When an arrest warrant was issued for a three-year old boy for stealing eggs, it attracted the attention of the public, newspapers, and Walt Whitman. #DCHistory https://t.co/sRkXomMLno When an arrest warrant was issued for a three-year old boy for stealing eggs, it attracted…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 9, 2022
Fleeing from secessionist states, African American ‘contrabands’ relocated to one of five camps in Virginia were paid to work in order to aid Union army food supply farming. #VAHistory #DCHistory https://t.co/1Kk4jj4KDY Fleeing from secessionist states, African American ‘con…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 9, 2022
Facing gale-force winds, torrential downpour, and major debris, the storm that hit DC during the British occupation of 1814 foiled both American and British battle plans in the city. #DCHistory https://t.co/ajdSw7MHwS Facing gale-force winds, torrential downpour, and major d…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 9, 2022
Wanting nothing to do with the Union and its occupation of Alexandria, the women that joined their local Knights of the Golden Circle branch did anything to support the Confederacy. #VAHistory https://t.co/UGxHtNnzfn Wanting nothing to do with the Union and its occupation of…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 9, 2022
He turned grave-robbing into his profession, and when caught, was arrested and jailed. How did George Christian continue to make headlines for crimes he may or may not have committed afterwards? #DCHistory https://t.co/MYgdgRD9Lx He turned grave-robbing into his profession, …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 9, 2022
An undated postcard view of the Washington Tourist Camp in East Potomac Park, probably from around 1930. https://t.co/1QDHLObZuW An undated postcard view of the Washington Tourist Camp in East Potomac Park, probably from around 1930. https://t.co/1QDHLObZuW — Streets of Wash…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 9, 2022
The Grateful Dead and Allman Brothers concert at RFK Stadium in 1973 attracted 80,000 attendees, with the two-day event having as much music as it did interesting stories. #DCHistory https://t.co/uL4XyFBkkL The Grateful Dead and Allman Brothers concert at RFK Stadium in 1973…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 8, 2022
The ‘wasp waists’ of the early 1800s were luckily abandoned after both scientists warning of its dangers, as well as new trends taking its place in high-fashion cities like Paris. #DCHistory https://t.co/RAqBKfN9xd The ‘wasp waists’ of the early 1800s were luckily abandoned …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 8, 2022
Axiom Mission 1 at Pad 39A and Artemis I at Pad 39B via NASA https://t.co/1qZFs0GexQ https://t.co/b0hwnMDffz
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 8, 2022
The Caverns on U Street hosted numerous famous acts including John Coltrane and Ramsey Lewis. Its cavernous interior was one-of-a-kind and was often “packed to the stalactites.” #DCHistory https://t.co/H4Sgzb35aV The Caverns on U Street hosted numerous famous acts including …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 8, 2022
Here are five stories that moved us this week, and the reasons why.
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Josefa Velasquez | The City | March 24th, 2022 | 4,200 Words
Amazon workers in Staten Island made history last week by voting to establish the company’s first union. The grassroots effort was led by two men, Christian Smalls and Derrick Palmer, who faced all manner of racist and classist indignities, often as a matter of policy created by Amazon officials to derail unionization. On the eve of the vote, The City, a non-profit newsroom, published this fantastic behind-the-scenes look at what was going down on Staten Island. It’s essential reading at a pivotal moment in U.S. labor history, full of rich detail and blistering reminders of why Amazon unions are necessary. For example: “[Smalls] was fired for allegedly stealing two minutes of company time, which he attributes to ‘human error’ for punching in his work time incorrectly.” And: “Sun-faded prayer candles commemorate a 24-year-old [Amazon worker]…killed by a driver in November as she crossed the street during her near-midnight lunch break.” —SD
Wufei Yu | High Country News | April 1st, 2022 | 4,116 words
