By: Alexis Gagnon
Class of 2018 What Love Can Do centers around Henry Goody Jons, the mixed-race son of a young slave girl and her Louisiana master. Jons is faced with the decision to identify as white and escape slavery or embrace his black heritage and remain a slave. Jons identifies with his African American heritage and returned to his community as a pastor after the Emancipation Proclamation. Prejudice and hatred, are a stronger form of slavery than physical bondage. While not physically bound,, prejudice and hatred limited these African Americans from living full, safe lives from the Emancipation Proclamation to present day. A few years after the Emancipation Proclamation, Jim Crow laws were enacted, legalizing segregation and prohibiting the African Americans in this collection of stories from exercising their rights. Even though they were faced with hatred and prejudice, they refused to stop living their lives. An astounding ideal to go by, presented by Henry Goody Jons, gave them the tenacity to live: “When you take on real love for people, you actually take on God, for God is Love.” As mentioned in the memoir, prejudice and hatred is a greater form of slavery than bondage itself. It is a mental prison that can turn physical if one is found in the wrong circumstances at the wrong time. However, despite his prior circumstances, Henry Goody Jons was always able to give his fellow African Americans the strength and perseverance to give love to others. That strength helped heal the community’s wounds then and could continue to heal the wounds our country suffers from today.
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By: Sydney Pattison
Class of 2018 Books have a magical way of bringing people together through emotions elicited from them. No matter if the book brings out the best or the worst in a person, reading always produces an effect on the audience. What Love Can Do is a perfect example of this phenomenon. Arthur Mitchell is able to communicate loss, triumph, and acceptance through the stories that have been passed through generations. In doing so, Mitchell’s secondhand stories give readers firsthand insight of how love must be at the forefront of our hearts and minds, even in the face of adversity. Here are a few quotes from our classmates about how Arthur Mitchell’s stories personally affected them: “It gave me perspective on how other people are treated determined by race and how we need to open our eyes to how society acts toward others of different ethnic backgrounds.” “I think it just gave me more perspective on what to appreciate in our lives.” “It showed me that there are similarities between that time period and our society today.” The most prevalent example of love in the face of adversity takes places at the beginning of the book when slavers capture the Niaconigogoa family, but the captain falls ill on the journey back. The crew members allow the captured women to venture into the jungle to find herbal remedies for their white captain. Even though they are being taken to the Americas to be sold, when given the choice, they freely choose to return to the ship that will eventually lead to a life of slavery. The women choose love in the most morally challenging circumstances and eventually pass this morality onto their children and their communities. The only way to come together fully is through love, and by loving one another, we spread love throughout the world. By: Katie Kitchen (Class of 2019)
Love. Love is a strong word, yet often incorrectly used. Before all the mobs with pitchforks come after me, let me explain. Since the dawn of time, love has been associated with physical objects. “Love that dress!” or “I adore that phone case !” are just some common phrases that are included with the word love. But when we actually break down what the phrases that we use love in, what does it mean? Do we love the object or the idea of obtaining that object? What constitutes loving something anyway? Love, by definition, is an intense feeling of deep affection or to feel a deep romantic attachment. Love at its simplest form is to care for something. To love something or someone is the longing to want what is best for them, no matter what it is. When thinking of loving someone, people typically think of family or friends. However, we do not usually think to love our enemies--which we all have. Unfortunately, it is in our nature to dislike and disagree with someone, but as long as we do have hatred towards this person, it is okay to disagree with him or her. Despite this, we, as humans, are called to love and care for everyone. By our human nature, we are called to help everyone in need. To love is to be a part of something greater like in the memoir What Love Can Do, which describes the sense of community and belonging that allowed people to begin healing the wounds of slavery. The narrative, which stretches over generations, shows the African American community coming together to retell the stories about how love conquers all. Through the love for their culture and for their community, the people within What Love Can Do demonstrate what it means to be free within bondage. Although slavery binds them to someone else, it is love that truly allows them to be free. If the world comes together to create a sense of love and belonging, it would be a much kinder and loving place. If I am fortunate enough to have children after I am married, I want to be able to tell my children that I am leaving the world better than I found it, and to do this, the world has to accept more love into the hearts of its citizens. Love was, is, and will always be the answer. By: Destiny Sanders (Class of 2019)
What Love Can Do came to be published in an unconventional way. Mrs.Gayle Nolan was a professor at Delgado Community College in New Orleans, Louisiana. One of her students, Teryl Mitchell, decided to enter college in her mid-thirties, and she struggled with grammar, spelling, punctuation, and other basic English principles. Although Teryl did not use English mechanics correctly, she did have a knack for writing stories. After Teryl spoke with Mrs.Nolan about her writing abilities, Teryl explained that her father was also a writer. She explained that he recorded stories that he heard growing up about the effect of slavery on his family. Teryl brought all of her father’s hand-written stories to Mrs.Nolan, so she could read them. Mrs.Nolan was in awe of Mr.Mitchell’s story because she had never read a slave account that had started in Africa. Mrs. Nolan realized that Mr.Mitchell’s story was too good to be forgotten or disregarded, so she copied and edited the manuscript and prepared it to be published and copied for sale. Unfortunately, Hurricane Katrina devastated the city of New Orleans and Mitchell’s original manuscript was destroyed, but luckily Mrs. Nolan still had a photocopy of the