while investigating the history of Yosemite, and reading more about the Buffalo soldiers who were send to fight the Indian and Mexican wars, i realized i didn’t know when exactely slavery was officially abolished in his country. June 19, 1863. wondering whether there would be a celebration, i found that the Louden Nelson community center organized an Emancipation Proclamation afternoon in the park today.
food and information stalls, people sitting down in the grass, a stage for peformances and games for children. there were perhaps 150 people, mostly black, and with Val, a woman of the health stall, we were joking that this kind of represents the whole black population of Santa Cruz. Val had approached us, asking if we wanted to have our blood pressure taken. she was part of a ABC/African-American Health Group at the Walnut Avenue Women’s Center, and their group had a stall with all kinds of health information and number of basic health examinations including a dental check-up. she talked to us about the need to do outreach for health issues (and both of us kind of confessed our own strategies to delay seeing to doctors of all kinds… Val laughed a made some confessions herself.)
and she talked to us about the situation of the African-American community here, which isn’t very strong. it accounts for 1% of the Santa Cruz population. and then there’s the incredible story of the Louden Nelson center. Nelson was a black man who, after gaining his freedom, settled in Santa Cruz and made a good living. when he died, he left his money and property for education purposes, effectively becoming a (middle-class) philantropist. so the community center is appropriately named after him, only the white folks didn’t get his name right (for goodness sake….): he was called London Nelson, but the center is named Louden Nelson. exasperating looks, what else is there to say…
we saw Bob on stage, whom i had just met this morning while i was sitting in the sun on the steps of our house, taking over our house’ s garden sale while Leta went to her yoga class. already on his way to the park, Bob parked his car in front of our house, and lingered a bit at the garden sale, we talked about this and that. when he left, he got his guitar out of the car, and asked me if i could play.
“ah, not much, not worth mentioning… but i sure enjoy good music.”
“is that so? well come to Lulu Carpenter’s tonight. i’m playing. every saturday night.”
oh, so this was the famous bluesman from Arkansas that William had been telling us about… but the first time i saw him play was today in the park.
suddenly berna joins marÃa and me in the grass. she had tried the house and then figured we’d be in the park. she shoud have been grading papers, but was desperate looking for something else to do. when two girls come up to us with their yellow ball, it’s clear we’re meant to play volley ball this sunny happy afternoon…