‘Something I Said’ Archives
Something I Said: Juneteenth
By DWIGHT HOBBES Dwight Hobbes This month, across America and a few other places around the world, black folk plan to jump for joy at Juneteenth celebrations of freedom from slavery. There’s a bittersweet aspect to that.The sweet, of course, is liberation. Early revelry presented opportunities for political rallies to give voting instructions to newly freed African Americans. Also, baseball games, fishing, rodeos, street fairs and, of course, cookouts. Much later, black people tied the holiday to fighting for civil rights. In 1968, called by Dr. Martin Luther King and, after his assassination, led by Rev. Ralph Abernathy and Coretta Scott King, the Southern Christian Leadership Conference made June 19 the Solidarity Day of the Poor People’s Campaign. Nowadays, in addition to a good time outdoors, there’s teaching African-American heritage, arts and literature showcases, and more. As Karen M. Thomas intoned in Emerge, “Community leaders have latched on to to help instill [...]
Something I Said: Black Women’s Lives Matter
By DWIGHT HOBBES Dwight Hobbes Black women’s lives matter. Shouldn’t be necessary to say but consider. Rodney King, George Floyd and Tyre Nichols are names no one is likely to ever forget. Not so, the likes of Breonna Taylor, Sandra Bland and scores more who are just as dead at the hand of ruthlessly racist so-called law enforcement. Don’t think so? Consider. St. Paul citizen Nekeya Moody, in 2020, died after Ramsey County deputies responded to a 911 call reporting her as having a panic attack. In a subsequent lawsuit her mother said it was due to excessive force and indifference to her medical needs. The medical examiner cited excited delirium, an excuse Minneapolis police tried with the murder of George Floyd but the American Medical Association debunks as unheard of outside cops trying to get off the hook. That same year, a half-dozen Louisville Metro Police officers forced their way into Breonna Taylor’s home, investigating drug dealing ten miles away, and shot [...]
Something I Said: Terry Bellamy – A Singular Presence
By DWIGHT HOBBESTerry Bellamy, who passed in January, was, to say the least, a singular presence. I met him in 1993 at the Playwrights Center for some sort of town hall meeting. He got up and raised three different kinds of hell, calling the organization out for being whites only. We chatted afterward but for the life of me I can’t remember a word either of us said. I do recall within weeks the Center had a black playwrights workshop led by the regrettably late actor Byrd Wilkins (Doctor Who, Running Scared). I joined. Next time I saw Bellamy was in August Wilson’s Two Trains Running at Penumbra Theatre Company. It wasn’t the last as that presence fueled several powerhouse performances at the Twin Cities answer to NYC’s fabled Negro Ensemble Company. The man was, hands down, an amazing actor who appeared all over America in productions at prestigious venues. He was not, however, like many actors, in the profession for the sake of ego, and helped local performance [...]
