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Catherine Read

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Making Change Radio

by Catherine Read

Railroaded – Dale Brumfield

Railroaded - Dale Brumfield author (Sept. 2020) This book is an excellent work of research, scholarship and storytelling. Dale Brumfield, a native Virginian, historian, author and cultural archaeologist continues to write about the untold history of this Commonwealth that we never learned in school.

Railroaded is a window into the history and culture of the Commonwealth of Virginia through a very specific lens of capital punishment. To understand how so many young black men were put to death, we must first acknowledge that Virginia is ground zero of the slave trading of captured Africans that began in 1619. Those sales of Black Africans to White landowners established human beings as property, not people, and slavery as an important economic engine of Southern prosperity.

While this book is dedicated to telling the stories of the first 100 people put to death in the newly introduced electric chair from 1908 to 1920, the subtext of these stories is one of white rage, resentment and institutional racism in Virginia that is present to this very day.

There are so many layers to this book. The first that struck me was that the names of the victims and the names of the accused look so very similar. They are the same old Virginia family names that used to fill pages of local phonebooks. I recognize these family names because I have lived in Virginia all of my life and these are the names of my schoolmates, neighbors and leading citizens of the communities where I have lived from Southwest Virginia to Northern Virginia.

That is a reminder that many Black Virginians bear the surnames of the people who owned their ancestors. They do not have a family history of their own with an ancestry separate from those who enslaved them. Their identity was stolen when they were abducted from their own communities on another continent and sold as property to White people who chose what they would be called and whose mark was left on their children, and their children’s children for all of their days.

Reducing Black people to less than human is the foundation upon which this country’s culture and our system of justice and punishment has been built. Virginia’s legislature and our law enforcement created a two-tiered system that was both codified and legitimized in the law.

For many years a Black person was not allowed by law to testify against a White criminal defendant, so crimes such as the rape of a Black woman by a White man were rarely prosecuted, and never resulted in a death sentence since the victim could not testify against her attacker.

As a carryover effect, there was not one White-on-Black capital crime punished by execution – and unbelievably, Virginia did not execute a White for killing a Black person until 1997, when Thomas Beavers was executed for the murder of Marguerite Lowery.

Another startling layer to this book is the long and detailed history of violence against women. Rape and assault, along with husbands killing wives, and men stalking and killing the objects of their obsession. Women have not fared well here in the Commonwealth. It took until 2020 for legislation to pass in our current legislature that allows the Courts, through due process, to issue Risk Orders removing guns from the hands of people who are a risk to themselves or others. It’s hard to imagine how many women could have been spared murder while fleeing domestic violence if only we had the political will to protect them.

This book is an important part of Virginia’s history. I think it’s difficult for many people to understand how unarmed Black people can be killed with impunity and no one held accountable. It has ever been thus. It is hardwired into our culture and carried forward generation after generation. The history of law enforcement, the judicial process, mass incarceration and capital punishment present the blueprint to how we got here in 2020. More books like Railroaded need to be researched, written and widely read so that the next generation perhaps makes the intentional choice not to carry these terrible precedents forward.

Listen to my interview with author Dale Brumfield here: https://youtu.be/z0c36–BJWA

Filed Under: Making Change Radio, Virginia Tagged With: Capital Punishment, criminal justice, Dale Brumfield, Death Penalty, Execution, racism, VDAP, Virginia

by Catherine Read

Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center

(Aug. 29, 2019) Making Change Radio host Catherine Read sat down with Stacey Picard and Saif Rahman of Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center to discuss the many ways the center serves the community. Stacey is the Assistant Director of Social Services and Raif is the Government and Public Affairs Director.The original Dar Al-Hijrah Mosque was founded in 1983 in a small brick house in the Culmore neighborhood of Fairfax County’s Mason District. In 1991, a large donation made possible the building of what is now the Dar Al-Hijrah Islamic Center which includes the mosque that serves the area’s 40,000 muslims.

Dar Al-Hijrah serves muslims from over 50 countries, and the muslim community that has been here for generations back to the colonial days of early America, and Friday prayer services regularly have 3,000 attendees. For many muslims new to this country, the mosque is their primary source of information and assistance. But in addition to serving the local muslim community, there are social service programs that serve the needs of a diverse population that also includes Hispanic and Vietnamese community members.

