African-American Children's Books

Whatever the world may say about the importance of children's books as an influence on children's lives, that saying may go double for African-American children. Black children have not always had positive images of themselves or their families in literature.

Children's Book Week, May 11-17, offers an opportunity to spotlight progress in books written for African-American children or books that have positive images for black children written by black authors. This post is part one of a four-piece series.

Once upon a time, under ... Please continue reading at African-American Books Examiner.

Possible Witness Intimidation a Factor in Cassimere Murders, Pastors Decry City's Violence

Almost immediately after news broke that the daughter of Pastor Olander Cassimere Sr., 79, and his wife, Alphatheda Cassimere, 77, found the couple shot to death in their New Orleans Pontchartrain Park home, relatives told police that they believed the murders are connected to the alleged kidnapping of the elderly couple's grandson. The young man also witnessed an armed robbery.

Witness intimidation may be the motive for the murders, say news sources, but New Orleans Chief of Police Warren Riley, stops short of agreeing with that assessment, reports WWL TV. In a story by the station, Riley said a potential suspect in the murders kicked down a door to a Slidell, La., home earlier this month looking for the Cassimere's grandson. WWL identifies that suspect as Carl Novell, 31, per court records, the station says. Novell turned himself in today, reports the Times Picayune.

A woman also may be connected to the murders, Kashie Fernandez, 29. The Times Picayune says a judge has increased Fernandez's bond to one half million dollars, finding the woman "has violated the terms of her pre-trial release by missing her 6 p.m. curfew on May 9." She's been linked to the alleged kidnapping and robbery.

Clergy outraged:

... Riley, three City Council members, federal law enforcement officials and about 30 clergy colleagues of Olander Cassimere gathered at Fifth Church of God in Christ in Gentilly to angrily decry a rising tide of violence in New Orleans.

Cassimere was pastor of Third Church of God in Christ in the Lower 9th Ward, where his wife sang in the choir.

Several speakers said they felt New Orleans was crossing an invisible boundary, entering a never-before-seen landscape of violence driven by African-American teens and young men drifting without supervision or employable skills.

... Meantime, Bishop Gerald Hawkins of Cassimere's denomination, the Church of God in Christ, presented Crimestoppers, the citizens' anonymous tip line, with a donation of $5,000 for information on the Cassimere slayings.

That brings the total Crimestoppers reward to $11,000, said executive director Darlene Cusanza. Separately, local lawyer John Cummings has offered a $10,000 reward.(from NOLA.com)

Another concern -- youth violence

In addition to this news, the recent murder of a 13-year-old by a 14-year-old in a case unrelated to the Cassimere's murder is stirring discussion of a surge in teen crime (video). This local story echoes similar concerns in Chicago, where a woman started a memorial of stones dedicated to young people who've died violent deaths. The memorial now has 159 stones.

Chief Riley said New Orleans youth are hardened to a level he's never seen, and their crimes include not only murders and beatings but also same-sex sexual assault.

Links:

• Riley says Cassimere murders linked to kidnapping
• Riley: Suspect in murder of pastor, wife was looking for grandson, WWL
• Kidnapping Suspect Linked to Couple's Death
• Novell turns himself into police.
• Kashie Fernandez's bail raised

She Maketh Us to Dream (poem)

author Toni Morrison

She Maketh Us to Dream
By Nordette Adams

Jealous of the stories you tell.
You scooped gold from our people's marrow,
preserved blood in the genie's lamp.

Rubbing up resurrection should come easy like lavender wildflowers
'cuz you've marked us with a her-story
and a his-story and fiction for our babies' futures.

You be a mother and I be a mother and we be women
envisioning a wondrous world.
You tell a tale that makes me dig.

I am proud of your fabled truth,
you be a woman and I be a woman and we
make fresh vision a seed.

© 2009 Nordette Adams

NOLA's Cassimere Murder: Could this happen to your parents?

