The Greene County Democrat

Tag: Mary McLeod Bethune

  • Newswire : Sounding The Alarm

    African American Museum of History and Culture, in Washington, D. C.

    By April Ryan, NNPA Washington Correspondent

    Hands off Our History plans more protests like the Saturday Washington DC rally, where several organizations banded together to draw attention to attempts to remove artifacts from the National Museum of African American History and Culture. “Black people built this country, and we will not allow anyone to erase us from the American story because Black History is American History,” says Melanie Campbell, president/CEO of the National Coalition on Black Civic Participation.
    Campbell told Black Press USA that Saturday “was the beginning of our resistance movement to fight to demand our Black history be respected.”

    In a March 31st article published by the North Carolina Black Alliance, the Smithsonian leader revisits history during an HBCU stop at Shaw University; Smithsonian Secretary Lonnie Bunch said, “I will probably get fired at some point,” Bunch said. “But I think the goal would be to, sort of, fight the fight as long as you can.” That fight is in the planning stages with leaders like Marc Morial of the National Urban League, Shavon Arline Bradley National Council of Negro Women, and Professor Kimberle Crenshaw of the African American Policy Forum, who were also part of the weekend demonstration for Hands Off Our History.

    Referring back to the March 31st published story, “The Smithsonian, with me at the leadership, is considered the best example of DEI leadership — you know, a woke leader,” Secretary Lonnie Bunch said. “So they’ll come after the Smithsonian. I get it. I think that the most important thing for me is to help the staff continue to do the work they need to do because the challenge is, with all that’s going on, people get paralyzed.” A threat of budget cuts can also cripple the museum, according to Bunch. “The reality is nobody’s immune.
    We plan every day for significant budget cuts,” Bunch said. “I’ve done scenarios with budget cuts as much as 40%, which means you have to reimagine the Smithsonian.” This reporter asked the Smithsonian spokesperson, Linda St. Thomas, about the story from the North Carolina Black Alliance. She said, “I have nothing to add. The Secretary speaks for himself.”
    Shavon Arline Bradley, the President of the National Council of Negro Women, is sounding the alarm with concerns over the house once owned by Mary McLeod Bethune that is now owned by the federal agency, the National Park Service. Bradley says, “We have to be concerned about the National Council of Negro Women’s Council House because you need more activity to show more engagement.” The concern is that the federal government won’t see the property as viable if there is not enough foot traffic and tourists there. “so I’m safe to say we should be concerned if we do not see more visitation to the council house,” added Arline Bradley.
    The building is Mary McLeod Bethune’s final home, where she met with then-First Lady Eleanor Rosevelt and other high-ranking officials to raise awareness and action on Black issues such as equity, the economy, community development, and education. When the building was sold to the National Park Service in 1994, the organization thought the federal government would preserve the historic building and “ensure protection and the upkeep.”
    NCNW Members have asked to repurchase the building. Arline-Bradley says she doesn’t know “if it is that simple.” Bradley says, “Protests, marches, and a financial plan are part of the efforts to save Black historic museums and history. Meanwhile, Melanie Campbell reiterates, “Black people built this country, and we will not allow anyone to erase us from the American story because Black History is America’s History.”

  • Newswire : Kerry Washington’s ‘Six Triple Eight’ shows the important role Black women played in WWII

    By Ronda Racha Penrice, NBC News

    The job was considered impossible: Clear 17 million pieces of backlogged mail. In a war zone. 

    Maj. Charity Adams knew it was a mission that could not fail, not just for the sake of morale of World War II troops, but also for the reputation of Black people in the eyes of the country’s top military brass. The real-life efforts of the 855 women of the Women Army Corps’ 6888th Central Postal Directory Battalion are captured in Tyler Perry’s latest film, “Six Triple Eight,” streaming now on Netflix. 
    To Kerry Washington, who portrays Adams, the battalion’s ability to resolve an ongoing problem in the face of discrimination while also being underestimated by others around them felt like both a herculean task and an all-too-familiar scenario. 

