pompidou Centre, for free. The under 25s can also get into the Louvre for free on Friday evenings after 6pm.

5. You can see a lot of interesting and beautiful parts of Paris along the River Seine, either by walking along the banks, or by taking a boat trip.

6. There are some interesting areas of Paris worth wandering around, including the Latin Quarter and the Right Bank with their narrow, winding streets and lots of small shops and cafés.

7. If you’re looking for bargains, the flea market on Saturdays, Sundays and Mondays at Porte de Clignancourt in the north of the city is well worth a visit.

8. In the evenings many Parisians like to sit along the banks of the Seine with wine, cheese and bread, but if you prefer a livelier kind of night life, a good place to head for is the area around Place de la Bastille.

9. The Eiffel Tower is the tallest structure in Paris, at night the it is lit up, and every hour after midnight for 5 minutes the lights flash and sparkle. When it was built in 1889 it was the tallest tower in the world. Different shades of paint are used at different levels of the tower so that it looks the same colour to people on the ground.

10. The Promenade plantée is the world’s only linear park. It runs for 3 miles along an old railway viaduct from the Bastille almost to the Bois de Vincennes in the eastern suburbs. Many of the arches beneath the park have been made into arts and crafts workshops.

Photo of Arc de Triomphe courtesy www.freeimages.co.uk.

Shiny Stockings

Count Basie, leader of the Count Basie Orchestra, circa 1955 courtesy http://upload.wikimedia.org.

I'm hip, I'm lucky to have
Someone so endowed;
A girl half as lovely would made
Lots of fellows proud
I love all of her charms
But one's really a ball:
I love those shiny stockings most of all.

(An excerpt from "Shiny Stockings", a jazz tune composed by Frank Foster in 1955 and  performed by the Count Basie Orchestra.)

Everybody has heard of D-Day, but who has heard of N-Day?  It was on this day in 1940 that the Du Pont Corporation first came out with nylon stockings.  The hosiery quickly became a bestseller amongst American women.  European women appreciated them as well:  the stockings were the favourite gift for American soldiers to give to British women when they were stationed overseas.

However, with the entry of the United States into the war in December of 1941, Du Pont stopped making the stockings and started manufacturing war materials like parachutes and aircraft tires.  A severe shortage for the product soon developped.  The stockings which had previously sold for just over a dollar, were being traded on the black market for $20 a pair.  Investigators of a murder in the United States quickly ruled out robbery as a motive since the perpetrator left six pairs of nylon stockings behind. 

In August of 1945, with the surrender of Japan and the end of World War II, the DuPont Corporation returned to its pre-war production of stockings.  However, each time a store had a sale, they were sold out before day's end.  Mobs of women surrounded the department stores; fights broke out and the police had to be called.  These incidents became known as the "Nylon Riots".  In Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, the mayor received a petition with the names of 400 women on it demanding that the nylon product be more readily available.  The mayor arranged a stocking sale:  40,000 hosiery-hungry women lined up for 13,000 pairs.  Another Nylon Riot ensued. 

It wasn't until March of 1946, when the DuPont Corporation started producing 30 million pairs of stockings per month that supply met demand.  And America's women were happy once again.








Photo of line up for nylon stockings on May 15, 1940 courtesy http://4.bp.blogspot.com.

To Bok, Perchance to Caw

Photo of a brood of chickens courtesy http://www.haccpeuropa.com/.

Ten Things You Didn't Know About Chickens

1.  There are 150 varieties of chickens.

2.  They can run up to 9 miles per hour.

3.  They can live for up to three days without their heads.

4.  September is National Chicken Month.

5.  The world has more chickens than people.

6.  Chickens speak their own language.

7.  A cross between a chicken and a turkey is called a "turken".

8.  The latin term for a chicken is a "galos domesticos".

9.  The chicken is the closest relative to the T-Rex.

10.  "Alektorophobia" is the fear of chickens.*

*Source:  http://www.youtube.com/.




Today a pastor came to my children's school and delivered a talk about chickens.  He recruited ten volunteers, all relatively small in stature, and asked them to strut around like chickens, flapping their wings, pecking at the ground for food and making their trademark "bok bok" sound.  Then the pastor recruited a tall teacher to act as an eagle and descend on the brood of chickens.  But he was not any ordinary eagle.  He decided to make his home with the chickens, walking instead of flying, pecking at the seed like the chickens, rather than searching for prey, and even "boking" like a chicken.

Finally, a naturalist came along and reminded the giant eagle that he was the king of the birds and that he should act accordingly.  After much coaxing, the eagle took flight, soaring over the land with his giant wings, searching for fish, and "cawing" like an eagle.  He realized his full potential, that God had made him much more than just a chicken. 