I remember how scared I was years ago when an elderly neighbor around the corner from my parents' home in the New Orleans 7th Ward was murdered in her home. It was the first time I'd known someone who died by violence. Today I'm deeply saddened by the murder of an elderly couple in NOLA, people I do not know but who feel familiar.

"Olander Cassimere Sr., 79, and Alphatheda Cassimere, 77, were found shot to death in their home in the 5400 block of Seminary Place"in Pontchartrain Park on Mother's Day morning. The news came via local TV stations and the daily newspaper, The Times Picayune. Pontchartrain Park is located on the eastern side of Gentilly in the Upper 9th Ward in relation to the Gentilly section of the 7th Ward.

Neither my parents nor I have ever lived in Pontchartrain Park, the historic, middle-class, black subdivision in New Orleans, but in the elderly couple I see my parents, hard-working people who saw it as a blessing to live out their years together in peace.

Mr. Cassimere was pastor of the Third Church of God in Christ in the Lower 9th Ward. His wife was a soloist, a soft-spoken woman. Neither of the pair cursed, smoked nor drank, reports the local paper. I can't say my parents lived lives that vice-free, but both lived their lives with reverence to God. My father is still alive, but my mother died last year due to illness.

I heard about the Cassimeres' murder first from my father, 88, who lives with me. From his recliner in my den he yelled, "That's horrible what happened to that old man and his wife. What's wrong with people?"

And then I saw the story last night on the news. What's wrong with people indeed? As I told LoveBabz when I appeared on her Love Talk show last month, "I'm overwhelmed by the crime in New Orleans." My poetry on this blog reflects my floundering. I did not think I'd end up writing mostly about crime, death, and loss when I started The Urban Mother's Book of Prayers. I had hoped I'd write on a variety of topic that impact urban mothers and give hope of solutions. For this crime wave, I don't know what solutions may be offered that would not take years to bear fruit.

We want the killing to stop now! To see the errors and correct ourselves this moment. But the errors are so many, we don't know where to start.

To give you an idea of the kind of crime we hear of every day, this weekend it was the Cassimere murder and this Monday afternoon, it's the slaying of a 13-year-old boy. He's the fifth young person to be killed in less than 40 days, according to WDSU. The police have charged a 14-year-old in the murder of the 13-year-old, who should have been in school at the time of his death.

I talked about a sense of drowning in blood from the crime deaths here when I discussed Chicago's youth dying by violence at the WSATA blog. Furthermore, I considered that New Orleans may need a memorial of stones that the woman in Chicago started and that's drawn attention to the horror of children dying there.

WWL-TV reports that the Cassimeres' family members think the couple's slaying is related to witness intimidation. A family member was allegedly kidnapped last year, reports news sources.

Links to Stories About the Tragedy:

• Elderly couple shot to death
• Elderly pastor and wife shot to death in Gentilly home
• Witness intimidation may be motive in the murder WWL-TV video
• Family convinced murders tied to kidnapping

Mama's hands working grace ( Mother's Day poem, 2007)

Mama's hands working grace
By Nordette Adams

Sometimes we sink, sorrowful, search
brooding skies for blessings.

   They have skin like black pearls,
   eyes of wisdom, the light that soothes
   the broken and burdened.

When we wrestle in brown clays of frailty,
claw up from mud, wearing our brokenness like rusted armor,
we seek their beauty that is dark like us--
hair roped or kinked like ours,
lips burning with fullness of hungry dreams for
children and fathers, the bettering of our village.
Their noses are wide enough to breathe all God in
until our chests rise and fall in disrobed joy.

The signs of beauty dark like us are our mama's hands, working.

These hands pull infants up by ankles,
slap diapers down, cool and wrap bottoms.
These hands strip collard greens,
pick a chicken, sift red beans,
chop the garlic, onion, and green peppers,
set ways that season us to face a hard planet.

Mamas rock us in our grumblings until we stop the whine,
learn to sing, to work through stings.

