Award-Wining Author and Filmmaker Dr. Patsy Baker Blackshear is in THE HAVEN!

Dr. Patsy Blackshear returns to THE HAVEN to discuss her latest project, Celebrating African American Female Pioneers!

Episode Transcript

(00:08):
Hello, dreaming people. I amso excited about today's guest. Doctor Patsy
Blackshear is back in the Haven totalk about her latest project celebrating African American
female pioneers. You may remember doctorblack Schear from season four when we showcase
the documentary The Bates Center of Excellence, in which she served as the executive

(00:32):
producer with the Kunta Kente Alex HanleyFoundation, which is located in Annapolis,
Maryland. Today, she is sharingher latest project, which focuses on the
accomplishments of African American women who werethe first to make a significant contribution in
their area of expertise. It isa wonderful homage to the women who paved

(00:55):
the way for many of us,and I'm happy to have doctor black Schear
on to talk about it. So, without further ado, please join me
in welcoming doctor black Cheer to thehey man, thank you so much for
having me. Thank you very muchfor being here. Now I want to
go straight to the chase. We'retalking about women first, yes, and

(01:19):
one thing that I want to pointout is the author who who you miss,
Doctor Patsy black Seer, who wasthe first African American woman appointed to
the Anna Brounto County, Maryland Boardof Appeals. Has it been more than
eight years? I served two termswhich was eight years. Okay, okay,

(01:41):
okay, and long haul, verylong haul and I'm sure very reboarding
work it was. And you arealso involved in the Kuta Kente Alex Haley
Foundation, which was actually founded byyour husband, Leonard black Shear. So
before we talk about the book,I'd like to talk a little bit about

(02:01):
that and give our dreamcatchers some informationabout the foundation and also what they would
find when they go to downtown Annapolis. Well, most people in the region
know the foundation for two things.One is the Kunti Kenty Festival. That

(02:22):
festival was started back in nineteen eightyseven when Alex Haley was still alive and
he would come every year, andmy husband and his board found at that
festival and it's been held every yearsince nineteen eighty seven. They might have
had one year they didn't hold it, but it's been an ongoing effort since
nineteen eighty seven. And the otherthings usually in September, it's in September.

(02:45):
This year is going to be SihiSeptember twenty third. Okay, so
it's on the city day. It'salways a serrity. Years ago, when
it was first founded, it wouldbe a whole weekend. Now it's just
the Sarty. And the second thingthe Foundation is known for is the Alex
Haley Memorial. And the Alex HellyMemorial is on the city Docks in Annapolis.

(03:09):
It's one of the most visited thingsin the state of Maryland. One
of the most visited memorials, definitely, and you don't come to Annapolis without
going to the memorial. And thememorial is a it has a number of
components, but the piece that ismost endearing two pieces is a live size

(03:32):
statue of Alex and a group ofthree mixed race kids, and he's reading
to them, and he's reading tothem because he's making the point of the
importance of sharing your history, sharingyour heritage, and that's what the Foundation
focuses on. And I think wehave a shot of that that we're showing.

(03:52):
Wonderful, wonderful. And the otherthing that I love about the memorial
is something called the Story War andthe story wall shares values from the book
roots that or just sound fundamental valuesthat I think all of us Embrace.
You're referring to the book that wasturned into a series. Yes, back

(04:15):
in what year was that? Oh? God, I think the eighties.
The snow it was the seventies.Seven, it was the seventies, Okay,
I want to say seventy six orseventy two. Only reason I know
is because there was a major snowstormthat weekend and we were visiting some friends
and we chose to drive home thatSunday so we could be at home for

(04:42):
that series to start. So no, it was in the seventies. That's
amazing, And so our viewers whohave not seen Roots can probably catch it
on I don't know, Netflix,Amazon, Prime Video, some outlet tea.
Yeah. Yeah. And then there'sbeen a updated version of Roots as
well, so there's uh, theoriginal Roots and then there was an updated

