BOOK PROMOTION: A LUMBEE GERSHOM

Anita Jo Shifflet reading her book,

A Lumbee Gershom. (2018) 

alumbeegershom.com

Lonely and tired, the lovely young Indian woman with the white father and Lumbee mother embraced courage and chased truth as she looked into the angry eyes of a crowd that judged her. She knew she was the evidence her parents had broken the law by loving and marrying one another. She also knew her existence was evidence that racism exists in people of varying shades of color. Her two worlds melted into one as she looked directly into the eyes of her critics and began to speak.
"For I have been a stranger and have dwelt in a strange land...I am A LUMBEE GERSHOM." 

Anita Jo Shifflett, Lumbee author and lawyer promoting her book in November of 2016.

🌻 A LUMBEE GERSHOM🌻


Where Do You Dwell? Are you prepared for a journey into my world? A world where my skin deceived those that did not know the true me? A world where I grew up playing with the children of great writers, doctors, attorneys, United States Generals, and even United States Senators. Or would my real world interest you more? The world of my brown skinned mother and my people, the Lumbee Indians of Robeson County, North Carolina. A community filled with clapboard houses, mobile homes standing a top of exposed cinder blocks, old pick up trucks with strong brown arms propped upon doors making their way down old dirtroads, mule pulled tobbaca’ crates, the sweaty faces of the tobacco croppers with barefoot Indian children freely running through flat fields of sand and old Indian women sitting on front porches shelling field peas faster than any machine could possibly imitate.

Such scenes came from my hidden world…the world of A Lumbee Gershom.
Or does my secret world interest you more? A place where words like “miscegenation”, "mixed marraiges”, "Eugenics” and "forbidden love affairs” shaped my young adult life.
And the best part?
Every word is true…. Take the journey with me, JoJo…the original Lumbee Gershom.

ON SALE NOW $15.00 SIGNED TO YOU BY JOJO. BUY YOUR COPY NOW AT
alumbeegershom.com

a Lumbee story

I love this land dotted with abandoned old barns and smokehouses now filled only with memories of another time... they tell of a forgotten tribe in forgotten times and oh my, how much the old clapboard houses and fading worksheds can tell us if we would choose to be still and look at our past instead of speeding by it with disregard.

We are so blessed ...for we live in a land we intimately know like "no other place on earth." It is but the few who can make such a claim to the land they call home....We are the blessed....We are the survivors... We are the prodigy of warriors whose graves we drive past each day ...

And so I like to do small things, like stopping along the journey to really look at what resembles what must have been a plow or a tobacco crate or crib. And Many times I leave with only more pictures in my camera, but my brother, sometimes ...just sometimes, I leave inspired to be the best I can be because THEY...our grandparents and great grandparents were the best THEY could be everyday and I know this to be true, how? Because they survived so that we can now thrive.

And those words my friend, came from a rusty old red tractor sitting in a cleared field down "nyear" the schoolhouse....🌻
Best Regards,
JoJo Brooks Shifflett 

Anita Jo Shifflet with Dennis Banks.

One has to stand still to know this story, not move to know the motion of the past, and one needs to care enough to listen in silence without rushing to the next moment, the next thought! Jo Jo, in your story a phrase caught the rhythms, in my ear, of Ubuntu. I heard it catching the universality of your storytelling.

"I leave inspired to be the best I can be because THEY...our grandparents and great grandparents were the best THEY could be everyday ...Because they survived so that we can now thrive..."
This concept, Ubuntu, is far away from Western ideologies and much to do with Lumbee and other nations here on Turtle Island. This interconnection is a language you speak very well. - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

a Lumbee woman's fashion tip.

Anita Jo Shifflet said, 

Anita Jo Shifflet said, "A true lady travels light and prepared ... black boots, a black handbag , red lipstick and ALWAYS has a good READ tucked in her handbag for those days when the subway is late and The Wall Street Journal is too grey!" 

This post is sponsored by the Makers of A LUMBEE GERSHOM...A Good Read for the Girl on the Go!!!
Check JOJO BROOKS SHIFFLETT out at Alumbeegershom.com

PROMOTING: A Lumbee Gershom!

Anita Jo Shifflet, Lumbee author promoting her book: A Lumber Gershom (2018).