We, too, might go through life acting like the chickens, running around with our heads cut off.  But we have been given such talents and resources.  With God's love and direction, we no longer need to peck at the ground like chickens, but rather soar like the eagle.

Photo of hawk courtesy http://nathistok.bio/.

God's Helpers

He could not send us here alone
And leave us to a fate unknown;
Without providing for His own,
The outstretched arms of mother.

God could not watch us night and day
And kneel beside our crib to pray,
Or kiss our little aches away;
And so He sent us mother.

And when our childhood days began,
He simply could not take command.
That's why He placed our tiny hand
Securely into mother's.

The days of youth slipped quickly by,
Life's sun rose higher in the sky.
Full grown were we, yet ever nigh
To love us still, was mother.

And when life's span of years shall end,
I know that God will gladly send,
To welcome home her child again,
That ever-faithful mother.

George Wiseman

Ballad of Birmingham

"Mother dear, may I go downtown
Instead of out to play,
And march the streets of Birmingham
In a Freedom March today?"

"No, baby, no, you may not go,
For the dogs are fierce and wild,
And clubs and hoses, guns and jails
Aren't good for a little child."

"But, mother, I won't be alone.
Other children will go with me,
And march the streets of Birmingham
To make our country free."

"No baby, no, you may not go
For I fear those guns will fire.
But you may go to church instead
And sing in the children's choir."

She has combed and brushed her night-dark hair,
And bathed rose petal sweet,
And drawn white gloves on her small brown hands,
And white shoes on her feet.

The mother smiled to know that her child
Was in the sacred place,
But that smile was the last smile
To come upon her face.

For when she heard the explosion,
Her eyes grew wet and wild.
She raced through the streets of Birmingham
Calling for her child.

She clawed through bits of glass and brick,
Then lifted out a shoe.
"O, here's the shoe my baby wore,
But, baby, where are you?"

Dudley Randall

Photo of four girls killed in Birmingham Church bombing on September 15, 1963 courtesy www.english.illinois/edu.

I saw four little girls sitting on a wooden bench in an old yellow brick church in Brantford this week and I thought of four little girls sitting in an old red brick church in Birmingham almost 50 years ago.  The main difference between the two groups of girls is the colour of their skin.  The Brantford girls don't have to worry about a group called the KKK.  They don't have to worry about dogs and guns and hoses and tear gas.  They don't have to worry about which fountain they drink at or which stores they shop in or which restaurants they eat at or which libraries they borrow books from or which schools they attend.  Their parents don't have to worry about the right to vote or whether they will be paid less for a job because of their skin colour or which neighbourhoods they are allowed to live in.

The Birmingham girls had a much different life fifty years ago.  Their city earned the nickname "Bombingham" after the forty-plus racially motivated bombings that had taken place there since World War I.  Alabama's governor, George Wallace, known for his pro-segregationist views, resisted black leaders' attempts to integrate Birmingham, announcing in September of 1963 that the city needed "a few first-class funerals" to stop integration. 

Only a week later, four KKK members complied by planting a box of dynamite under the steps of the 16th Street Baptist Church, a meeting place for civil rights activists like Martin Luther King Junior and Ralph Abernathy.  The Sunday School children, heading downstairs at 10:22 am, never got to hear the sermon "The Love that Forgives" since the bomb exploded.  The dynamite blew a hole in the back of the church, destroyed the steps, and shattered every stained glass window but one, showing Christ leading the children.  Twenty-two people were injured.  Four girls died including Addie Mae Collins, Denise McNair, Carole Robertson and Cynthia Wesley.

Would there be justice for the Birmingham girls?  Robert Chambliss was arrested shortly after the bombing, charged and put on trial for the crime.  However, he was only found guilty of possessing dynamite and sentenced to six months in jail and a $100 fine.  Chambliss was retried in 1977 and finally convicted of the murders, this time going to jail for life.  In 2001 the FBI announced that the crime was committed by a KKK splinter group called The Cahaba Boys.  Thomas Blanton and Bobby Frank Cherry were finally arrested and charged with the murders.  The final member of the group, Herman Frank Cash, had already died of natural causes in 1994, never seeing a day in jail. 

This week, the four Brantford girls left the old yellow brick church in one piece.  But may we never forget the four Birmingham girls who never got to leave the old red brick church that day in 1963.



N.B.  Here are some other materials about the Birmingham Church Bombing:

1.  The Watsons Go to Birmingham -- 1963 (a novel by Christopher Paul Curtis)
2.  "Birmingham Sunday" (a song recorded by Joan Baez in 1964)
3.  "4 Little Girls" (a documentary by Spike Lee)
4.  Until Justice Rolls:  The Birmingham Church Bombing Case (Frank Sikora)