Aimee Towi Mae Tang, a fourth-generation Chinese New Mexican, felt disconnected from her Chinese roots. Amid a rise of anti-Asian hate crimes across the U.S., she wanted a better understanding of her own identity, which included learning how her family had settled in Albuquerque. Born in China and new to Albuquerque himself, journalist Wufei Yu decides to help Tang learn more about her family’s history, and in doing so, perhaps find his own place in a new city. Yu visits the National Archives in the San Francisco Bay Area to dig through documents: “For two days, those 400-plus colorful pages became my world — passenger arrival lists, immigration records, business filings and legal case files, dotted with Chinese characters.” The piece is sprinkled with such pages — lists, photographs, maps — along with gorgeous illustrations by Sally Deng. Yu pieces together the story of Tang’s great-grandfather, previously known to her as Edward Gaw; but deep in these archives, on paper, he is known as Ong Shew Ngoh: a young man from South China who made the journey to San Francisco and fought to stay in America during its anti-Chinese immigration crackdown. He went on to become a businessman in Albuquerque, owning for a time one of the best grocery stores in town until its Chinese community was pushed out. “If my great-grandpa were allowed to have land,” Tang says in the piece, “the Tang family and Chinese Americans could have owned downtown Albuquerque.” I enjoyed Yu’s tracing of the Tang family in these documents, and this glimpse into one of the early Chinatowns of the American West. —CLR
Tom Foster | Texas Monthly | April 6th, 2022 | 8,905 words
There’s nothing in sportswriting like an underdog story. But sometimes that underdog status persists regardless of the wins column, regardless of championships, regardless even of dynasties. That’s exactly the case with Houston’s Elsik High School soccer team, from its international stock (the school district, in southwest Houston, serves students who speak 90 different languages) to its tough-love head coach Vincenzo Cox, who found in his kids a long-overdue sense of belonging. After all, just being good at soccer doesn’t undo the reality of the world. “There are times when the hurdles life puts in front of his team just break Cox’s heart,” writes Tom Foster. “When a player has to leave town for a bit because his dad’s been drinking again and it’s not safe in the house. When a kid shows up for high school who doesn’t know his ABC’s. When Cox hears about rival coaches speculating that he has recruiting pipelines to Central America and Africa.” Foster is at his assured best here, taking the reader through multiple seasons in a single story that somehow feels like a 21st-century global-Texas version of Hoosiers — and as a Hoosier myself, I don’t use that comparison lightly. —PR
Tim Requarth | The Atlantic | April 6th, 2022 | 1,776 words
As governments lift COVID restrictions and people attempt to navigate as the pandemic endures, we are only now entering what will be a lifelong phase of discovering COVID’s long-term repercussions on society. What shadow will COVID cast on people who were children when the virus first appeared? At The Atlantic, Tim Requarth* reports on one reality of the pandemic, “some 200,000 American children” who have been orphaned because of COVID. But what is the U.S. federal government doing to help these kids? Very little, as it turns out. “And while a memorandum issued by President Joe Biden yesterday promises that the administration will develop a plan for orphans, it’s poised to be too little, too late. ‘It really doesn’t outline any plan or commitment,’ Rachel Kidman, a social epidemiologist at Stony Brook University, told me. And the inaction goes deeper than that: With a few exceptions, even the parts of the country most inclined toward action don’t seem to be doing much to help these kids…The pandemic’s orphanhood crisis matters most for orphans, but it also matters for the rest of us. If America can’t do anything to help the children most profoundly affected by COVID, what hope is there to make any sort of long-lasting changes as we try to leave the pandemic behind?” —KS
* Tim Requarth’s Longreads essay, “The Final Five Percent” won the 2020 Science in Society Journalism Award in the Longform Narratives category and was included in the 2020 edition of Best American Science and Nature Writing.