Dear Customers...All Orders have been processed and will be shipped out January 27, 2018...All books will be inscribed and signed by JoJo. We apologize for the delay but had many orders to process. If you are interested in taking the journey with JoJo, You can still purchase your inscribed & signed copy for $15.00 at
alumbeegershom.com — with Anita Jo Shifflett.

The Magic of Standing Rock

The Magic of Standing Rock
by JoJo Brooks Shifflett 

I shall never forget the power of the moments at STANDING ROCK...The 12 days I spent there were overflowing with moments that literally transformed Indian boys into Native men and Native men into true warriors.

I knew as I watched Two Kettles walk across a frozen river at 10° below zero, I would in all likelihood, never again come as close to seeing the rawness of courage...It was a dark night and my eyes followed those 2 warriors I knew only as Two Kettles with my eyes until their bodies became silhouettes...I remember feeling ashamed I had not the courage those young braves possessed as they assured ME not to worry, that as long as I was giving all the bravery I had within me to stay behind and wait upon them to return, that I must be at peace with myself and allow them to finish the dark journey across a frozen river and up an exposed riverbank without me.

I admit, their words eased my guilt but the solemness of the moments before the two very young warriors left the safety of my warm rented car was thick and heavy and without pomp or ceremony.
I was worried for their safety as I had attempted to talk them out of their mission to retrieve a flag that was not even their own tribal flag.

You see I had done something I had not ever done...I had talked two people into something and I could NOT talk them out of it...I had convinced Two Kettles that the tattered piece of cloth was more than just another tribal flag. It was a symbol of my nation's alliance with them. To allow the feds to bulldoze it and dispose of it as trash I argued, was erasing some, even if just a small sum of my tribe's history as well as their tribe's history and the Miracle of Standing Rock!

You must help me save it, I told them, I am a stranger here...I do not know my way around your lands.
They said little at first...and then they spoke...

They call you the fancy lady, they call you A Lumbee Gershom... But they also call you the friend of Unci Dennis. So we trust you. And we are now concerned...we are concerned if we say no, that you may ask others who will lead you into danger...So Lumbee JoJo, You spoke of this flag and of history..Can you promise us it will hang in a place where people in your lands in the East will see it? We are NOT afraid of the frozen river, we know her well, that is why we fight to protect her, she has taken care of us...but we respect her power too...she knows greed. We will not step onto her if you want the flag for greed. We want the world to know what happened here! Can you promise us that Lumbee JoJo? Can you promise us you want the flag only to tell her story? Unci Dennis said your grandfather marched with him and fought with him in Washington D.C. He said your cloths may be fancy but your words are plain. so tell us Lumbee JoJo, why are you here? Why did you come to Standing Rock?

Before I could think of a truly articulate, persuasive statement, the truth in all her simplicity spilled out of me...

I wanted to see history.

The stocky, shorter one finally spoke. We can't even get them to show what is happening to us on mainstream news! So now you saw some history.. how will getting your flag back help us?

I just sat there at the casino bar beside them, listening NOT to anger but hearing FRUSTRATION. I knew the words they did not say, my heart hurt as one looked down at the casino bar before us and shook his head as he exhaled so deeply we all heard him sigh. 

And then one of those magic moments that defined Standing Rock happened. I told them how far I felt from home when I arrived at the camp.. And then I looked up and right at the entrance to Camp OCETI SAKOWIN was my tribal flag. I knew it was a sign I did the right thing by coming here.
And from there we began talking of signs and symbols. I told them I believed that every single tribal flag that flew at Standing Rock was a piece of history and must be preserved.
We cannot allow the feds to trash them. Each one now is the centerpiece of a great journey it went on. I want to take my tribal flag home, i said as straightforward as I could.

The tall one made the offer... O.k. JoJo, If we help you get the flag back, you give your word it will go into a museum? It must be placed in a place where it can tell the story...You will do this?
I promised it. I gave my word I would do all in my power to have it displayed in a museum back East where it would spark discussion of Standing Rock.

So in the light of day, we agreed.... We would retrieve the Lumbee flag under cover of night...and armed guards. Yes, that part...the part about armed guards they skimmed over... was the part I could not let go of. 

