JULY 2020
Dear Friends,
Greetings from the African American Heritage House at Chautauqua (AAHH). We have not communicated since early June and things have moved rather quickly since then. We sincerely hope that you and your family are well and that you continue to follow the appropriate guidelines to avoid Covid-19. We hope that as we are “opening up” in measured ways, you also find time to be with special people, with the outdoors and are able to enjoy some traditional summertime activities!
And now, we want to bring you up to speed on our activities at and with Chautauqua Institution (CHQ)!
As you know, CHQ has cancelled the Season 2020 onsite in Chautauqua NY. Instead, it has launched an aggressive beta version of an online Season called the “CHQ Assembly”. AAHH activities will be significantly aligned and integrated with Chautauqua’s virtual season, so please go to https://assembly.chq.org and proceed to enjoy this new form of engagement – free of charge for the first 90 days, infection-free, reduced environmental impact, highly focused and simply captivating.
You get the picture! We fervently believe there will be silver linings in the CHQ Assembly for all to enjoy, and meaningful avenues for AAHH to pursue our mission.
Speaker Series – As planned we will kick off the Season during Week Three with the acclaimed young artist and scholar, Dr. Fahamu Pecou and will finish Week Nine with a discussion of demography by Dr. James Johnson from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill.In between, we will have a full slate of diverse and learned speakers addressing a wide range of topics from art and social justice, the inherent biases in artificial intelligence (AI) algorithms, urban education and, of course, reparations, a topic raised numerous times by our audiences last year. During Week Five when we will be celebrating the 100th anniversary of women’s suffrage, we will have a very special speech by Dr. Martha Jones from Johns Hopkins University where she will chronicle the efforts of Black women to vote over the last two hundred years. Dr. Jones will also be the first "Virtual Scholar in Residence" at Chautauqua during Week Eight. An outstanding season is coming together. A full roster can be found on our website AAHeritageHouse.org by clicking on the Programming tab.
Please look for us at 3:30pm on Wednesdays beginning July 15th!
CSO Diversity Fellows – We are pleased to note that there are plans for the CSO Diversity Fellows to be engaged for the virtual Season (CHQ Assembly). We will announce the events and dates as soon as their involvement with the Institution becomes more well defined in this virtual season! We’re proud of this initiative, as several of the original CSO Fellows have already achieved positions in professional orchestras!
Phillis Wheatley House – Please note that a house on the grounds of Chautauqua, named the Phillis Wheatley House, was dedicated in the 1890s to provide lodging for African American workers and speakers at Chautauqua Institution. There were two categories of African Americans at Chautauqua, those who were brought in their roles as chauffeurs and household help, and those who were invited as teachers, preachers and Amp lecturers. A sampling of those invited includes the luminaries and the professionally known: Frederick Douglass, Booker T. Washington, Utica Jubilee singers, Mary McCloud Bethune, Carl Rowan, Roy Wilkins, Jesse Jackson, Julian Bond, Alex Haley, Ralph Abernathy, Carl Stokes, Shirley Chisholm, ….and those known in their fields of literature and religion: Dr. Henry Brooks from Andover-Newton Theological Seminary; James McPherson (for a CLSC writers’ course); Dr. Robert Murray from Howard University; Bishop Nichols, chaplain for a week, more than once. The Phillis Wheatley House was moved around a bit and finally rested near what is now Fletcher Hall. Significant additional historic research has been developed so far, along with additional information on the lives of African Americans during the Chautauqua Season. Our plans to celebrate the house and its history with the dedication of a plaque have been postponed until the 2021 Season when we hope things become a bit more normal.
These are difficult times for us all and we at the AAHH hope and pray that you weather them safely. While commenting on these troubled times, we are still moved by the words of CHQ President Michael Hill, "this pandemic has underscored the need for all of us to come together and to weave even broader, more inclusive stories of our humanity, struggle and triumph into a new Chautauqua."