(05:05):
version as well. Okay, andyou said that he when he was alive.
Now, what are some of thethings that people can expect to see
at the festival. Well, you'regonna have performances all day long. Now,
it's just well it's one major stage, but they generally have some other

(05:28):
area where they have small music performances, but one major stage. Uh,
you're gonna have vendors, you're gonnahave food, you're gonna have spoken words,
and it's all kicked off with acommemoration ceremony. The commeoration ceremony is
something that the Foundation does every yearagain since nineteen eighty eighty seven, uh,

(05:53):
where we pray play honor to thoseunnamed after, including Kutikini, who
came to these shores to help buildthis United States. So we just play
homage to them and the contribution thatthey made, as well as bonds people

(06:14):
and indentury people who came into thiscountry. Okay, and then there's the
Compass Rose, which is one ofthe compass rolls. It is, okay,
well, that's another component. Thecompass row is an interesting component of
the memorial because if you stand inthe center of it, you can face
towards the country of your heritage,your family's heritage, whether it is Asia,

(06:40):
whether it is Europe, whether itis Africa, and the center turned
in that pictable particular direction gives youtrue north, the true direction to that
particular continent. Yeah. Yeah,we have a picture of that as well.
Okay, we're showing our viewers sothey can really get a visual of
what that looks like and also it'sa self guided tour. Well be have

(07:04):
said a tour is interesting because someyears back, we decided to make the
memorial a instrument of opportunity for peopleto learn more by creating QR codes and

(07:28):
videos that a visitor could actually queuein on and they can decide which component
of the memorial they want to learnmore about, and they can via video
using a QR code. They cango to our website or the QR code
that they can scan, and whatthey can do is just learn about four
major components of the memorial and it'swonderful. Yeah. Absolutely, I love

(07:54):
it, and I encourage our viewersto definitely take a trip to the Annapolis
City Docs s Y to check thatout. And the thing that's interesting about
it is that I share with peopleall the time that it is the next
best thing to having a personal guide. Yes, Yes, is it Chris
Haley that is the UH commentator throughit. He he does a wonderful job.

(08:20):
And he is the nephew of AlexOkay Awesome, who I also had
on the show a few shows ago, a few episodes around the beginning of
our season. Yeah, to talkabout his latest books. Chris I wanna
say Chris was, if not oneof the founding board members, he was

(08:41):
one of the early board members onthe with both the UH Festival group and
then the foundation. His father aswell, Julius was on the board.
So we always when Julius was aliveand when Alex was alive, definitely we
always had a Hally on the board. Mm okay, yeah, okay,

(09:03):
that's a great legacy you have.Yes. So I started your intro talking
about the Baits documentary that featured someteachers fifteen fifteen teachers, fifteen teachers who
were still alive who had taught atBits before the schools were integrated. And

(09:26):
if people don't know Baits, Baitsis the only high school that was in
Anrondo County. And I used tomarvel at the fact that I would when
I would interact with people, sinceI'm not from Annapolis, although I lived
there, and I would interact withthem, and I would say, everybody
knows everybody. How was that possible? Yeah, particularly for for black people?

(09:48):
I said, how is that thecase? Well, what I found
out is they knew everyone because theyeither went to school with that individual or
they went to school with that person'srelative, aunt or brother or cousin or
whoever, and so that's how theyknow each other in the county. And

(10:09):
so it was a very close community. But it was really considered by a
lot of schools in this region tobe the Mighty Bates, the Mighty Bates
because it was a big high schoolback in the years nineteen forties. We're
talking about two thousand kids at thatschool because they would come to that school

(10:30):
from all over the county. Sothey had a choir of over two hundred,
you know s students in the choir. They had sports teams that ling
almost everything that they competed in,and it was a community. Bates was
the community. And you served asthe executive producer for that documentary, and

(10:54):
I know that you had a outstandingfirst night of exhibition of the films.
We did a weekend unveiling of thefilm. And what was wonderful about it
is that we had I can't remembernow, I want to say ten.