Ellen Ruppel Shell | Smithsonian Magazine | April 4th, 2022 | 5282 words
I had never heard of “The Tree” until reading Ellen Ruppel Shell’s fascinating essay, but in certain circles, The Tree is not only famous, it is magical. A mahogany tree originating from the Chiquibul jungle in Belize, its beautiful wood is prized by carpenters and luthiers — with musicians claiming guitars made from The Tree produce an extraordinary sound. Shell wanted to discover more about this Tolkienesque-sounding entity and immerses herself in its story: from being cut down in 1965 to the hunt for any remaining stashes of the precious (and finite) material today. A cross between an adventure story and a collector’s tale, Shell throws in some psychology for good measure: Does this wood actually create a unique sound, or is its coveted nature influencing what people hear? This detailed exploration made me sit down and consider the use of rarity to define prestige. —CW
Throughout DC, sites honoring Black leaders and history can be found. In this short list, we’ve compiled a few that deserve more attention. #DCHistory https://t.co/E9EoE5CHHj Throughout DC, sites honoring Black leaders and history can be found. In this short list, we’ve comp…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 8, 2022
A far cry from how it appears like today, this map published in 1880 shows us what Atlantic City, NJ looked like more than 100 years ago. See the detail here: https://t.co/pjGXizGUYk https://t.co/haZbkaPKBP A far cry from how it appears like today, this map published in 1880 …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 8, 2022
Axiom-1 at Pad 39A and Artemis I at Pad 39B via NASA https://t.co/JgnFM5QY2R https://t.co/JF8DaP2wx5
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 8, 2022
Quote of the Day: "The present time has one advantage over every other - it is our own." - Charles Caleb Colton
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 8, 2022
K Street makeover will bring dedicated bus lanes, remove service lanes https://t.co/ikakpZJdrm K Street makeover will bring dedicated bus lanes, remove service lanes https://t.co/ikakpZJdrm — Streets of Washington (@StreetsOfDC) Apr 7, 2022
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 7, 2022
https://t.co/Hc9nh9wXTU
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 7, 2022
As a dominating force on the court, the Washington Bears basketball team held a record-breaking season and all-stars alike! #DCHistory https://t.co/BBRyvytOoC As a dominating force on the court, the Washington Bears basketball team held a record-breaking season and all-stars…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 7, 2022
Giving their lives to ensure the safety and survival of other soldiers on the Dorchester ship, the Four Chaplains live on in history as WWII heroes. #DCHistory https://t.co/4EHPdbf49I Giving their lives to ensure the safety and survival of other soldiers on the Dorchester sh…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 7, 2022
Be sure to join us tonight at 7pm to learn more about the legacy of the DC Compensated Emancipation Act! Register for our free program here: https://t.co/JngHQ0Hxgb https://t.co/1RBOhWr3tO Be sure to join us tonight at 7pm to learn more about the legacy of the DC Compensated …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 7, 2022
J.P. Morgan’s need to travel to and from New York City and DC quickly set a new record for the route. According to his representatives, he just had a lot to do that day and made good time. #DCHistory https://t.co/wgzrLdCy7V J.P. Morgan’s need to travel to and from New York C…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 7, 2022
Japan's Geiyo Archipelago via NASA https://t.co/y9YRrG0p3f https://t.co/IUdo6UcBaA
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 7, 2022
Elizabeth Keckley’s journey from enslavement to working as a free woman in the White House, found in her autobiography, also gave major insight into the lives of those she worked with closely. #DCHistory #VAHistory https://t.co/SQsRh2JMbG Elizabeth Keckley’s journey from ens…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 7, 2022
Take a moment to explore this late 18th century map of Mexico City. Zoom in here: https://t.co/zlDArEAq85 https://t.co/L0SuvPzrgz Take a moment to explore this late 18th century map of Mexico City. Zoom in here: https://t.co/zlDArEAq85 https://t.co/L0SuvPzrgz — LOCMaps (@L…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 7, 2022
Released #OTD in 1976, the film “All the President’s Men” immersed audiences in one of DC’s biggest investigations, especially because they filmed in the real locations where the events took place. #DCHistory https://t.co/pgkNQI1syP Released #OTD in 1976, the film “All the P…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 7, 2022
From playing at a high school one season to their less-than-amazing record, the Washington Diplomats were one in a line of many soccer franchises before DC United. #DCHistory https://t.co/BiX3OpYGQw From playing at a high school one season to their less-than-amazing record, …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 6, 2022
https://t.co/XHZYYmqwEh https://t.co/M0jy8k4yUg
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 6, 2022
https://t.co/XHZYYmqwEh https://t.co/hqiLGLs1c0
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 6, 2022
Join us for Educator Night on Wednesday, May 11th to learn about the resources, lesson plans, and field trip opportunities the DC History Center offers! This free event is for local educators and librarians; registration will close on May 10. Sign up here: …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 6, 2022
Nestled in Falls Church, Virginia, a house built by Frank Lloyd Wright was under threat from Route 66’s construction. It would take a major move (literally) to save the house from being demolished. #VAHistory https://t.co/4F79iNUM0p Nestled in Falls Church, Virginia, a house…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 6, 2022
