Black History Month collection

In honor of Black History month February 2010, I offer:

Images of signed and unsigned paper ephemera I collected at four separate events in 1999, 2000, 2001 and 2003 which featured civil rights activists Reverend Jesse Jackson, Reverend Al Sharpton, poet Amiri Baraka, Ruby Dee and the now deceased Ossie Davis.

AND RECENTLY ADDED: Images of materials I secured at to two public appearances of former Prisoner of [Pre-emptive] War in Operation Iraqi Freedom, Shoshanna Johnson - in the February of 2004 and this year.

One prior occasion in particular is deeply embedded in my mind. This is because it took place at the Windows on the World Conference Center located on the 106th floor of the former One World Trade Center building - on January 14-15 1999 at the second annual Rainbow/PUSH Coalition’s Wall Street conference.

As a member of the C-SPAN video crew I was present at it for most of the two day conference – there to capture speeches by then President Bill Clinton, the Reverend Jesse Jackson, and a concluding press conference.

I will also never forget the time I got to spend with the behind-the-scenes Windows on the World conference center workers - the audio visual techs, wait staff and other food service workers whom my co-workers and I got to hang out with during lunch and other long breaks.

Today, because there is know way I could ever find out otherwise, I still wonder if any of those kind young men and women I came to be with for a very short period of my life died there the morning of September 11, 2001.