On July 4th, I went to a local Waffle House with a Black friend. Our usual Waffle House that we hit up on University Drive was packed solid so we drove to one in Five Points, a mostly white area of east Huntsville. When we entered, there was only one booth that looked open so we […]
Always Open
On our way home from visiting my mother in Ocala, Florida we took a detour to visit a salvage store in Brooksville, Florida. It was the perfect thing to do on a sad, drizzly Sunday, the last time we’d see family for a while, an especially bittersweet departure as I have cancer. My husband and […]
Marching into Low-Wage America With God on Their Side
The Von Braun Center sits in downtown Huntsville, a brutalist concrete slab of a building that reminds you of an old Stasi interrogation and torture center. Or, more appropriately, a Nazi one. Wernher Von Braun, the father of America’s rocket programs and whose work transformed Huntsville from a backwater Southern textile town into a major […]
The Lyceum Was Empty
Reese didn’t understand. 1. Walking through the grounds of Cannonball Church, we came upon a homeless man curled up in the corner, resting in a narrow sliver of shade on a hot, sopping humid day. I took a photo. I didn’t say anything. Reese and I continued our walk. “Why did you do that?” I […]
The Chicago Women’s Liberation Rock Band, 1970-1973
A Memoir and Reflection on Badass Boffo Revolutionary Feminist Music by Naomi Weisstein Introduction by John Garvey Naomi Weisstein was a founding member of the Chicago Women’s Liberation Union in 1969 and, soon afterwards, a founding member of the Chicago Women’s Liberation Rock Band. In the the following essay, which we are re-posting from the […]
Conversations with “The Enemy”
Last year on my then-job, work was slow. A late middle-aged RN supervisor who worked in a different wing came in to file papers. We exchanged superficial pleasantries, the mask everyone wears in everyday life. And then suddenly that mask dropped for some reason I still don’t understand, she sat down and started talking very […]