Testing the Aircraft of the Future via NASA https://t.co/XDey3H4JRg https://t.co/qSDrdxZDZX
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 6, 2022
Despite the German embassy’s warning, the Lusitania proceeded with its voyage on May 1, 1915. Its subsequent sinking outraged and scared Americans, and marked a tragic date for U.S. history. #DCHistory https://t.co/CW5YUdypm7 Despite the German embassy’s warning, the Lusitan…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 6, 2022
Follow the twists and meanders of the Mighty Mississippi in this cool Civil War-era map. Check it out here: https://t.co/iBktv39Gkq https://t.co/eeN8CNuNHW Follow the twists and meanders of the Mighty Mississippi in this cool Civil War-era map. Check it out here: https://t…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 5, 2022
Robbing multiple businesses, storming a plane to Cuba, and getting shot, the Tuller men and William Graham went on quite the crime spree over a span of several years. #VAHistory #DCHistory https://t.co/Ewq51cG1Dx Robbing multiple businesses, storming a plane to Cuba, and get…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 5, 2022
While police chief John Layton ordered officers to only use non-lethal force during the 1968 riots, it could not contain the momentum already gained in the wake of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination. #DCHistory https://t.co/BVSy7JaQ23 While police chief John Layton order…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 5, 2022
The Charles Cafe was located in the heart of Columbia Heights in the 1930s and 1940s, at the intersection of Park Road and 14th Street NW. https://t.co/5StDhyDQBF The Charles Cafe was located in the heart of Columbia Heights in the 1930s and 1940s, at the intersection of Park …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 5, 2022
In a similar approach he took to his military duties, General Douglas MacArthur 'commanded' American Olympians to victory in 1928, including an interesting choice with the American flag. #DCHistory https://t.co/sCcsaAKdGT In a similar approach he took to his military duties,…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 5, 2022
Cold as (Dry) Ice via NASA https://t.co/OjGvYNgPf4 https://t.co/m6zuJsVbwC
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 5, 2022
With the signing of the Rehabilitation Act at a stand-still, activists across the country, including in DC, began month-long protests to secure their rights. #DCHistory https://t.co/jyK9WQDAh2 With the signing of the Rehabilitation Act at a stand-still, activists across the …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 5, 2022
Still in operation today, this map showcases the route of the Long Island Railroad as it was in the late 19th century. Have a look: https://t.co/oHdn2wwZnA https://t.co/gYPM85cpqZ Still in operation today, this map showcases the route of the Long Island Railroad as it was in …
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 5, 2022
Photographing DC throughout the mid-1980s and 90s, Michael Horsley’s work captured people, places, and memories of the city as he saw it on-foot. #DCHistory https://t.co/zycb5OiltG Photographing DC throughout the mid-1980s and 90s, Michael Horsley’s work captured people, pla…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 4, 2022
Resurrection City was home to the thousands of Poor People’s Party protestors aiming to combat poverty throughout the United States, and nothing would deter their efforts. #DCHistory https://t.co/CcETloDk6t Resurrection City was home to the thousands of Poor People’s Party p…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 4, 2022
Trace your ancestors across the map of Eastern Europe and Russia with the help of our newest research guide! Explore the guide here: https://t.co/ZaT65DO8PT https://t.co/3eoYquXokK Trace your ancestors across the map of Eastern Europe and Russia with the help of our newest res…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 4, 2022
President Harrison’s long-winded inaugural speech (8445 words!), his lack of winter gear, and a cold day led to the shortest presidential term in history. #DCHistory https://t.co/SSiUbjSsYI President Harrison’s long-winded inaugural speech (8445 words!), his lack of winter g…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 4, 2022
The AIDS epidemic in DC was severe, and impacted marginalized communities the most. For Robert Alfandre, giving back to the community was one small way to help around the holidays. #DCHistory https://t.co/yO0LOxWfNm The AIDS epidemic in DC was severe, and impacted marginaliz…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 4, 2022
Space Launch System Rocket at Dawn via NASA https://t.co/V5Xr1WudQa https://t.co/4cC2yrVmaf
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 4, 2022
As the riots of 1968 expanded throughout the city, public figure Petey Greene used his radio show to urge peace and an end to the destruction. #DCHistory https://t.co/5v2OdLVBOO As the riots of 1968 expanded throughout the city, public figure Petey Greene used his radio show…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 4, 2022
Two more turn-of-the-century views of the Washington Monument from tourist stereoviews in our collection. https://t.co/rS6WjmnkYl Two more turn-of-the-century views of the Washington Monument from tourist stereoviews in our collection. https://t.co/rS6WjmnkYl — Streets of Wa…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 4, 2022
Today in History - April 4 https://t.co/oTevVTWlZf On April 3 and April 4, 1873, Carrie S. Burnham argued before the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania for a woman's right to vote. Continue reading. Click here to search Today in History for other historic moments.
