WOODSTOCK, N.Y. – Life without cable news can be very therapeutic. Of course, we love the three Chris’s, Rachel and Lawrence, but a few nights without them, even in the worst of times, is not the end of the world. It is not, literally, climate change. But it does cool us down if not also […]
ICYMI: The Washington Independent Review of Books Interview on Five for Freedom
My interview with Holly Smith, Editor-in-Chief of the Washington Independent Review of Books, appeared online this week. ICYMI, it is here and pasted below. Further FYI, I’ll be speaking about Five for Freedom: The African American Soldiers in John Brown’s Army at the monthly meeting of the Montgomery County Civil War Roundtable tonight (Thursday evening) […]
Removing Old Monuments and Erecting New Ones
Nearly 160 years ago this month, abolitionist John Brown led 18 men down a dark country road to Harpers Ferry, located at the confluence of the Potomac and Shenandoah rivers some 60 miles upstream from Washington, D.C. His plan was to seize the federal arsenal and armory, take hostages and foment a slave rebellion. The […]
Sharing the Story of “Five for Freedom” – Lessons Given and Lessons Learned
By the time most of you who subscribe read this, I will have shared the stories of Osborne Perry Anderson, John Anthony Copeland, Shields Green, Lewis Sheridan Leary and Dangerfield Newby — the Five for Freedom: The African American Soldiers in John Brown’s Army — in a Writers LIVE talk at the Enoch Pratt Library in […]
LOCAL AUTHOR TELLS STORY OF AFRICAN AMERICANS AND JOHN BROWN’S RAID
This was posted Aug. 28, 2018 on the “Source of the Spring” website and is reprinted with permission. My thanks to Mike Diegel, whose site seeks to fill a community news gap in Silver Spring, Md. A Woodside Forest resident has told a little-known story of five African-American men who fought alongside John Brown in the […]
FIVE FOR FREEDOM: Coming Events, and Other Important Updates
The rollout continues for FIVE FOR FREEDOM: The African American Soldiers in John Brown’s Army. If you missed me at Politics and Prose, you can watch the YouTube video by clicking here. Earlier this week, I was interviewed on WOWD-FM, a Takoma Park, Md. community radio station. To listen, click here. To see and hear […]
George L. Cato, Jr., R.I.P.
Many, probably almost all of you, have never heard of George Cato. He wasn’t an author or a media celebrity or a public figure. What he was was my neighbor and closest friend. He died unexpectedly on June 24, and a memorial service was held at Grace Episcopal Church in Silver Spring on July 7. […]
Families Torn apart: It Has Happened Here. It Is Happening Here.
BRENTSVILLE, Va. — It has happened before. Families torn apart. Crying children wrenched from the arms of sobbing parents. Uncertainty over whether the family would ever be reunited or forever separated. Lack of due process, yet actions taken under the color of law. On the steps of the antebellum courthouse here in Prince William County, […]
This Is the Week That Was: FIVE FOR FREEDOM is here and now!
I’m proud to report that the e-book version of FIVE FOR FREEDOM: The African American Soldiers in John Brown’s Army is #3 on Amazon’s list of hot new releases in the abolition category! Last time I looked. The Amazon rankings are as changeable as the weather, hot one moment, cooler the next. At the start […]
What You Missed: Schieffer, McDermott, Dionne et al
Or maybe the headline should read: Last Weekend’s News Tonight, or This Morning, or whenever you are reading it. And, what a weekend it was at the 6th annual Washington Writers Conference (#DCWritersConf), sponsored by the Washington Independent Review of Books. Held at the College Park Marriott Hotel & Convention Center, it featured TV news […]