- Autobiography
- A Break in Family
- Childhood Years
- Judging People on My Experience
- At Home
- Parents, Home, Neighbors
- Early Lessons about Race/Ethnicity
- Early “Organizational” Life
- Church and Christian Contradictions
- Silent Prejudices
- Classes and Class
- College & the Beginning of the End of Innocence
- War without War
- A Lesson in Manipulative Power
- Decision for Ministry
- Preparing for Ministry
- Academic Major at Amherst
- Extra-Curricula Learning at Amherst – Enter Bill & Alice Wimer
- Unrecognized Introduction to Feminism
- Sylvia
- Andover Newton Theological School
- Church Pastorates
- Denominational Staff Ministry
- Wakefield
- From “Black Problem” to “White Problem”
- Stealth-Like Learnings: “Sexism”, “Racism” and Institutions
- Shifting Sands of Faith Demand Action
- Advancing “dis-ease”
- Changing View of the World
- The New Beginning
- Genesis of Community Change, Inc.
- The Early Years at CCI
- Boston’s Struggle for Equal Schools
- Attention to National Issues
- People Participating = Hope
- Enter: James Baldwin
- White Identity Challenged
- Urgency Requires Anti-Apartheid Action
- Suburban Operations Simulation
- Police Brutality
- Local Organizing and Seeking Ways to Combat Racism
- The Move to Boston
- “People”, “People”, “People”
- Moral Man and Immoral Society
- The “office” not an “OFFICE”
- Probing History Moves to the Center of Work
- Affirmative Action
- Little GIANTS
- Expanding the Work
- National Day of Mourning
- Chinatown and Beyond
- “People” not “leaders”
- 1492 Becomes 1992
- Harassment of Black Leaders
- Immigrant Action
- The Photography Collective
- Following (not very well!) Freire
- Enter Derrick Bell
- Using “Privilege to Subvert “Privilege”
- Becoming a Historian
- On the Trail Where Yesterday Inspires, Challenges Today
The house I knew as home until marriage, was a comfortable six-rooms at 6 Shawmut Avenue, in the Bradford section of Haverhill, Mass. An ice-box in the cellar was regularly serviced by men who delivered the cakes of ice which I helped chip so that they could fit more fully into the box. In the cellar there was also a washing machine, and two large set-tubs which, as a youngster I learned to use for rinsing clothes before hanging them to dry on a line in the back yard, or, on rainy days, on lines strung in the basement. That is where I was introduced to the mysteries of women’s undergarments, the corsets! A quaint old second toilet also was there, with the flushing water closet suspended overhead, controlled by a metal chain. A coal furnace stood in the center of the cellar; it became a regular duty for me to keep the fire stoked with coal, and to empty the ashes. In another corner of the cellar was a “vegetable closet” where apples from our trees were stored for the winter, and where I was sent daily to choose from rows of jars of mother’s preserved fruits and vegetables. That same basement was the place where I was banished to wait for “Papa”, whom I knew would spank me when he came home and mother told him what forbidden thing I had done. The waiting was always worse than the actual spanking!
Groceries were delivered after mother phoned an order, or sometimes were picked up by father on his way home from work. Because we were dependent for services on delivery people, letter carriers, and because people needed to use the sidewalks, I learned very early in life that shoveling after a snowstorm was an important part of being thoughtful, to make it easier for others. I remember that mother insisted that I must shovel as soon as a storm was over so people in the neighborhood could walk safely on the sidewalk. It was one of my first lessons in community responsibility.