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 4, 2022
You’ll want to take a look at this colorful manuscript map of San Juan, Puerto Rico which details how the city appeared in 1770. Explore the map here: https://t.co/tpKOlr8uI3 https://t.co/XWYRYoSCQJ You’ll want to take a look at this colorful manuscript map of San Juan, Puert…
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 4, 2022
Kelly Loudenberg | The Atavist Magazine | March 2022 | 10 minutes (3,016 words)
This is an excerpt from The Atavist’s issue no. 125, “The Caregivers.”
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.”
—1 Corinthians 13:4–8
The Atavist, our sister publication, publishes one deeply reported, elegantly designed story each month. Support The Atavist by becoming a member.
Danny Valentine sat alone in his threadbare single-wide trailer, staring out a window at green and red holiday lights flashing in the distance. It was 10 p.m. on Christmas Eve 2016, and the snow blanketing Rock, a rural area in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, seemed to swallow every sound. In the heavy silence, Danny tried to fight off the dark thoughts that dogged him relentlessly. This was one of the hardest times of the year for the rangy 55-year-old with blue eyes. He didn’t have a tree to decorate or a family to eat a big turkey dinner with. Fresh off parole after a 23-year stint in prison, he didn’t have shit.
As Danny pushed cigarette butts around an ashtray on the windowsill, his phone rang. On the other end of the line was a woman. She sounded like she’d been crying.
“I just can’t do it alone anymore,” the woman said. “Can you please come?”
On Christmas morning, Danny got in his black GMC pickup truck and drove 12 hours through a wicked snowstorm to Ann Arbor. It was evening by the time he pulled to a stop in front of a large house, and Danny could see lights reflected in the windows. Even though he’d been invited, Danny was hesitant to approach the house. It glowed with a warmth that had been alien to him his whole life.
When he worked up the courage to go inside, he entered through the neatly organized garage, then walked down a hallway. The woman from the phone was waiting in the dining room. Her name was Janie Paul. She had dark hair, and she was bone-tired. When she saw Danny she smiled.
Sitting on the couch nearby was Janie’s husband. He was lanky, with gray hair. Danny sat down next to him and patted his arm. “Hey, Buzz,” Danny said gently. “How you doing?”
Buzz couldn’t answer, not really—but Danny knew that already. He was there to help Buzz. He’d do whatever his friend needed, and he’d stay for as long as it took.
Like Buzz, Janie believed in art as politics, art as liberation, art as a means of building bridges. By the end of the canoe trip, they were friends. By the end of the residency, they were in love.
Buzz Alexander wasn’t someone who had often needed help. He got his undergraduate degree in English literature from Harvard, continued on to Cambridge for his master’s, translated poetry in Italy while writing verse of his own, then went back to Harvard for a doctorate focused on the novel as an art form. With his wife, an art history student, he became a house parent in a dormitory, then a parent to two kids of his own. He moved his family to Ann Arbor in the early 1970s, when he accepted a teaching position at the University of Michigan. Buzz would remain there for the rest of his career.
Participating in the antiwar movement while U.S. forces were in Vietnam cemented Buzz’s commitment to social justice, and he approached activism through his first love: the arts. He wrote a book, Film on the Left, about radical documentary filmmaking of the 1930s and ’40s. He also traveled to Peru and participated in street theater performances about community empowerment, public health, and self-discovery.
