Everyday Crones

As I reflect on the halfway mark of 2019, I have been blessed with the accomplishments as well as the challenges I have faced up to this point, including a minor health concern.

Friday I had no reason to complain as it was awesome sunny weather, so I decided to check out the opening of very intriguing and inspiring art exhibit "What Is and What Can Be: Women of Color and the Struggle for Justice in Cincinnati at the YWCA of Greater Cincinnati.

Just hours before the opening, I had the pleasure of meeting the curator of the exhibit, president of the local YWCA Ena Nearon Menefield. The moment we met, I sensed a strong but humble spirit about her. She is considered to be a modern day "crone", but in a beautiful way. In folklore and fairy tales, a crone is typically described as a sinister woman, often with supernatural associations that would maker her helpful or distracting. In modern times, crones are defined as seasoned women who exhibit wisdom, freedom, and personal strength.

This exhibit featured some work of our modern day crones. As I looked at these masterpieces, I see myself in them. I see the struggles that I have had growing up. I also see the successes I have achieved.

Now that I think about it, we have crones all around us. From the little girl who strives to do well in school despite her circumstances to the young mother who raises her children the best she knows how with limited resources and to the seasoned matron who has seen it and done it all, each and everyone of us has something to offer and something to learn.

Wild Women Never Get The Blues, Ricci Michaels

Black Woman, Ricci Michaels

Untitled, Grace Haggard

Poetry Reading

Poetry Reading

Ena Nearon Menefield, curator

Heeere's Jennie!

Hays-Porter High Tech (former site of the Jennie D. Porter Middle School)

Jennie D Porter Park

Yesterday was my last day at my temporary assignment at an insurance broker, so today, I decided to walk around the West End some more and stumbled upon yet some more pieces of black history.

Jennie Davis Porter was the first African-American woman to earn a doctorate from the University of Cincinnati and one of the first African American female school principals in Cincinnati.

Porter was born to freed Tennessee slave William A. Porter and Edlinda Davis Porter. Her father was Cincinnati's first African American morticians.

Porter operated the Harriet Beecher Stowe Elementary School during the day and attended University of Cincinnati at night, ultimately earning her bachelor's master's, and doctorate degrees. Porter ran the school until illness forced her to take a leave of absence one year before her death in 1936. In addition, she published articles on African American education and social issues in national publications.

Among her students were DeHart Hubbard, the first African American to win an individual gold medal in the long jump at the Paris Olympics in 1924, and Theodore Berry, Cincinnati's first African American mayor (1972-1976).

The school itself closed in 1962, and the property of 1030 Cutter Street has gone through many incarnations before the school merged with the former Hays School in the early 2000s to become what is now Hayes-Porter High Tech.

A few blocks east of the school stands the Jennie D Porter Park, which was built by students of the former Jennie D Porter Middle School in the early 1990s.

Happy Friday Eve!

Fountain Square

This is one of my happy places here in the "Nati". This is a place where the OGs (old gangsters in real talk) gather to reminisce about their way back in the day, where youngsters make memories with their selfie worthy fashions, and where families gather to enjoy some iconic favorites such as Graeter's ice cream. This is the mecca of memories.

Many of us know the general history of this iconic spot. The Tyler Davidson Fountain was a gift from
Henry Probasco to the people in Cincinnati in honor of his brother-in-law and business partner Tyler Davidson and was designed by the von Miller family of Munich, Germany (P.S. and BTW, it is one of Cincinnati's nine sister cities). The fountain was dedicated to the people in 1871 and renovated in 1971 for its centennial.

Flashback to the 1840s. Fountain Square was also the site of the former Fifth Street Market, one of nine public markets that operated in the city at that time. African Americans found this place an oasis of tranquility, and they had hopes of finding employment and prosperity in this new area.

However, their peace did not last very long. September 1841 brought about one of the earliest race riots, all due to a long drought filled with unemployment. A mob of unemployed white Cincinnatians attacked blacks. According to local authorities at the time about 300 black men, some who escaped slavery weeks and even months before, were rounded up, arrested and put in jail "for their own protection", and there would be a series of these race riots before the start of the World War I.

Well, that's today's history lesson. Happy Saturday!