R.E.A.L.

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...KONCERNED*KOMMUNIVERSITY*KONCEPTS...

insuring & confirming
that

ALL

future * generations

WILL*BE

of

Mind*heART

enABLING*WHERE

w/

ALL

Stature * Capacity

2

shARE the FREEland

!
...Responsibilty...
...Earth...
...Art...
...Learning...

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an
INTERGENERATIONAL
Interdisciplinary
EDUCATIONAL
* agri CULTURAL arts*
COLLABORATIVE
@
THE Truckee Meadows BOY'S & GIRL'S CLUB
2680 East 9th Street
&
PARADISE PARK COMMUNITY GARDEN
Reno, Nevada

GREAT BASIN CO-OP
271 WONDER

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24 - 7

TLC

RIVENDEL

Independent Living * Green Healing Centres

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...WE are creating an interdisciplinary grassroots, faithbased, service learning eduCULTURALarts model which SHOULD mimic the world in it's entirety...

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MLKjr. Celebrations '06

MONDAY
16 JAN 06
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FREE, FREE, FREE @ LAST!
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1p...9th Street
Boy's & Girl's Club
Truckee Meadows...

PERFORMANCES
featuring...

* MAMA EUFARANZA
* IiYAH ISHA
* LEE DAZEY
* LAURA FILLMORE
* HALEBOPP FILLMORE

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5:30p...Federal Building
PEACE VIGIL...
featuring...SONGS & STATEMENTS per THE MLKjr. LEGACY

...IN MEMORY of the DRUM MAJOR of PEACE & JUSTICE...

Brother MIKE...MLK jr. - "Doc"

Names...what people and things are called...

Often the stages of our lives are best clearly defined by the names we are called during the incrumental cycles of our existence...

It is 39 years ago that Dr. King was assassinated on that world famous balcony of the old Lorraine Motel. I am unaware of any commemorative events being held anywhere in Reno, NV in remembrance of OUR Brother Doctor's life, death and leagacy! Perhaps, I just didn't see any events listed in the local newspapers...not having cable tv or satellite TV, I certainly missed seeing worldwide soundbites about what Memphis and Atlanta pilgrims brought forward to honor the man on the day of his death...

Martin Luther King jr. was just like us all...living through the pivotal cycles of his evenful life...sure, his is perhaps the most well recognized voice & image of ANY man born on the planet...Minister King Jr. was and is known and remembered by numerous names...

I am so glad to know many people who knew him...I am glad to have met many of his friends...his collaborators...and even two of his children...

I am somehow glad to have stood on that westward balcony where Martin Luther King's last breath was drawn...the stain of his martyred blood is still faintly visible there...

Over the many years that I was an integral part of the body of cultural historians whose concerted purpose it was to teach the truth of the Amer*African civil rights movement within the very walls of the National Civil Rights Museum...

Many, many times have I walked through the hotel turned motel turned museum. Whether blocking the pivotal travel path of OURstory for youngsters not quite sure what a "Youth Tour Guide" was really expected to do in this plan for them to be S.H.A.R.P. -

Over many a summer's end, I witnessed the awe inspired wonder of parents, friends and relatives as they witnessed the result of six week's preparation of our children's Edu*CULTURAL*Arts investment in

Sharing

History

AND

Remembering

the

PAST!

I do not doubt that I will always be remembered by someone...as long as someone remembers...or when they think of our times there...or visit there again... or see an image of that place...for that place sealed for me in relationship to them the proverbial, unequivocal DREAM!

Each and every journey through those hallowed halls was a indeed a pilgrimage, spiritual for me.

From 1619, so very, very many of us have walked this land's path...fully aware of the comparative inadequacies of civil liberty as relates to skin color, religion, gender, language, status, origin and justice...The National Civil Rights Museum's chronologial sequencing of exhibits & OURstory teaches the majesty of the legacy of people unwilling to submit to crimes of hate & injustice!

On that pre- Easter season evening in 1968 my personal rite of passage was indeed being tested and invariably tried true!

I am equally glad to have taken the very enlightening pilgrimage through his boyhood home...We salvaged a mountain-top shaped piece of cement from the regrading work being done on that historic ancestral driveway near downtown Atlanta...

My fellow agri*CULTURAL*activist - "Brother Man" Reverend Ezekiel Bell was one of "Micheal's" partners, they along with others of the faith were young committed clergymen together - "Brother Mike" slept often in "Zeke Bell's" Memphis home...

In 1968 I was 15...
I was in Memphis on Easter holiday when Dr. King was assassinated at the old Lorraine...

I was in a taxi crossing the Tri-Burrough Bridge when the cabbie explained that the unusual traffic jam was due to Malcolm X having just the night before slept at the famous Teresa Hotel ...was just shot at the Audubon Ball Room.

I spoke casually with Attalah Shabazz in the lobby of the Holiday Inn while at the 25th Anniversary of the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party in Jackson Mississippi...she and Yolanda King's Performance Arts Troupe mesmerized us - some of us took a break from the scheduled events at Jackson State University and walked across the campus street to the home of Myrlie and Medgar Evers...we stood on the very drive way where he was slain...Attalah spoke personally, lovingly and profoundly a short time later at the Memphis funeral of her "Baba" griot Alex Haley...The old Audubon is now a museum honoring the legacy of Dr. Betty and Imam Malcolm.

I am called by many names..."Baby Girl", "Frances Louise","Lil' Fran", "Miss Boo", "Eboni", "Ms. Ellis", 'Fran Ellis", "Miss Fran", Mrs. fran ellis-echols", "Sister Fran", "Franisha", "Sister ISHA", "Sayyida Isha", Mrs. ISHA"..."IiYAH ISHA" - seems ALL MY LIFE'S RELATIONSHIPS bless me to KNOW my name.

When the National Civil Rights Museum opened in 1991, some of us had been ad hoc tour guides at the Lorraine Motel since 1968...the people always came...carloads, busloads, riding bikes, walking...although it was often unsafe...the people always came! I recall telling the S.H.A.R.P. youth tour guides, "They would have come even if he'd met his end at a roadside Mickey D's..."

I could see the pride in their eyes as I complimented and praised their research and rehearsal results...

The Baileys were premier among Memphis' post WWII Amer*African entreprenuers. Although Mr. Bailey was affiliated with Kemmons Wilson's Holiday Inn Motels, Mrs. Lorraine Bailey worked hard alongside her husband to have a nice place for her people during the days of Jim Crow and Boss Crump's machine.

Personal stories...names...Civil Rights Stories...the people and events which effect and cause us to be who and what we are...they are ALL our's to remember and to celebrate...as they are ALL our's to cherish as well as our's to share...

Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King, Jr.
NOBEL PEACE PRIZE RECIPIENT
Man Amongst Men
Husband

Father
DRUM MAJOR for PEACE & CIVIL LIBERTY
1929 - April 4,1968

Your service is much appreciated...I remember as I recall!

ASANTE SANA - Thank YOU Very Much!