Buzz was in his fifties and divorced by the time he met Janie Paul at an art residency in the Adirondacks in the summer of 1992. She was a painter and educator, with degrees from Hunter College and New York University. “The first day at breakfast,” Janie recalled, “we were sitting in a huge lodge overlooking a lake, and I asked, ‘Does anyone want to go canoeing?’ ” Buzz took her up on the offer. Janie was glad he did. “He looked like Henry Fonda,” she said. About a decade Janie’s senior, Buzz was tall and wiry, with a rugged, expressive face. He walked with a forward slant, as if eager to get where he was going, and carried an extra-large backpack full of books and yellow legal pads scrawled with notes.
As they paddled the canoe under canopies of trees, Janie told Buzz about her experience as a little girl landing on the shore of Lake Atitlán and being greeted by a swarm of people. Janie’s father was a prominent anthropologist, and in her childhood she traveled to Guatemala, where he conducted fieldwork studying the mysterious bonesetters, Mayan healers who treated injuries with powers they believed they derived through dreams. On the trip Janie described to Buzz, which occurred in the early 1950s, she remembered sharing a bag of art supplies with local children, a communal creative experience that would stay with her forever.
Like Buzz, Janie believed in art as politics, art as liberation, art as a means of building bridges. By the end of the canoe trip, they were friends. By the end of the residency, they were in love.
The following year, Buzz went on sabbatical and moved to Manhattan to be near Janie. They shuttled between his tiny sublet on West 74th Street and her spacious loft, which she shared with other women and their children. Janie confided in Buzz that she had spent time as a young adult in a controversial “therapy” cult, the Sullivanians; the members disavowed the nuclear family and lived—and slept—together in several apartments on the Upper West Side. He didn’t judge her. Janie and Buzz made love, discussed human rights, shared passages from Proust, and went to movies at Film Forum. Buzz was taken by Janie’s curiosity and passion for adventure. She loved that he was a scholar but also down-to-earth. “I could talk to him about a Henry James novel in the same conversation about his experience giving sheep baths in Peru,” Janie said.
After that idyllic year had passed Buzz went home, but he and Janie couldn’t stand being apart, so she looked for a job near Ann Arbor. She soon landed a coveted position teaching color theory in the University of Michigan’s art school. Janie moved into Buzz’s three-story Victorian, adjacent to campus. To colleagues and friends they seemed inseparable, a package deal: Janie and Buzz, Buzz and Janie. It would stay that way for more than twenty years.
Before meeting Janie, Buzz had led several poetry and theater workshops in Michigan’s prisons. He was part of a nationwide community of progressive activists, academics, and artists responding to the injustices of the carceral system through arts programming. By the 1990s, U.S. prisons were overflowing with people, many of them men and women of color swept up in the War on Drugs. Since Buzz’s arrival in Michigan, the state’s incarcerated population had leaped from under 10,000 to more than 30,000. He believed the arts would enable people trapped behind bars to express their creativity, tell their stories, and find healing.
Buzz’s workshops revolved around improvisation, including performances inspired by the inmates’ own life experiences. One play, staged inside a women’s prison, was titled Bodies on Slabs. It took place in a morgue where corpses came back to life and told the audience what had happened to them. They soon found that they couldn’t get out of the morgue, couldn’t escape their fate.
With Janie as a partner, Buzz expanded the work he was doing in prisons. They both thought academia was too conservative, a stodgy bubble where people indulged in niche pursuits. They preferred to invest their energy in civic engagement, and especially in making art more accessible. Together they formed the Prison Creative Arts Project, a University of Michigan program dedicated to promoting the arts behind bars.
Before long their lives revolved around PCAP. Janie and Buzz hosted Sister Helen Prejean, of Dead Man Walking fame, and Jimmy Baca, a formerly incarcerated poet, memoirist, and screenwriter, at their home when they visited for PCAP events. University students came over for potluck dinners and to discuss the injustices of U.S. prisons.
In 1996, Janie and Buzz decided to put on an exhibition of painting, sculpture, and other visual work created by Michigan prisoners. They knew from experience that there were men and women in the state’s incarcerated population who were producing exceptional art that too often went overlooked. The PCAP show would be held at one of the university’s art galleries, where students and colleagues, as well as the family and friends of the participants, could see it. The works would be for sale, with proceeds going to the artists.
