freezing time

Sometimes when it's cold outside you don't really notice. By the time my walking tour ended yesterday, my imagination was ablaze—and my feet were frozen. But I didn't become aware of that fact until I headed back to Brooklyn; I was too busy scheming and dreaming up another book! Cyrus Forman, park ranger at the African Burial Ground National Monument, gave a fantastic presentation yesterday that included a powerpoint presentation at the visitor center followed by a guided tour of the sites in lower Manhattan that were part of Maritcha Lyons' world. Cyrus stopped traffic and led us through the streets surrounding the African Burial Ground; Maritcha was born where the ugly Manhattan Detention Center now stands; her grandmother had a home and a bakery there, and once welcomed Frederick Douglass as a guest; Maritcha's father, Albro Lyons, ran the Colored Seamen's Home at 330 Pearl Street (picture here), which was attacked in the New York City Draft Riots of 1863 (he also once lived in Seneca Village, the mostly black community destroyed to make way for Central Park). Carla L Peterson joined us for the tour (pictured with Cyrus above); she's the author of Black Gotham and the great-grand-niece of Maritcha Lyons! There are lots of other great events planned for the rest of February, including another walking tour on 2/25. Check out the AFBG's new social media site, and you can find a list of their Black History Month events on the CES blog.

I gave my first presentation on Ship of Souls last Friday. The students and staff at the North Star Academy were wonderful, and the kids were definitely intrigued by the chapter I read aloud. This morning I'm heading over to Prospect Park to take photos for my powerpoint presentation. Then it's back to work on my conference paper. No one can stop time, but it's so easy to lose yourself in the past when you're walking around this city—the parks, the schools, the brownstones—all serve as reminders of another time, other generations who walked these same streets and dreamed their own dreams…I came home from the walking tour yesterday and found an email from my father's cousin; I had searched for her unsuccessfully online, but found someone on Facebook that I thought was her brother…I sent him a message, he forwarded it to his sister, and she emailed me to offer the assistance I need to piece together my father's family history. It's hard to set the shovel aside once you start digging, but time doesn't stop just because you're caught up in the past. The semester's off to a good start, I've got a radio interview on Tuesday, and three more school visits this week. Sometimes I feel like the sankofa bird—facing forward but always looking back over my shoulder…