Category: Geraldine Wilson
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Memories of Childhood and My Father | Geraldine Wilson
Memories of Childhood and My Father Hand-in-hand we walked two-and-a-half childhood steps to one Daddy stride my braids bowed pinafore plaid up curb down curb spring water days were fine fun smoothing diamond edge of his anger mean the wide-brimmed gray Stetson snapped over Black Bottom of his white Post Office pain. Growing up under…
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The Marriage License of Herbert Wilson and Hilda Flowers
A few weeks ago I came across the marriage license of Geraldine Wilson’s parents, Herbert Wilson and Hilda Flowers. I exhausted the Philadelphia archive, but apparently, I searched the wrong archive. I was in the wrong state. Although the couple held their wedding in Philadelphia and resided there, they crossed state lines for a license.…
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In Search of a Black Woman’s Archives
It was my third time viewing Geraldine Wilson’s Papers at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Crumbled in the bottom of box 3, belonging to no folder, I found this small piece of paper, a medical record. The diagnosis”breast ca.” Breast Cancer. I wonder what that day meant to Geraldine, what came to…
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Toni Cade Bambara x Geraldine Wilson, A Friendship
LA TIMES (Dec 15. 1995) Toni Cade Bambara, 56, a novelist, short-story writer, scriptwriter and filmmaker, died of cancer Dec. 9. Ms. Bambara, a native of New York, lived in Germantown, Pa. In this undated photo, a photographer captured Geraldine Wilson (seated-left), Toni Cade Bambara (seated-center), Ruby Dee (seated-right), and others at a writer’s workshop in…
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Geraldine L. Wilson and Black Consciousness Workshops for Mississippi’s Head Start Teachers
Geraldine Wilson, Photos & Prints Division at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, NYPL Geraldine Wilson arrived to Mississippi during the concluding weeks of Freedom Summer, a summer-long collective call for action to civil rights in the state. There are many questions surrounding her late arrival and her activism during that summer. Wilson…
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Geraldine Wilson’s Commencement Speech at Tougaloo College, 1975 [Part I]
First and foremost, thank you for the 20,000 views on the blog! It may be a small milestone, but still a milestone. I will post an update about graduate life. My favorite photo of Geraldine. Her head is wrapped and the photo showed her in action [probably in the midst of giving a WORD…
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“Susan and Gordy Adopt a Baby!”: Geraldine Wilson and The Children’s Television Workshop
Over winter break, I spent time with my one year old nephew. We spent most of our morning eating cereal, dancing, and watching my childhood favorite show–Sesame Street. We bonded over our love of Elmer and Big Bird and wept over the absence of Ernie and Bert. A few weeks later, I traveled to New…
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Geraldine Wilson and the 1964 Mississippi Freedom Summer Project
Chaplain of Tougaloo College, Reverend Edwin King, wrote on May 29, 1964, “The ‘long hot summer’ is about to begin.” That following summer, nearly one thousand volunteers, traveled to Mississippi to work with the local Black community and civil rights activists. The goals of Freedom Summer involved registering Black Mississippian voters and to enroll Black children…
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“Our Children’s Children Live Forever” By Geraldine L. Wilson
Geraldine Wilson, undated, Schomburg Center I am overwhelmed by this thesis (in a good way). Because my time at the archives was precious, I did not read Wilson’s papers as close as I hoped to. As I begin to transcribe letters and review her records, I often cry. I cry because she was so passionate for…
Diary of a Historian 