I was still dwelling on it as we were smudged that night before our short but potentially dangerous journey, and i was obsessed with it as I handed them all they had asked for, two flashlights, a plastic bag a map and a ride to and from the decided drop off point.

As I handed them the items I was shivering and my teeth chattered so hard I thought I would chip a tooth. Just wait till before dawn, they told me...If we are not back before dawn, you leave...
I looked at them and began to cry...This is wrong,, Not all this for a piece of cloth... please, come back to the hotel with me now...

The taller one grabbed my arm....Hey now, JoJo, we are not doing this just for you...Heck no!! We are doing this to show them they CANNOT erase us...they cannot bulldoze history...They cannot bulldoze Standing Rock.

Do not forget your own words...That flag symbolized our alliance, sister. Your people and my people...we gathered once at Standing Rock. 

As I watched them disappear into the night, I found the courage to wait alone in the dark Dakota night. The courage came in a single moment. A moment that was as brief as it was momentous...
And as with so many things that happened at Standing Rock, It is not time to tell the rest of the story...yet.

by JoJo Brooks Shifflett
unedited
typed into phone

March 21, 2018 

Flag of the Lumbee people held by tribal member and author,

Anita Jo Shifflett. (2018)

I had to read this and re-read it with the emotions your moment engineered. It is hard to fathom how dark the energies and intent of a people deeply opposed to the principles of water threats and death to those who are responsible for the Earth, our Mother!. It lingers, this propensity of violence towards women, as women like you take risks standing against this stubborn rock subjugating life for profit and privilege. That was one of my immediate reactions.

You know this, but others need to understand the basis of Native life: spiritual responsibility has natural responses in every act of living. Without the sense of spiritual responsibility in one's life any brutality can pass a litmus test. Without the people fully engaged in their spiritual responsibility chaos would race across all of existence creating terror within a type of hell too horrible to live through, and hard to describe to the simple minded or those living deep in denial...

I admire your overlapping telling of more than one story in one story. - Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories

A Gentle Nudge.

Artist Pasckie Pascua. Woman and Red Flowers. 2017.

After procrastination, excuses, and a talk with the Creator, the idea feels good, fear leaves you and you are ready to believe in the magic of new beginnings.
by jojo brooks shifflett  

Anita Jo Shifflett, Lumbee author and lawyer. September 2017.

She Speaks for her People!

1921-09-14


*On this date in 1921, Constance Baker Motley was born. She was an African American lawyer, judge, and politician.

From New Haven, Connecticut she is one of nine children to a family who had migrated to America from the Caribbean island of Nevis. While attending school, she was active in the New Haven Youth Council, and the New Haven Adult Community council. Motley attended Fisk University, transferring to New York University-graduating in 1943 with a degree in economics. She attained her law degree from Columbia University in 1946.

While at Columbia she became acquainted with Thurgood Marshall, helping with the task needed to file Brown v. Board of Education in 1954 through the NAACP. An instrumental player of that legal team, Motley argued other cases before the Supreme Court, one of her best known cases was Meredith v. Fair1962, helping James Meredith gain admission to the University of Mississippi in 1962.

She furthered her cause for civil rights in 1964 by being elected to the New York Senate, the first black woman to hold that office. In 1966, Motley was appointed to a federal judgeship in 1966, the first African American woman to hold that position. She made many important rulings in her new post. In 1991, Motley ruled that it is illegal for a company to make photocopies of articles and book excepts and assemble them into anthologies for sale to college or university students.

She has written countless articles and legal observations which reflect her stance on civil rights and its importance in America. One example is: Equal Justice Under Law: The Life of a Pioneer for Black Civil Rights and Women's Rights 1998. This presents a detailed legal history of her fight against the "separate but equal" racial practices of the 1950s and 1960s. In the fall of 1997 Montley served as jurist-in-residence at the Indiana University School of Law. Constance Baker Motley died on September 28, 2005.


Reference:

Black Women in America An Historical Encyclopedia
Volumes 1 and 2, edited by Darlene Clark Hine
Copyright 1993, Carlson Publishing Inc., Brooklyn, New York
ISBN 0-926019-61-9

Constance Baker Motley was the first Negro woman elected to the New York Senate (1964),

and appointed to a Federal Judgeship (1966). In this capacity she was the first Black woman.

