Newspaper passage (New York Times-Sunday May 27, 2001, Felicia R. Lee, Coping: Delta Deaths Still Echo on Upper West Side)
“Thirty-seven years is a long time. But, like the 1963 bombing of the church in Birmingham, Ala., in which four black girls were killed, a crime for which Thomas E. Blanton Jr. was sentenced this month to four life terms, the death of the three young men in Mississippi became a powerful metaphor for the anguish of that time.”
Question: What are the first words that come to mind when you hear bombing and Birmingham in the same sentence?
Answer: Death. Murder. Obstruction of Rights. Race. Fight.
Question: Knowing that the man who bombed the church in Birmingham received 4 life sentences, is this justice?
Answer: Is putting the man behind bars justice? Does putting him in jail bring the little girls back to life? I’m not sure if justice is fully served through a sentence. Perhaps closure for some, but I see it as a wound that cannot be healed.
Question: None of the men convicted of the Freedom Summer murders served more than 6 years in prison. Is that justice? Should they have spent longer?
Answer: I think what the men and women did in Freedom Summer was noble. They were fighting when others would not. It’s funny because my last response said that 4 life sentences still can’t fully account for justice, yet I wish the men convicted for the Freedom Summer murders would have received greater punishment. Maybe our concept of justice is skewed with our desire for closure. We think the greater the punishment the greater the chance for closure and thus justice. Perhaps we are all misled or unsure.
Ok from the interview I would then pull words to create some kind of word collage to represent a representation of Freedom Summer and the events or history surrounding it.
Rights…behind bars.
Murders justice?
Noble. Fight. Closure cannot be healed,
Punishment. Fight Death.
Convicted Freedom?
Freedom.
Summer wish. Desire….unsure
Mallory -
ReplyDeleteI think your idea of pulling words out of established texts surrounding Freedom Summer is a thought-provoking one. It brings together the language that was/is used to talk about what went on, and makes people thing about what kind of words they use when describing issues surrounding Freedom Summer. I also think that your idea is a good one because you'll have plenty of material to work with. As Miami students, we have access to texts and films that involve Freedom Summer in university archives. You could contrast the language from the University to other texts you have found - showing different points of view, and using different voices. Do you plan to center your project on the murders that occurred? Or on the whole project in general? Or on the training that went on on Western Campus? There is so much you can do. I think you've got a solid idea.
Hey Mallory!
ReplyDeleteThis seems like an extremely intriguing idea to roll with. Found poetry is a unique form that if done right can have fantastic results. But overall, it is such a meaty topic. I think that you should give it some of your own thoughts and values. Being a student at Miami, I and many other kids have learned about Freedom Summer but there is more to be discovered. I think a lot of this will come from a bit of your opinions and biases. Let them come out in this project because after all, it is yours. I think by establishing yourself as a reliable narrator through the analysis and form of using other published works it will really open up the playing field for you to give your insight. This could deffinitely be effective using multimedia as well...I think showing how you found the articles, words and quotes and actually spelling out the process you take to make them yours would be very interesting and helpful to readers! Great idea, I can't wait to see what's next...
-Joey
Hey Mal,
ReplyDeleteThe project you've embarked on seems to be a loafty one. I think that from this first sampling I am already intrigued as to what the next chapter of this project will be. I like that you are breaking down article statements, I also think it would be interesting to research the sources of these articles and see what the general reaction to the articles was in the time they were written. Information reaches us so differently in this day-and-age and I think that developing a connection between your current work and the work of the authors of the articles through which you are deriving your project from would add a nice element.
Keep up the good work.
I think it's a cool idea to collect fragments of actual interviews and make your own work with them. This really gives a longevity to your project, where you can continue in a lot of different directions based off a few samples, and I think you could do a lot of really cool things. I also think it's interesting to take modern interviews on the Freedom Summer events that happened so far back, and that there's room to interchange them with fragments or things that may have been said (or actual interviews) from old newspapers and interviews done at that time. A sort of back and forth between modern recollections of that time, your poems/work interpreting or using that, and the works from long ago.
ReplyDeleteI like the way you pulled out words and put them together such as, Convicted Freedom? It has an interesting twist to the phrase. This is a very interesting idea, it allows us to re-think what words mean when you place words together. The interviews that you have are very powerful. Are you not adding them into your book? I think you should. Have some sections with the play on words from the interview and then other sections with the full interview. To me, they make this language bring forth so much power and tension.
ReplyDelete