The Islamic Center works with local churches in the area to deliver services such as meals, food distributions and health care services. There is a program at Dar Al-Hijrah to teach women to sew and provide them a sewing machine in order to provide them a path to earning income while caring for their families at home. There are programs that are done in collaboration with other area non-profits to provide specific kinds of services like English as a second language and English language literacy.

Dar Al-Hijrah is open to everyone and there are events such as their “Bring a Friend Iftar-Dinner” every Tuesday evening during Ramadan. They also host community meetings like the one that will be held about the upcoming national census on September 25th. Everyone is welcome here and the community is invited to come take a tour of the center, volunteer with one of the many programs offered here, and to collaborate on meeting some of the pressing needs of the Culmore area.

You can follow Dar Al-Hijrah on Twitter and Instagram @hijrahva or on Facebook at /hijrava/ and upcoming events can be found at www.hijtrah.org

Filed Under: Making Change Radio, Virginia Tagged With: Catherine Read, Culmore, Dar Al-Hijrah, Islamic Center, northern virginia, Saif Rahman, Stacey Picard

by Catherine Read

Historian Carroll “C.R.” Gibbs – Making Change Radio

(Aug. 22, 2019) Host Catherine Read sits down with Carroll “C.R.” Gibbs to discuss Jamestown, the first recorded history of enslaved people landing in Virginia in 1619, and the impact of mythology versus factual history.

CR Gibbs is the author/co-author of six books and a frequent national and international lecturer on an array of historical topics. He has appeared several times on the History Channel and French and Belgian television. He wrote, researched, and narrated “Sketches in Color,” for WHUT-TV, the Howard University television station. “Sketches in Color,” is a 13-part companion series to the acclaimed PBS series, “The Civil War.”

The Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum features Gibbs on its Online Academy website. He is also a D.C. Humanities Council scholar. In 1989, he founded the African History & Culture Lecture Series whose scholars provide free presentations at libraries, churches, and other locations in the Washington-Baltimore area.

The schedule for upcoming lecture series in 2019 can be found on Port of Harlem’s website.

Making Change Radio can be heard every Thursday night at 9 pm (EST) online at Radio Fairfax or on Ch. 37 locally.

Filed Under: Making Change Radio, Virginia Tagged With: 1619, American History, Carroll Gibbs, Catherine Read, CR Gibbs, Jamestown, Making Change Radio, Slavery, Virginia History

by Catherine Read

Gun Violence Prevention – Making Change Radio

(Aug. 15, 2019) Making Change Radio host Catherine Read sits down with gun violence activists Kevin Bergen and JP Thomas of Brady United Against Gun Violence. In the wake of two more mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and in Dayton, Ohio, activists are calling on Congress to return from their August recess to deal with this crisis. #RecessRally events will be held around the country on August 17th & 18th.

Making Change Radio can be heard every Thursday night at 9 pm (EST) online at Radio Fairfax or on Ch. 37 locally.

Filed Under: Making Change Radio, Virginia Tagged With: #RecessRally, Brady United, Gun Violence Prevention, JP Thomas, Kevin Bergen, Making Change Radio, Radio Fairfax

by Catherine Read

Inclusive Sex Education – Hunter Wagenaar

(July 11, 2019) Making Change Radio host Catherine Read talks with activist Hunter Wagenaar, a student at the University of Virginia, who is advocating for more inclusive sex education. Sex education curriculum needs to be fact based, medically accurate and science based and it needs to include the LGBTQ community. This is the mission of Hoos for Inclusive Sex Education Now (HISEN) the organization that Wagenaar founded at UVA.

Making Change Radio can be heard every Thursday night at 9 pm (EST) online at Radio Fairfax or on Ch. 37 locally.

Filed Under: LGBTQ, Making Change Radio Tagged With: Catherine Read, Hunter Wagenaar, Inclusive Sex Education, Inclusive Sex Education Now (ISEN), LGBTQ, Sex Education

Catherine S. Read
I believe in the power of community and the ability of one person to make a difference.

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