Oh Man!!! I had the best time ever at St. Francis College and Brooklyn College giving the “Mae Mallory, The Monroe Defense Committee, and World Revolutions” Lectures. We my daughter Shakeila, my father Clarence Henry Seniors, and I pranced into Brooklyn, New York. We were early so we went to my alma mater Brooklyn Friends School and my classmate now the head of school Seth Phillips gave us a tour!!!! Looks exactly the same on the outside, but VERY DIFFERENT on the inside.The “Mae Mallory, The Monroe Defense Committee, and World Revolutions” lectures are in anticipation of my upcoming book of the same name coming out in six months, published by University of Georgia. My friend Dr. Robyn C. Spencer is the Visiting Endowed Chair in Women’s and Gender Studies at Brooklyn College and Visiting Associate Professor in History. She is the author of The Revolution Has Come: Black Power, Gender and the Black Panther Party of Oakland. Dr. Spencer invited me to Brooklyn College.
My other friend Dr. Sara Rzeszutek Associate Professor, Director, Women and Gender Studies Minor, Director, The Center of Women & Gender Studies and the author of James and Esther Cooper Jackson: A Story of Love and the Left in the Black Freedom Movement invited me to St. Francis College.
I had an absolutely wonderful experience at St. Francis College and Brooklyn College, I completely loved the whole experience. Pat Mallory, Shakeila’s auntie and Mae Mallory’s daughter, and Pat’s cousin Phyllis came to the talks and shared their remembrances. They were beautiful and wonderful.
Workers World Party and Monroe Defense Committee friends Mary, Joyce, Ruben, Ellen, were there in full force. My childhood friend Susie and Eva came to the talks. Eva took her beautiful fifteen year old daughter out of school to hear the talk!!!!
Ellen brought photos of us all as children. Sara, Hindi, Eric, and I in a pram, Sara, me, Eric, and Hindi in all two year old beauty. Ellen brought our nursery school graduation program from the J. Marjory Jackson Experimental Group. Come to find out my absolute favorite playwright Lynn Nottage graduated in our nursery school class!!! We were a biracial group of Black and white children born at the same time, with parents who bonded in the Trotskyist Maoist Workers World Party and The Monroe Defense Committee in the battle for Mae Mallory and the Monroe Defendants lives. Our parents committed themselves to social justice. We lived a charmed life of play, fun, activism, and the picket line. We were living the dream. These wonderful people were at my talks at Brooklyn College and St. Francis College. Our great friend Joan Gibbs of Medgar Evers College and the Center for Constitutional Rights came too. As did the fantastic singer and my friend of 100 year Miron Lockett.
My friend who I ADORE, Dr. Sonya Donaldson of New Jersey City University who writes about Afro Germans came !!!!
And the beautiful Dr. Prudence Cumberbatch, chair of Black Studies at Brooklyn College also came.
Safiya Bandele gave a beautiful poem "Warrior Woman" in honor of Mae Mallory.
The elders and the students were extraordinary and asked great questions. It was a wonderful homecoming. Paula Marie Seniors