Finally, I’m pleased to report that the Statement we issued following the recent murders of young Black men was very well received. It is repeated below. We continue to hold these thoughts and feelings foremost in our hearts as we pursue the mission of AAHH, and as we join with Chautauqua Institution to help improve not only in Chautauqua, but the nation, as well.
On behalf of the AAHH Board, please stay safe and follow the federal guidelines.
Sincerely
Erroll Davis, President
A Statement from the Board of the African American Heritage House at Chautauqua
June 2, 2020
Dear Friends of the African American Heritage House (AAHH) and the Chautauqua Community:
Like many Americans, we, the board members of the AAHH, are distressed, disturbed and devastated as a result of the recent killings of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd and the threatening surveillance of birder Christopher Cooper. However, we understand these acts not as isolated incidents, but within the context of our country’s legacy of racial oppression and indiscriminate violations of and violence upon black bodies. Therefore, we unequivocally name and experience these acts as racist and clearly recognize them to be the fruits of a white privileged culture that has little respect for and puts little value on the lives of black and brown people.
As a project with a mission to partner with the Chautauqua Institution to make it a place where black people are welcomed and find a sense of belonging, and that values diversity, equity and inclusion, we find these atrocities committed against black people abhorrent. We are further disturbed, in particular, that they are part of a centuries old pattern of law enforcement’s highly problematic relationship with black people and their communities. We long for justice to be done on behalf of the victims of these most recent events and their families. And, because we know these acts are symptoms of an illness that plagues American society, we understand that the wellness of our country is dependent upon the transformation of all systems, institutions and structures that create the conditions which allow such injustices to persist.
We refuse to permit the shocking, anxiety producing state of current affairs to back us into a corner of impotency and endless grieving. We at the AAHH hold the mirror up to ourselves and ask, what shall we do? We implore Chautauqua, an institution in which we take great pride as an affiliated project and whose mission we hold dear, and all Chautauquans to do the same.
In answering the question, what shall we do, it would be intellectually dishonest and a preservation of the status quo, to suggest black people and white people have the same work to do. Our experience and knowledge tell us that simply exhorting us “all to do better” without distinction, renders invisible the painful experiences of black people and absolves white people of their full responsibility. We must not perpetuate this inequity.
We are all responsible. We all have work to do. We encourage black people to intentionally embrace practices of self-care, engage in mutual support, find time to evoke and lament and create spaces to exercise your memory of the creative genius you have shown in order to survive and prosper since landing on the shores of Jamestown in 1619. We also urge black people to take up the mantle of leadership to continue the critical work of dismantling racism in our society.
Similarly, we encourage our white neighbors, who have benefited from the cumulative advantage of white privilege across the ages to do the necessary work to acknowledge, accept and understand this reality. Remember, that over the long and trying struggle for our country to be a more perfect union, there have been moments when white and black citizens have transcended the constructed barriers of the color line, in order to fight for justice together. We urge you to consider your role in transcending that line today. We ask you to acquire the skills to be racially literate, learn together, challenge each other, hold one another accountable, and acquire both the will and the wherewithal to act to interrupt structural racism.
We are committed. As a project, the AAHH will continue its work of sharing information, stories and perspectives that confront racial issues, provoke people to think and challenge them to do their part in making change. And, we invite you to share the work with us.
May we move with the urgency this hour demands and be inspired by the moral voice of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who both reminded us that “The time is always right to do right,” while also challenging us that “In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.”
In Courage and Hope,
African American Heritage House (AAHH) Board of Directors
Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell
Erroll B. Davis, Jr.- Chair
Ted First
Geof Follansbee- Treasurer
Rev. Dr. Robert Michael Franklin, Jr.
Rev. Dr. Sterling E. Freeman
Dr. Helene D. Gayle- Vice President
Rev. Dr. Cynthia L. Hale
Edward M. Jones
Ernest Mahaffey- Secretary
Rev. Dr. Otis Moss III
Rev. Dr. Albert Pennybacker
Tim Renjilian