Their hands discipline the backtalking mouth,
the stupid, boy-crazy girl,
the boy, crazy for street trouble who swaggers to his beat,
disbelieving this truth--
Death respects nobody,
Death don't spare.

Their hands comfort big black men
with big mother spirit when sons and husbands
wail like colicky babes choked up on milk,
soured by a world that don't want 'em,
grip us when we grown but shaken, when we weep 'cuz life's too much--
somtimes life's all too much like a hard, humbling death.

These hands type or straighten, wait tables or drive buses
so more hands will find bread or tie shoe laces or go to college.

We grab at love multiplying in these hands,
her warm, curling fingers, her palms
lined first faintly with life's unprobed paths,
later branded by a tangle of choices made putting us first.
She puts us first like the God who calls us children.

Our brown-hand mothers rise with the waking sky,
work past sunset, gift us with the power of
all brown-hand women cherishing fruit.

(c) Copyright 2007 Nordette Adams. All rights reserved.
Previously posted at BlogHer.com

Cool Mother's Day Video Gift (free)

Mom's Rising, a nonprofit, has a cool computer application that let's you send your mother a high tech card of sorts. The group's produced a "news" video that you can customize to include your mother's name or the name of the woman who's been a mother to you, or the name of your wife who's a mother that dubs her "Mother of the Year."

Click here--http://news.cnnbcvideo.com/index2.html--to insert your mom's name and send video. The writing on the page will also include your mother's name once you type it in. It's a riot! After you do the first one, you can send more to other women in your life who mother those around them.

Also, see my book picks for Mother's Day at Examiner.com.

Mother of the Stubborn Child (poem)

Mother of the Stubborn Child
By Nordette Adams

I sag like a muggy morning drenched in a swamp's summer mist,
my bones feel as ancient as its mud when I see
you teeter on the brink of a ruined life,
prowl dark streets with wild seed.

Come back to me, my son; hear my voice, my daughter.

A mother's love should know no bounds.
What bounds there are my heart spills over
as it did the day I first saw your face, brown
and round and held you to my breasts.

I pray for you, my son, light candles for you, daughter.

A mother's tears speak her prayers as much as words.
A mother's chiding speaks her love as much as meals.
A mother's worry may paralyze her spirit, but
A mother's courage can vanquish fear.

May my whispers and light guide you home.

© 2009 Nordette Adams

Cool Mother's Day video gift.

Mom's Rising, a nonprofit, has a cool computer application that let's you send your mother a high tech card of sorts. The group's produced a "news" video that you can customize to include your mother's name or the name of the woman who's been a mother to you, or the name of your wife who's a mother that dubs her "Mother of the Year." Click here to insert your mom's name and send video. The writing on the page will also include your mother's name once you type it in. It's a riot! After you do the first one, you can send more to other women in your life who mother those around them.

Also, see my book picks for Mother's Day at Examiner.com.

Chicago's memorial of stones for dead children

Anderson Cooper sent a link out on Twitter directing surfers to a story by David Mattingly on the rising number of school-age children dying violent deaths in Chicago, Ill. I posted the video at WSATA and wrote my thoughts in relation to New Orleans youth violence. Read post and watch video at this link.

Song of the Near Empty Nest (a mothers' poem)

Song of the Near Empty Nest
a poem by Nordette Adams

Some mornings I get happy.
I remember old mothers shouting in church.
They hopped, heads back, faces up to God,
palms outward and the swell of
Glory! Glory!

My spirit's jumping in its cage,
in this old body the soul leaps.

Sometimes I get low.
I remember old mothers wringing hands,
Jesus! Jesus! the child's hard-headed.
Heads bowed and a swell of prayer.
Mercy! Mercy!

My spirit's trembling in its cage,
in this old body the soul kneels.

Today I am an old psalm
spoken to young mothers in the square.
They chase toddlers and bear the future,
seeking wisdom and the swell ...
Glory! Glory!

© 2009 Nordette Adams