January Reading; “The Past is Present”

As I head to the West Coast for Next Stage and a run of Undersigned, I thought I’d change up the normal programming with some reading I did for my work as a facilitator and Project Specialist at Monument Lab. Specifically, this month’s book came to me through the network of Collaborators, and really bowled me over. 

The Barn

Wright Thompson

Author Wright Thompson talks about this book detailing the murder of 14 year old Emmett Till and the subsequent attempts to diminish or bury that history as both “an act of mapping” and “a Rosetta stone for America.” While I thought I knew the story of Till (though certainly not from my public school education in North Florida), Thompson accomplishes a remarkable feat of pushing back against a linear idea of time and expanding the concentric circles of fault, over and over again asserting how terribly, starkly, necessarily present this crime and the forces that brought it to bear remain. I haven’t felt my understanding of American History be challenged or reframed quite this much since I read Geert Mak’s In America, and I recommend this book not only as a vital primer on the specific history but as a compelling case study in how forces operate across history, and how history operates as a force in our lives.

RELATED READINGS

Wright Thompson on The Barn

Poured Over

I didn’t love any of the interviews I found with Thompson, but despite poor audio quality, I think this one gives a solid (if repetitive) foundation in the case Thompson is making over this specific history and approaches to history, and I found it helpful for framing the book to explain it to others. However, if you’re looking for listening, you could just listen to the audiobook, which is narrated by Thompson himself…

“Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation”

John Lewis, NY Times Opinion

John Lewis spoke many times about the effect Emmett Till’s murder had on his life, including in this excerpt from his memoir “Walking With the Wind.” But his posthumously published Op-Ed in the NYTimes left a particular impression on me, and in the wake of this book, lines like “You must also study and learn the lessons of history … The truth does not change, and that is why the answers worked out long ago can help you find solutions to the challenges of our time” and  “… we must put away our willingness to profit from the exploitation of others” ring out all the clearer. What’s more, Lewis gives a testament to yet another layer of the map Thompson so diligently lays out in his book, and makes the case for how terrible injustices of our time have similar ripples across the fabric of our lives and national consciousness.