To get the project started, Janie and Buzz asked contacts at the prisons where PCAP worked to recommend incarcerated artists. Phil Klintworth, the activities director at a prison in the city of Jackson, suggested a guy who, in his words, “could do anything.” The man had volunteered to clean up after the prison’s clay workshops, even though he didn’t participate in them. Day after day, month after month, he filled a five-gallon bucket with scraps of clay from other prisoners’ work spaces. He used those leftovers to sculpt an array of figures, including mermaids and ballerinas. When he didn’t have clay, he used other items—toilet paper and soap, for instance—in his work. Anything he could get his hands on, Klintworth told Buzz, the man used to make something beautiful.
People at the prison had taken notice. When a guard was renovating his bar at home, he paid the artist a few hundred dollars for hand-sculpted figures, including a pair of dolphins. The inmate also drew family portraits for guards, and for other men doing time, for $100 a head—or, if he liked you, $50. He based them on photographs, and they were strikingly realistic. (The sales were aboveboard, made through official channels inside the prison.)
Buzz was impressed. He knew right away that he wanted the artist to be part of PCAP’s first exhibition. To find out if the man would be interested, Buzz wrote him a letter. He was prisoner number 156689. His name was Daniel Valentine.
When Danny was six his grandmother gave him a coloring book full of dinosaurs and spaceships. He added his own figures and shapes. He didn’t understand why he should color someone else’s drawing.
Danny grew up in a blue-collar family on the outskirts of Ann Arbor, the second of five kids. His mom, Mary, worked in an auto-parts factory and sometimes held other jobs to make ends meet. His dad, a mechanic, was “an abusive but good man,” Danny said. He once whipped Danny with a fan belt from one of the trucks he used for work. Sometimes he’d make Danny pay for the food he ate. Mary was afraid of her husband; he’d once threatened to hit her with a crowbar, she told me. But given the time she spent working, she didn’t witness much of the abuse he inflicted on their children. She did recall one occasion when she caught her husband on the verge of purposefully breaking Danny’s leg.
Amid the violence at home, Danny was able to teach himself to draw. According to Mary, when Danny was six his grandmother gave him a coloring book full of dinosaurs and spaceships. He added his own figures and shapes. He didn’t understand why he should color someone else’s drawing.
Danny ran away when he was 12; in response his dad called the cops. This kicked off Danny’s long career in the carceral system. He spent time in juvenile detention, ran away, and was locked up again for fleeing. It happened over and over. Danny was an escape artist, a regular juvie Houdini. He once faked a leg injury so that he could be sent for X-rays at a hospital; there, he went into a bathroom, climbed into the drop ceiling, and made his way out of the facility. Another time, Danny jumped on the desk in his cell until he loosened the iron fixture that secured it to the wall enough that he could remove it entirely. Danny waited for weeks for a thunderstorm to come; he knew that in bad weather the guards were required to turn off the motion sensors in the yard. Once the rain started, he used the iron fixture to break the window in his cell and pry the bars apart, until he could fit his head through the opening and wiggle his way out. He hid out for months in an empty cabin belonging to his uncle before the authorities found him.
While his home life was dangerous, Danny was no safer in detention centers. He was an attractive boy, with girlish features and curly blond hair. According to Danny, he was sexually assaulted many times. When he was 17, locked up in an adult prison for stealing a motorcycle, security came in the form of a boyfriend. “He was one of these guys who was feared among everybody in the prison,” Danny said. “He was a real gruesome-looking guy.” But with Danny the man was soft, sensitive. “He wouldn’t show this side to nobody else, but he would show it to me, and it was beautiful,” Danny said. The man bought Danny coats from guys on the yard and cookies and ice cream from the commissary.
As an adult, Danny continued to break the law. He said he never carried a gun or intentionally hurt anyone. He was mostly trying to survive, shoplifting food and once stealing a car, a Chevy Impala with a vinyl top, for shelter. He lived in the car for two months of a brutal Michigan winter.