(11:16):
Why does ten stick with me?I want to say ten of the fifteen
teachers were there that we had interviewed. And what was so wonderful about it
is many of those teachers had notinteracted or seen each other since they had
left Bates, the school system wasfully integrated, and it was just so

(11:41):
wonderful for them, and they werein their eighties and nineties. Three I
believe four now have since passed.So we're very happy that we were able
to capture that history and we stillshare it absolutely. And our show actually
featured the docum men in two partsduring our Black History Month k showcase of

(12:03):
Films, and it was a realhonor to do that and we should absolutely
continue, please j to do that. Now, for people to get more
information about the Alex Haley excuse me, kut kutzikin Alex Haley Foundation events or
activities, where should they go toour website kentyhilly dot org. Okay,

(12:28):
k I n d e helly jl e y dot org and they'll ge
also be able to get information aboutthe festival there not the festival. The
festival is called the kenty Kunti KinyFestival and it's a different website, okay,
But we often get emails from peopleseeking information about the festival and we

(12:52):
pass them on to the festival group. Okay, Okay. Now, one
thing that I I just wanna highlightabout all of the things that you talked
about that you've been involved in.There has always been a component of education
because you have a strong desire toensure that people know their roots, their

(13:15):
heritage. I know once upon atime you also founded a ancestry project in
Annapolis. You're gonna talk a littlebit about that and hopefully it'll be coming
back. We've we've we've done anumber of ancestry projects. Uh, the

(13:35):
one you're speaking about, it's somethingcalled Grandparents Passing It Forth. And it
was a success. Yes, itwas an astounding success. And why have
we not done it Because we're asmall organizations and it has to do with
venstrant manpower and what we're gonna pursueat a point in time. But we've

(13:56):
had so many requests to do that. Again, the thing that was nice
about that ancestry project is that werequire the registration include the grandparent and the
grandchild and that they go to thevarious workshops that we had together. So
it was grandparents sharing information about theirfamily heritage with that grandchild. And so

(14:16):
that was the whole conference and itwas just wonderful. It was and if
I recall, that was a twoday conference, but it was just wonderful.
But we've also done something a numberof summers called a roots Camp,
which again is a heritage project andgenealogy project, but that was just for

(14:37):
youngsters. We started it off foryoung youngsters, primarily UH middle school youngsters,
where they would be in a computerlab for a week and what they
were doing during that week is doinggenealogy research. And part of their research
included UH learning websites that they couldgo to to do genealogy research, so

(15:01):
it was that kind of hands oninterviewing. They had a series of questions,
so they had to interview elders intheir family, and when they finished
at the end of that week,they basically had an outline, a working
outline of their family family genealogy.So we did that a number of summers
and it was so successful that wedecided to do a UH genealogy workshop roots

(15:26):
camp for elders, and we didthat at the Bates UH Senior Center.
Okay, and cause they have acomputer lab, and I remember the first
year that that was done. Wecan only provide the workshop to the extent
that we have a computer available forthe participant. So if you got twenty

(15:48):
computers, we got a cap itat twenty participants, and I remember the
senior saying I'm not leaving, I'mstaying. So we had time to do.
We had to do a second schedulefor them. How do you tell
a senior that you gotta go,you don't. Yeah, we finally negotiated

(16:11):
a second session, but it toowas a successful endeavor. And those have
been successful and we would love torepeat some of them, but our effort
has to be adjusted by our manpower. Yeah. Yeah, Well, those
were great opportunities for you went frommiddle schoolers to seniors and everybody. Yeah,

(16:33):
yeah, great opportunities for people tolearn their culture as well as their
Yeah. Yeah. So bringing usfast forward, and as we go fast
forward, we operate a genealogy ResourceCenter, which is a collection of genealogy

(16:56):
information about Africa Americans, primarily focusedon African Americans in Maryland, so that
people can go there and do genealogyresearch. Oh, family, We're on
the second floor of Asbury United MethodistChurch. We used to be in the
library at Sir Jnatugu's College. Thatcollege is no longer with us, and

(17:21):
so we moved to the second floorof Asbury and we care now talk about
five years without talking about its history. We cannot mention it. Asbury is
the oldest African American church in anAranda County. And we did a genealogy
project related to Asbury where we wentin and we interviewed all of the seniors

