This image is of Peggy (R), then a 19 year-old SNCC member, next to future civil rights icon, Dr. Dorothy Cotton (L), after a 1962 church burning in Georgia—the state that Peggy's great-great grandparents, William & Ellen Craft, famously escaped from enslavement nearly 115 years earlier...
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6.1.23
Peggy Trotter Dammond Preacely
Dr. Dorothy Cotton
ILYON WOO | "RUGGED WATERS" | CARICON: 6/3-6/4
Once again, I must apologize for not updating sooner, but I have three special words to share. The first is that in April I had the honor of joining acclaimed author, Ilyon Woo, author of Master, Slave, Husband, Wife (Simon & Schuster)—the lauded book on my great-great-grandparents William & Ellen Craft—at the renowned Los Angeles Times Festival of Books. In addition to our photo below at the event, please also see the wonderful segment about William & Ellen featuring Ilyon and myself on CBS Sunday Morning.
The second special word is that I hope you can join me at the 2023 CariCon Conference being held this Saturday, 6/3 & Sunday, 6/4 at USC. My panel is on Sunday at 12:30 pm, and entitled Marronage: Literature of Resistance, that also includes a discussion on my great-great-grandparents' 1860 book, Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom.
Finally, downthread is my latest poem, "Rugged Waters", that I felt compelled to write due to the issues surrounding the debt ceiling bill...
RUGGED WATERS
by Peggy Trotter Dammond Preacely
Winter has not melted
Hearts we had hoped
Were no longer
Frozen in positions
Unchanged.
Rather Spring came
Anyway,
Resolute, persistent
Barely looking over its shoulder.
The Congress of Congestion
Nearly wrought havoc once again.
And yet the tendrils of hope\poke
Up through the mire of
Arguments on floors meant for compromise
Not battle.
This Nation, our fragile home
Flails and fumbles
Inches its way forward
Fraught as it is with whispers of war.
Yet clearly dialogue and the bells of Wall Street
Prevail despite
Or because of
The rising tide of the unhoused,
The stand-off between neighbors
The turmoil in our families, in our hearts
The climate of impending uncertainty on Earth
And in our harrowed halls of Justice.
Maybe it is the persistence of a wholly decency
An invisible and invincible aspiration
Which yet prevails
If only until the next session
Halts secession
And we reach hands across aisles and miles
To smile at one another and share
The avocado green of yet another provisional harvest season.
© 2023 Peggy Trotter Dammond Preacely. All rights reserved.