During stints behind bars, Danny drew. At one point a friend gave him a tablet of paper and a set of Prismacolor pencils. “They were like magic,” Danny said. He liked to draw people doing everyday things. With the right pencils, he could mimic the chrome of a motorcycle or the fuzzy texture of a mother’s bathrobe. Sometimes he coated the tips of his pencils with wax to achieve interesting effects on the page.
During one period, Danny was free for about a year. He picked up odd jobs, pumping gas and working in hotels, before landing a position at an art gallery in downtown Ann Arbor. According to Danny, the gallerist was also an amateur photographer, a poor man’s Hugh Hefner who liked to photograph beautiful, scarcely clothed women, particularly university students. He paid his models ten dollars an hour and sometimes supplied them with booze and cocaine during shoots. An admirer and collector of old pinup drawings, the gallerist asked Danny to render the photographs he took as illustrations to sell.
One day the gallerist hung a few of Danny’s artworks in the gallery. Two of them sold: a colored-pencil drawing of a muscled woman sitting on a motorcycle, and a pen-and-ink drawing of a woman’s half-shadowed face. Danny made about $1,500. “It was a first for me, a big deal,” he said. “I thought I had arrived.”
He promptly went out to celebrate—and burn through the money he’d earned—at a biker bar and strip club called Leggs Lounge. It was the kind of place, Danny said, that had a room designated for blow jobs. He was having a blast, snorting coke while stuffing cash into the countless G-strings, when a pair of sex workers solicited Danny, promising him a night of erotic splendor.
Danny later claimed that he paid one of the women up front, and when she ran off with the money—plus some extra she’d taken from his pocket—he and the other woman agreed that he’d settle up with her when they were done. They went back to his place, where according to Danny the woman refused to do what they’d agreed upon, so he didn’t pay her. His landlord, who also happened to be his employer, the gallerist, later informed him that cops had come by looking for him. After evading the police for a few months, Danny was arrested for rape.
He denied the charge, but a jury found him guilty. Danny was given 20 to 30 years in prison, and he started his sentence at a correctional facility in Jackson. His only lifeline was his art—and in time his wife.
Danny had been dating a woman named Diane for a few months before he was locked up. She loved him, and she was loyal—she’d been there every day of his trial, sitting alone on his side of the courtroom. Danny’s family was nowhere to be found. Now Diane racked up hundreds of dollars a month in phone bills calling him in prison. She sent him clothes and helped him buy art supplies. She spent as much time as she could seated across from him in the prison’s hollow, sunless visiting room.
After Danny had served a year of his sentence, he and Diane decided to get married. Danny asked the prisoner in the cell next to him to be his best man. Diane wore a thrift-store blazer and dress. They kissed through a bulletproof window.
Together the newlyweds came up with a plan to get Danny back on his feet financially once he was out of prison: Danny would mail Diane the art he made in his cell, and she’d sell it in Ann Arbor. They assumed Diane could get more for Danny’s drawings and sculptures on the outside than he could hawking them to guards and other prisoners. But the plan didn’t work. Diane wasn’t an art dealer—she was a nurse supporting an adopted daughter. She wasn’t sure how to sell Danny’s work, or to whom.
The relationship eventually became tense; the couple’s calls and visits routinely ended in anger. Diane moved several hours away for a new job and began seeing a doctor from the practice where she worked. When divorce papers arrived at the prison. Danny signed them.
Without Diane, Danny had no one. “I had not one person to call,” he said, “and that’s a lonely, desolate, hopeless space to be in.” He figured that he’d be almost sixty by the time he got out, and without money or a family to support him, not much good could happen after that.
Danny spiraled into a deep depression. He saw no way out.
Read the full story at The Atavist.
Quote of the Day: "A pure hand needs no glove to cover it." - Nathaniel Hawthorne
— Kenneth Samson (@PangurBanC) Apr 4, 2022
For a late 19th century stereoview comes this idyllic photo of tourists appreciating the Washington Monument from a distance, perhaps somewhere in what is now West Potomac Park. https://t.co/BQPmS9n6Ck For a late 19th century stereoview comes this idyllic photo of tourists app…
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Today in History - April 3 https://t.co/l5ha459b6w Writer John Burroughs was born on April 3, 1837, in Roxbury, New York. Continue reading. Click here to search Today in History for other historic moments.
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