(17:48):
there ninety and older to capture thehistory of Asbury through the eyes of those
seniors. What was it like whenyou were a child? Who is your
pastor what kind of programs were actof Who was some of the you know,
the the the people you know nowthat actually came up through this church
with you? Did you go toschool with them? I mean it was

(18:08):
just just one oferful And was thatanother documentary that was not a documentary?
It's a series of uh, separatevideos oka of the seniors at Asbury.
Okay, great to take all thatfootage in creative Yeah. Yeah. Now
how old is the church? Thechurch was organized in eighteen o three.
Wow. But when it was organized, they were meeting, you know,

(18:32):
separately in different homes and everything.The first church site was built in eighteen
thirty eight, and then fast forwardto the current site, which has both
components of the first and the renovation, which was uh took place in nineteen
seventies. Is that when it wason fire car did it not? It

(18:52):
was just a small little piece.Okay, yeah, okay, okay,
wow that that's a lot of great, rich history in country. So that's
a beautiful sanctuary the women in acounty. Yes, okay. So actually
I have a question for you.So you know this book is in Prince

(19:14):
but wasn't there another similar project thatis on the Kuntaquente Foundations. That's how
we started, and I love thatproject. I love it. So what
happened was Kamala Harris was elected asour Vice President of the United States and
at a board meeting, one ofour male board members, doctor Donald Rome,

(19:37):
said, you know, we needto do something to honor women in
Aroonda County. And we started talkingabout it and we said, yeah,
okay, you're right, you're right. So what we did was we started
a research project to identify African Americanfemale first in a county. Because Kamala

(19:59):
Harris, Mountain C. J.Walker, the books. I mean,
we have a lot of renowned nationalwomen, but we have local women as
well who should be lifted up becauseof their contributions. So we started the
research and we would in phases,phase being eight women, ten women.

(20:22):
When we would get a number ofthem the research completed, we'd placed them
on our website. What I loveabout what we did was you would go
to the website and there would bea picture of the person and then it
would say click here to hear herstory. Her story, and so what
you would get is a minute anda half overview of that woman, and

(20:48):
then it would have abudonness is pressedfor more, and then so more would
give you the full background on thatwoman. So we posted them on our
website. And then over time we'retalking and I'm saying, you know,
this is just too important to haveuh left to the vagaries of technology,

(21:10):
technology, hard copy weed uh andin the libraries, and it's just so
wonderful that it's it's in the library. I mean, it's in the public
library. It's in the public schoolsystem. They have it in the library
of middle and high schools. Allthe middle schools and high schools have two

(21:33):
copies of this book. Wow.And then it's also available on Amazon and
where you can books on Amazon,and then you know books of Annapolis and
then Saint John's College libraries all aroundthe county have copies of this book.
You know, it's a very veryimportant book. It's extremely not only for

(21:53):
anne Arundo County, not only forthe state of Maryland, but also for
the people, oh of the UnitedStates. Everyone needs to pick up a
copy and read the rich history aboutthe African American women who are featured in
here. Library Congress contacted us andthey asked for two copies. Okay,

(22:14):
yeah, so put it in thelibrary. So it's in the lever of
Congress. So that was the impetusfor the book. Kamala Harris and a
discussion at a board meeting was theimpetus for our initial research. And then
as the critical mask grew and thefact that we didn't want to lose this
rich history, we said, weneed to make this a book. So

(22:37):
then we started adding more so thatwe could put it in book born.
Okay, okay, So that's agreat segue into what your process was and
pulling it together, Like how didyou decide who you were going to feature,
how did you go about the writingof it. I'm sure there are
dream catchers who are watching who arethinking of doing you know, basically anthology,

(23:00):
and I would encourage people across youknow, their particular areas to do
just that. We started off bycontacting people. We would contact people and
we would say, you know,we were trying to identify the first and
some of them we knew, andsome of them we had the research.
Like I said, there was afirst NWACP leader who used to run the

