We've reached the end of the 3rd Annual Mixed Experience History Month! Here are some of my favorite posts this year: Paula Gunn Allen, Charles Curtis, and William H. Johnson.
It has taken an extraordinary amount of research to find these forgotten, hidden or erased stories of the Mixed experience: many of the people I profiled this month were "new-to-me" biracial--maybe they were for you too. In any event, I love mining the history books for these stories--more to come next year. In the meantime, please send recommendations my way of people/events/ideas that you'd like to know more about.
I leave you with this wonderful email I received last week from the brilliant actor Stephen McKinley Henderson who recently directed the amazing show, Zooman and the Sign, at Signature Theatre in New York. I am a huge fan of his work and was floored when I received this email from him in response to my August Wilson post. I share it here with you with his permission:
Hello Heidi,
I was moved to write you because of the August Wilson entry that Google sent my way. Your premise for the website is inspired. The ancient literary staple of the tragic mulatto has long been eclipsed by the contributions and personal missions of mixed blood perspectives. Every war that has been fought, perhaps even the war on terrorism soon, has produced children born across enemy lines. Nothing human is foreign to us.
Thank you for your piece on August. I traveled with him during the last ten years of his life as an actor in several of his plays here and abroad. Freeing ones self and others from negative perceptions of the self and the world is a noble mission. Soldier on, Sister. Soldier on.
Stephen McKinley Henderson
I soldier on! Thank you Stephen, and thanks to all of you who have followed Mixed Experience History Month this year.
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Mixed Experience History Month is a yearly blog post series celebrating the history of the Mixed experience. Established in 2007, Mixed Experience History Month is an effort to show that we have long been a nation of multiracial and multicultural individuals of achievement (not tragic mulattoes). Please look for more profiles of people, places and events of the Mixed experience every weekday of May right here at Lightskinned-ed Girl, the blog! Thanks for reading.
