Dear Internet,
Courage is taking action despite fear, being willing to step into the unknown, or into the known, when we know that life may be difficult ahead. It is the willingness to take risks that might not pay off, or at least not in the foreseeable future. It is veering off the established path, choosing to take the road not taken, hoping that your intended destination does indeed lay ahead.
I am exercising courage.
While I cannot go into the details just yet, I can tell you where I hope to end up and who it is I hope to become as I tread the path ahead.
As I've already said, I love history. What truly carries me away - what fascinates me - is the history of this city of my birth, Philadelphia. And specifically, it is the history of people of African descent within this city that I love to learn about. For us, Philadelphia has been a city of contradictions from the era of its founding, even before the revolutionary fervor of the 1700s. In a city meant as a place of brotherly love, African men and women were kept as involuntary servants, living lives not their own to determine. As the desire to throw off the yoke of British rule grew, still more Africans arrived in the city, torn from their homeland and yet listening to talk of freedom and liberty from the very people who now held them captive.
Yet, not all black Philadelphians were enslaved. Prior to the Civil War, Philadelphia had one of, if not the largest, population of free blacks in the nation. While in many ways their options were limited, they made inroads as businessmen, caterers, barbers, seamen, and other skilled workers. They established literary societies and social help organizations, opened schools at all levels and participated in a network of cultural organizations spanning the Northeast. And they agitated vocally and forcefully for the freedom of their enslaved brothers and sisters, working collaboratively with abolitionists of all stripes to help runaway slaves move through Pennsylvania towards freedom along the Underground Railroad.
There is so much to the stories of these men and women, from the mothers, wives, sisters and daughters who nursed wounded loved ones and strangers alike at Camp William Penn to the men who brought out the dead and tended the ill during the 1793 Yellow Fever epidemic. Not to mention those who labored in the President's House when Philadelphia was our nation's capitol.
I want to know it all. It's just so darn interesting!
I want to become an expert in the history of blacks in this city, up until at least the first World War. And not only do I want to learn it, I want to teach it.
I want to be involved in hands-on research, digging through archives, reading old journals and newspapers, handling artifacts, and the like. And then I want to write about them, plan lessons about them, teach about them, and help other people to understand the rich history our city has but that many of its inhabitants know nothing about. History inspires. It changes lives when shared correctly. And I want to help do that, both for my fellow Philadelphians (especially our city's youth) and for those who come to our city to understand the birth of the United States. I think the experiences of our city are a microcosm of this nation, and if we can tell the full story of this city including its conflicts and tensions, maybe we can better understand our nation as a whole.
But, don't you want to get paid, you ask? Don't you want the spoils that come with that Harvard degree?
Well, yes. (Stop laughing. Especially those of you who work in history and/or education.) Maybe pursuing history and education does not have to mean living in abject poverty. It certainly requires creative thinking. Maybe I won't have the big house and the fancy car, but I prefer to live small anyway. What pushes me to the brink of despair, more than almost anything else - and certainly more than the idea of not being able to afford a gym membership where I can sweat with shiny happy people - is the idea of toiling away in a job that I am not passionate about, knowing that I could have taken a risk and tried walking down the path I wanted to be on.
So, Internet, I will be doing what I can to tread this path, whatever the steps may be that I need to take. And I am looking for suggestions.
- Are there any books or articles that you would recommend?
- People that I should talk to?
- Organizations I should look into?
- Freelance or consulting opportunities?
- Research and volunteer opportunities?
I will work hard for this. And I hope that that will make a difference.
Ase.