(23:25):
NWCP for the county and she wasthis and blah blah blah, and we
thought we knew that first, andwe found out we didn't. We started
research and that was not the first. That person was the vice president of
the first. So we've it's likeyou started going down or a little rabbit
hole, or we say there wasthis first to do this, and then

(23:48):
we find out more like somebody ina planning meeting said you were the first
school board member. I said,I don't think so. I said I
wasn't the first African American female schoolboard member. And we started down our
little hole until you got the rightassert, the right ass. Now that's
where technology is a winner, becauseand then we phoned people. We did

(24:11):
a lot of phoning, a lotof email. Do you know the email
for this person? Do you knowhow I can get in touch with this
person? I mean, it wasa lot of that. How long did
it take to do the research?The research probably took us a good two
years total. Yeah, it tookus a good two years because we started

(24:33):
off first with the research on thewebsite and then we expanded it and so
we were continuing. So the firstphase of it, so maybe we had
fifteen to twenty people on our website. Then we just went further. We
completed a research for thirty four womenwhen we decided to put it in book
form. One of the women that'sin here not because she is from an

(25:00):
Arona County, although she tells usshe represents the whole state is Adrian Jones,
who is the first Speaker of theHouse, African American female Speaker of
the House, and the first femaleSpeaker of the House. Adrian Jones is
highlighted because of those particular accomplishments,but also she was the guests attendee at

(25:27):
a celebratory event we had during Women'sHistory Mark to honor these women. So
research is on thirty four of thewomen and fourteen of them were still alive
twenty year deceased, and of thefourteen, ten were in attendance. Wow,

(25:51):
so it was wonderful that's amazing.So you had a team of people
just assigned. We have different wehave we have a team of people who
are working and we are now workingon an updated version of this. Back
to your earlier question of how dowe come up with these, Well,
in the back of the book,what we're doing is we're asking the community

(26:15):
to help us identify other first thatwe miss and so there's a little form,
okay, and so we asked themto send this to us. So
some actually complete the form and sendit to us, send an email,
so I'm sending a telephone call.As long as you get it. Look,
we get the information. We're tryingto get the information, but we're

(26:37):
trying to broaden our outreach to makesure that we capture as many women as
we can because our first Blush wefelled, maybe captured fifty sixty seventy percent,
but there's a broader number that we'retrying to reach. And when do
you anticipate publishing the next volume,the second We have a timeline that suggests

(27:00):
that we should be ready to goto print by January. That's our timeline,
okay. And it's self published.It is published through Amazon through Amazon,
And how was that experience for ourdream catchers who were thinking about doing
that. It was easy and ithad some challenges. It had some hiccups
because we had some formatting challenges thatwe had to resolve, but we have

(27:26):
people who love the foundation and whovolunteered to help us get through some of
our formatting challenges. But beyond theformatting challenges, it was fairly easy.
Yeah. I mean, it's areally good, solid book of information and
colored pages pictures. Do you wantto know who my favorite three aren't?

(27:48):
Oh my goodness, do you havefavorites Doctor Carlita Allen. Of course,
the honorable Sheila Finlayson. Okay,I know her, and you've already mentioned
the honorable Adrian age Out. Yes, so those are my three. And
then also doctor Patsy Baker Black isamongst that number of great women. And

(28:14):
I look forward to seeing the secondvolume and hearing more about how this project
is evolving. Maybe go to thestate level. Yeah, well, you
know, and it's interesting. We'vehad recommendations from people and they would include
folks in Prince George's county, orthey would include people at the state level.
And I take my team, Isaid, you know, and run

(28:37):
count we all to do so muchand run account. Let's get these women
first. So that's what we're tryingto do first. It's just a wonderful,
wonderful read. It's a great partof history, and I encourage everyone
to run out, go get it, go get it. So thank you
so very much, doctor Patsy BakerBlacks for being on the show, and

(29:03):
thank you Dreamcatchers for tuning in andbeing a big part of the Haven Circle.
It is it is my hope thatyou are inspired in your own writer's
journey as we unpeel the layers andget to the heart of this writer's game.