Sarah Winnemucca (1844 – 1891) Native activist.

Sarah Winnemucca (1844 – 1891) was a prominent female Native American activist and educator, and an influential figure in the United States' nineteenth-century Indian policies. Winnemucca was notable for being the first Native American woman known to secure a copyright and to publish in the English language. Sarah was a person of two worlds. At the time of her birth her people had only very limited contact with Euro-Americans; however she spent much of her adult life in white society.......Why? - author unknown

Coretta Scott King speaking before the public.

"I came to the realization that we had been thrust into the forefront of a movement to liberate oppressed people, not only in Montgomery but also throughout our country, & this movement had worldwide implications. I felt blessed to have been called to be a part of such a noble and historic cause." - Mrs. King

 

BEAUTY is MYSTERY.

Marisol Baez reclining within an elusive spirit of a beauty impossible to capture, but possible to praise and reflect upon. She is a Native woman (Taino) activist I met a couple months ago on Jay Winter Night Wolf's radio show about the march she was a part of. . . - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories (Sept. 2016)

"There is an elusive spirit to beauty poets capture similar in a way photographers can engage the senses to see what can move very fast from a base sense of a woman into an electric change and challenge to the sense of where the lines lie between beauty and character. How this relates to power is beyond being able to show strength. Spirit within talks to its attributes in lovely or beautiful ways as the mystic may say, or Beauty embodies what Spirit needs to see within Creation. Either way it is a mystery how beauty is to beautiful what intelligence is to consciousness. Consciousness raised by the spirit of a woman is potent and able to subjugate the feeling of being overwhelmed when thinking takes place and one discovery is that 'seeing' is reflection." - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories (October 19, 2016)   

in the Sickness of The White man

Standing Rock protest drawn by a child

Hi Friends,

Here is a short video with a plea for help by the Women’s Circle at Standing Rock.  http://bit.ly/KenPopeIndigenousWomenVideoPlea

The Army Corp of Engineers have given the Water Protectors only until February 22 at 2 PM to clear the camp or be forcibly removed.  The cleanup cannot  be completed in the timeframe allowed, thereby criminalizing water protectors who are working hard to clear the land.  The failure to follow the legal process requiring an Environmental Impact Statement for DAPL to build this pipeline is an anti-democratic precedent that threatens the safety of all Americans.

That's why I created a petition to Army Corps of Engineers,  Doug Burgum, Governor of North Dakota, and 4 others.

Will you sign this petition? Please pass it on to your contacts.  

Click here:  http://petitions.moveon.org/sign/halt-army-corps-of-engineers?source=c.em.mt&r_by=8545867

Thanks!

Pam Tinker

Standing Rock protest art by Jackie Fawn.

Women's March on Washington sign of protest (second story)

"Power words waiting to be said by European women for hundreds of years."

- Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

Women's March on Washington sign of protest in itself shattered an origin myth from Europe. These words are the undertaking of the first step of a ceremonial approach to undoing what has been done.... photo by Gaby Grebski.

Women's March on Washington sign of protest speaks to the powers

with the voice of the most powerful force created. photo by Gaby Grebski.

The old, the ancient tradition of awakening the womb into action as a tool, a force, an awakened, shaking power to shift the world's forces, the men's essence, and tone the propensity to destroy may have taken on her role! - Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

Powers in Place Against WATER !

For those who have only visited the Indian Wars by reading pay attention. These are the exact same actions you have read about in school and seen in movies! Nothing has changed fundamentally within the settlers against the ideals of their constitution towards Indian people. This is how it was and how it is different today is beyond me! Standing Rock Rising is a mirror, an insight, a look into what ails this country.

The fundamental disregard for water, land, and Red People is intact.

These are my words.

Gregory E. Woods, Keeper of Stories

My sister, Gail Dickert asks, "When we wake up to call... Will there be a death toll to report? How many more injuries?"

Act now! Demand they stop this!!

Contact Army Corps of Engineers 202-761-8700, National Guard 701-333-2000, White House 202-456-1414, ND Governor 701-328-2200, Amnesty International 212-807-8400