Pictures from the Alley Annual Meeting 11-11-11

: Alley Board member Leon Oman greets new arrivals to the 11-11-11 36th Alley Birthday Party and Annual Meeting while others wait in line to eat before the program.

: Attendees of The Alley”'s 11-11-11 200th Birthday Party for Wendell Phillips included Janet Gillespie, sitting beside her 100 year old father, Carl Peterson and across from Mark Welna talking with his parents, Virgil and Pat Welna.

: Raymond Jackson who read Louis Alemayehu”'s poem “Thrones”' that is on a brass plate of Amen Corner at the Franklin and Chicago Touchstone Plaza listens as Dee Henry Williams acknowledges the original dream and creative genius of Rafala Green who designed the sculptured ceramic mosaic covered “thrones” and mosaic walkway and vine covered arch to be a place for cultures to come together to talk. Dee spoke of how the spoken word of many diverse peoples is happening there again and how the community has reclaimed that corner and Peavey Park for all to use through listening to one another. Pictured on the left is Emily Duma.

: Dave Moore, neighbor, artist, poet, and cartoon-creator of “Dave”'s Dumpster” and “Spirit of Phillips” cartoons, thrilled and captivated the audience with a “Rhythmic, Rhetorical, Recitation” of his poem “In Search of Wendell: Boston 2001” at the 11-11-11 Birthday event for Wendell Phillips namesake of Wendell Phillips Junior High School and Phillips Community.

: Queen Elizabeth II, impersonated by Josie Winship, local artist and entertainer, read a Proclamation on the occasion of the 200th Birthday of Wendell Phillips and saying she had sought him in Boston but understood that he was, indeed, in Minneapolis that evening as he had been in the 1860s. She acknowledged her agreement with him on egalitarianism but staunching disagreed with his disapproval of the caste system of which she is the head. She hastened to ally with him on his adamant campaign for women”'s rights and used herself as an example of what a woman can do. Wendell did appear as she spoke at which time she greeted him, bade him farewell, and took her leave with her dog Ginger and her Herald-Trumpeter Claude impersonated at the 11-11-11 event by Tom Carlson of the Brass Messengers and other venues.

: Jim Stewart, Wendell Phillips biographer and dedicated student and professor of Wendell, the Civil War, Reconstruction Period, Slavery: Then and Now impersonated Wendell Phillips at November 11th Alley Birthday Party commemorating The Alley”'s 36th Birthday and Wendell”'s 200th Birthday Nov 29th 1811. Stewart is also the co-founder of Historians Against Slavery (historiansagainstslavery.org) a non-profit which says, We”'re “Historians Against Slavery” because: We”'re convinced that historical knowledge and perspective are essential to understanding modern slavery and for combating it effectively. This knowledge and perspective is grounded in the history of the enslavement of Africans and Indigenous peoples in the Western Hemisphere and in the many other systems of slavery once prominent throughout the world. We understand that powerful legacies of the “old” slavery continue to enable the spread of modern enslavement among people of color in the Western Hemisphere. Within the U.S., for example, these include racially skewed applications of capital punishment, profoundly imbalanced incarceration rates, heightened incidences of infant mortality, lowered life expectancies and greatly elevated unemployment rates. We insist that the histories of struggles against earlier systems of slavery provide crucial perspective, insight and inspiration when combating slavery. Knowledge of the histories of slave resistance and abolitionist struggle are critical to combating slavery today.