|
Author:
Tarice L.S. Gray
|
Tarice L.S. Gray parlayed her love of writing into a diverse career. She started out as a reporter for Cleveland's National Public Radio member station WCPN...
|
There she co-wrote and co-produced the award winning documentary "Martin Luther King Day: A Day on Not a Day off" and wrote, produced and edited "Cross Colors" about the effect media images have on pop culture.
Tarice moved to Los Angeles and became a producer for National Public Radio's "Tavis Smiley Show" and "News and Notes".
She has also worked on the African American National Biography Project for Harvard University and written and published a book of poetry titled "Word Harvest". Tarice has also ghost written features and consulted on other documentary projects.
Currently she is a freelance writer and a member of the Writers' Guild of America, West.
|
STORYTELLINGThroughout the month of February networks will be airing programming in honor of Black History Month. Some may find the change refreshing since the on-going writers strike has created a dearth of content on our favorite programs. The good news is, there are some interesting shows with historically African American themes and they’re not just for adults anymore. HBO is featuring two animated specials titled “Sweet Blackberry presents: The journey of Henry Box Brown, and Garrett’s Gift”.
The stories were written by Fresh Prince of Bel Air alum Karyn Parsons who wanted the project to help rejuvenate the oral tradition of story telling in black culture. That triggered a certain level of curiosity in me. As a black woman, I’d never heard of Henry Box Brown, a slave who literally mailed himself from Virginia to Philadelphia simply to be free. Parsons said she had the same reaction when her mother shared the story with her as an adult. She said she wanted to start her kids with it now.
“A few years ago I was pregnant with my daughter, who is now four; I started thinking about my responsibility as a parent, it was my first child, and teaching her about history. My husband said you just need to get off your butt and start doing something,” Parsons said. So she did. She formed Sweet Blackberry with the help of Gina Kamentsky, Illustrators Mark Page and R. Gregory Christie, and music man Coati Mundi. The group wanted to fill a void in the storytelling or oral tradition of their parents’ parents.
I found that Parsons and I had some things in common. Not only were we both storytellers, but the stories we’d grown up with, while charming and memorable, were actually fairytales which, though valuable, were filling in as ‘stories’ and had nothing significant to offer us specifically, culturally.
Karen said, “I didn’t hear a lot about historical figures when I was a kid, it was all fairy tales and one of the things when I started Sweet Blackberry, was, as much as I know about little red riding hood, wouldn’t it be nice to know the story of Henry Box Brown like that.” It was a difficult transition though. How do you explain to a four year old that slaves want to be free? What is a slave to a child anyway? Parsons used rhyming words and animal metaphor. She said those added the bells and whistles she was accustomed to that made “fairy tales” memorable.
It’s fascinating, when you think about it. The bedtime stories of my generation and those after me were ready made, store bought and literally fairytales. The legends were of Sleeping Beauty and Cinderella, we could all find our happily ever-after. But those soothing and psychological tales are different than story-telling in African American tradition with tales about real times, life on plantations, or in the small towns of the south. They were getting lost. Linda Goss grew up with a family that loved to weave tales from history. It inspired her to make story telling a profession. She co-founded the National Association of Black Storytellers in the 1980s. And just like Parsons is sharing historic tales with her daughter. Goss learned at the knee of her mother the artistry of telling them.
Goss said, “Mother would sing a lot of stories to me, and I’m known for doing the “call and response” and songs. The first one I remember her singing to me was one called All Hide. ‘Last night, night before, twenty five black birds at my door. I got up, let ‘em in, hit ‘em in the head with a rollin’ pin All Hide!’ and she would call it out and she would have me to respond by saying ‘All Hide!’. And it wasn’t until I went to college at Howard University in Washington D.C. that I realized that was a part of the Underground Railroad.”
Growing up in Alcoa, Tennessee, Goss did learn important things about people and experiences in the south to an extent. She was told stories like that of a family of 14 kids that was almost decimated by food poisoning. Goss also knew to stay away from the southern grown skunk cabbage, a lesson her grandfather past on through stories of his own unfortunate experience. The stories both funny and sad were shared and heritage preserved, much like the tradition adapted during antebellum slavery. Then, slaves would use songs, stories and call and response to send coded messages and share news. Now the messages are of historic triumph and tradition, and story tellers like Goss vividly paint pictures that we can’t forget.
Goss is a part of the folkways recordings series at the Smithsonian and has been a professional story teller since the 1970s. And yes she has made a living at it. Interestingly enough it’s a tradition that’s never gone away, but the call response went down to a whisper for a time. Goss believes it’s because of the lack of media attention and exposure. Parsons is hoping that bringing the story of Henry Box Brown to cable giant HBO will revive the art in some way.
Parsons said, “It’s really important for me to get these stories out to kids and, not incidentally, to parents and older siblings. We’re finding parents are responding very strongly because the stories are about little known people in history and if we don’t keep telling them, they’ll be lost.”
Parsons’ Sweet Blackberry Presents: The journey of Henry Box Brown and Garrett’s Gift” runs on HBO through the end of February and DVD’s are available on www.sweetblackberry.com.
|