manuscript. Although Mrs.Nolan edited the manuscript, she tried very hard to leave everything as Mr.Mitchell had written it because she did not want to change the meaning of his work. These stories show the perseverance and courage of Africans as well as African-Americans and how they learned to love through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. What’s Missing from “Classics”: An Authentic Voice? By Destiny Sanders (Class of 2019) If I walked into Barnes and Nobles and asked what books I should read that discuss slavery or the African American Experience, the worker would most likely suggest The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, written by Mark Twain, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, written by Harriet Beecher Stowe, or a more contemporary novel, The Help, written by Kathryn Stockett. These books would suffice my basic needs, but they are lacking an important aspect: the authentic voice that only comes from non-fiction. You may say, "How are these novels not authentic?" The authors created the stories themselves. But Arthur Mitchell composed an entire memoir by compiling stories he heard as a child. He did not create names nor places; they are all authentic and have been historically verified. These authentic voices offer a more complete picture than fiction can. Arthur Mitchell was born in Irontown, Louisiana, and he heard slave stories while he grew up. Did Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, or Kathryn Stockett grow up hearing the effect of slavery on their family? These authors may been abolitionists or anti-slavery, but they have different perspectives from someone like Arthur Mitchell, whose own family was sold, beaten, and degraded. These authors created their own version of slavery, slave actions, and their dialect. They may tell stories that are true, but they lack the personal connection between the author and characters in the stories. What Love Can Do is an unbiased, unfiltered form of recollected stories of slavery and freedom in New Orleans. This book is one of the most underrated books to ever be written. It contains 100% truth and real-life experiences, yet novels such as Huckleberry Finn and Uncle Tom’s Cabin are considered “classics.” Although these “classics” are authentic, they lack the same authentic voice. If a novel, which is fiction, is regarded as a “classic,” why can’t What Love Can Do be a part of the same classification as the “classics” that discuss slavery? Instead of only reading a book such as Huckleberry Finn, why don’t students read What Love Can Do? Why can’t most curricula contain both voices and perspectives? Certainly Twain is an amazing author and his technique and symbolism are immaculate, but he is not the only person that talks about slavery. Why is it not possible to read both and compare and contrast the characters and techniques used? Underrepresented literature not only is an injustice to the reader but also to the literary world. Books like What Love Can Do contain more than an artificial theme. They contain real-life challenges that a group of people have endured, which helps the reader and listener make better decisions in life. It is nice to have “classics,” but it would be great if the originality and authenticity from a book such as What Love Can Do is incorporated into curricula and becomes more well-known in the literary world. www.schooltube.com/video/8d4ad09f251740a4b112 . Click the link above to hear some of our students discuss the challenges of reading a historical document differently than they would a literary one. One of the biggest challenges was we couldn't read this book as we would a piece of literature, analyzing it for style, symbolism, structure, etc. As Mrs. Nolan explained when she visited class, we had to view it as a historical document, an oral history that had been written down. That presented some challenges in that the stories overlap in the narrative, but once we learned to step back and see the big picture of what love can do, we could then see how all the story threads weave together to form a complete tapestry. By Jennifer Richard After our first reading of What Love Can Do, my students' main question was "Why don't more people know about this book?" The simple answer was because of it was self-published and hasn't had the benefit of a full marketing campaign. Their response was that they wanted the world to read this book, to hear the voices of generations of people who have never been heard and could easily be lost. That's how they got the idea to start this blog and our social media campaign. Our goal is simple: we want you to read the book, and we want you to tell someone else to read it. How can you help? 1. You can follow us on Twitter: @WLCDProject https://twitter.com/WLCDProject 2. You can buy the book: www.balboapress.com/bookstore/bookdetail.aspx?bookid=SKU-000531699 https://www.amazon.com/What-Love-Can-Recollected-Surrounding/dp/145254624X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1508876640&sr=8-3 3. You can read the book. 4. You can talk about the book: Tweet your experiences, tell a friend, pass your copy along to anyone who might read it. We want the world to hear what love can do, and you can help. By Maddy Murret (Class of 2018) and Katie Kitchen (Class of 2019) When the book What Love Can Do was first assigned, all ten of the students in the class were hesitant and slightly irritated that we had another book to read for school. We moaned and groaned as we wrote when each section of chapters was due in our assignment pads, but little did we realize the impact of the book would have on us. Attending an all-girls Catholic school, we have been taught the meaning of love and what God has to offer, yet we rarely appreciate everything He was given us. This book opened our eyes to see the true meaning behind what love can do if we allow our hearts to receive it. After all, love has the power to heal the ongoing effects of racism and inequality which was caused by slavery. We all adored this book, and we knew that it needed more recognition. We were blessed to have the editor of the book, Mrs. Gayle Nolan, visit our class where she discussed her dream of having the book more known throughout the world. As a class, we then decided to develop her dreams and make them a reality. We decided to create a project called ‘The What Love Can Do Project’ in an attempt to recognize her hard work along with this as-yet unheard voice of slavery and healing in our hometown of New Orleans. We hope through this website that we can accomplish Mrs. Nolan’s vision and have the world read about what love can do in a community and in each person.
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AuthorsTen students, a teacher, and an editor trying to make dreams a reality. Archives
December 2017
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