    “When these women were asked to solve this problem, it was a problem that lots of people had tried to fix, and nobody could,” Washington said in an interview with NBC News. “They came in and, as Black women do, they figured out how to fix a situation that seemed impossible to fix, and by doing so, they returned hope and purpose and belonging and love to the soldiers to help end the war.”

    Mary McLeod Bethune, head of the National Council of Negro Women and a member of what was known as President Franklin Roosevelt’s “Negro Cabinet,” whom Oprah Winfrey plays in the film, advocated for Black women to serve in the war. But while Black women were admitted to the military, they were segregated from white women and given very little to do. Because top military brass deemed Black people generally inferior, many doubted a successful outcome to clearing endless piles of mail.

    “Back then, mail was how you stayed connected to the people you love,” Washington said. “There was no WhatsApp, no texting, no emailing, no FaceTiming. Rarely could you get to a landline phone. People didn’t have cellphones, so mail was it,” she said. “So when soldiers weren’t getting mail, they no longer had hope. They had lost their sense of purpose.”

    The unit’s work had been forgotten by most — even Perry, the director, did not know about the 6888th’s work until producer Nicole Avant contacted him about taking it on. 
    During a Q&A last month after a screening of the film on his home turf, Atlanta, Perry told the crowd, filled with members of the National Association of Black Military Women, how meeting Lena Derriecott Bell King, then 99, a member of the 6888th, showed him that he could apply her life experiences to help tell the remarkable story. Perry was also fortunate to screen an early version of the film for King before she died on Jan.18, nine days shy of her 101st birthday. 

    To play 17-year-old Lena Derriecott, Perry tapped Ebony Obsidian, who stars in his long-running series “Sistas” on BET. The role came as a surprise to Obsidian. When he asked her to read the script, she did not realize it was a true story or that he wanted her in his film. 
    “I hadn’t even thought about me playing Lena when I read the script,” she said with

    “Meeting with Lena was the biggest gift,” Obsidian added. “She obviously was 100 years old when I met her, but at 17, I feel like there are certain elements about her that had to be the same, that had to just be noble.”

    Washington did not get to meet the real Adams, who died in 2002 at age 83, but she still felt guided by her.  “She passed, but she wrote a really beautiful memoir called ‘One Woman’s Army’ that I read a couple times,” Washington said. “I devoured it, and I used to have portions of the memoir hanging up in my dressing room. I surrounded myself with pictures of her and watched archival footage and interviewed people who knew her and worked with her and listened to old interviews. I just really tried to submerge myself in as much of her soul and essence as I could.” 

    Washington said finding the commander’s actual trunk from World War II, containing her clothes and handwritten notes, outside her dressing room after having rehearsed one of Adams’ monologues with Perry felt like an approval. 

    But how Washington speaks in the film has generated the most interest, including from her own kids, who asked, “Whose voice is that?” after she played them the trailer. To achieve that distinctive voice, which sounds like a sharp Southern twang punctuated by precise Midwestern enunciation, perhaps reflecting Adams’ South Carolina upbringing and schooling at Wilberforce University in Ohio, Washington worked hard with both an accent coach and her acting coach. 

    “They didn’t have amplification back then. It wasn’t like she was standing there with a karaoke machine,” she said. “So if I had the kind of responsibility and command and calling that she had, where would that live in my body? How would that impact my posture? How would it impact my voice? How would it impact my resonance and my need to be heard by these women so that they felt seen and heard by me? Those are some of the questions that I asked to help me figure out where that vocal performance came from.”

    Washington and Obsidian said they are grateful to be at the center of a film celebrating Black women’s strength, excellence and sisterhood, which Obsidian said also shows that “you can overcome anything you need to overcome with the right support and the right people by your side.”

    Washington said: “It’s really exciting to be part of, in some ways, corrective history. We are telling a story that has been pushed into the margins about some true heroes, not just American heroes, but heroes of democracy all over the world.”