For starter, I have to say that i really don't know if it's become slowly a matter of brainwashing effort or aptitude, or for that matter one of sheer lack of information or misinformation. I doubt that half of the population of Cambridge even knows that their former city mayor for the last 5 to 8 years was a black man, gay man, and graduate of Harvard Law School, who also has some West-Indies background as it pertains to its family's origins in Jamaica. Wonder if they even knwo anything about anything besides their books' contents and the superficialities of anything and everything that comes to their eyes' peripherals. By the way, that former mayor's name is Kenneth Reeves, now one of our present city councillors.

Secondly on the same city officials' plane, i might as well mention that we have a new mayor, one that makes me proud to be a queer black female of the world at best. Her name, Denise Simmons, admittingly, i am not sure where she gathered her educational background from, but nevertheless she is good at what she does and had been doing prior to that as a city councillor with the city for almot a decade. That's the scoop on who and what the Cambridge main representatives to look into or inquire about are. They are a few more, in the likes of Councillors Davis, Seidel, Murphy, Decker, Kelly, and others whose names and roles you may be able to grab from http://www.cambridgema.gov/, the city's website.

I was amazed to read and listen to Ms Simmons about four years ago, as an invitee to the 2004 African-American luncheon at the city's Senior Center, where i was to perform a song from my first music album of 2003 called "Rugged-Soul" (Not on the market yet, still: believe it or not!) in commemoration of the DATE/MONTH THEME: AFRICAN AMERICAN MONTH(Check out the AFRICAN AMERICAN HERITAGE TRAIL BOOKLET FROM THE HISTORICAL COMMISSION OF CAMBRIDGE, MA).

I was without words and really touched by Ms. Simmons' speech and download on the black history of Cambridge. One, that seemingly the majority of the city's residents do not know a thing or half a thing about. The factors she brushed off and outlined were the periods afer the American Reconstruction Era, the blacks involved in the Abolitionists movements: W.E.B. Dubois, Harriet Tubman, Booker T. Washington, a few examples of newly freed Africans, Black Americans, who right then aspired to become more active in the uprising and upcoming national and local Black community of Boston and Cambridge.

They naturally gravitated into and more towards creating changes, positive and differentiative reforms; starting with their participation in the Abolitionist Movement, and also the Education of Blacks in general (of course all this, some years plus way before Brown vs. Board of Education was even in the Courts and being debated-which by the way from what i gather on Lexis-Nexus' cases, had as one of the initiating lawsuit's party one or two Black Bostonians, somehow) .

"I'm sorry but I respectfully have to disagree. When I lived in Boston, I was a university professor with a Ph D from one of the Boston areas most elite university. I was not poor, but still experienced racism as a well-educated African American professional woman. My son attended two of the most elite day schools in Cambridge from the time and he also experienced racism. Granted poor African Americans experience even more racism/elitism/classism because of their racial background and working class status. But if you think that well-educated African American professionals don't experience racism, then you need to think again. I'm not saying that the racism in Boston is worse than it is in the SF Bay Area where I currently live and work, I am just saying that there is racism in Boston."

This is what was posted by the same respondent in this forum, heading the elaborated short response thereafter, which you see above in quotation:

[Originally Posted by jyoung666: Well unfortunatly I am not seening eye to eye with you on this subject! And what makes you a voice for the community, those area in which you speak of are diverse areas, including people from all races, and all religions. It is just what we call "the poor section" of the city. Not having to do anything with racism but with income.]

The above quote is from a discussion/forum on Racial tensions and Injustices and Boston/Cambridge area generally: a few folks were online casually having a serious and i must say helpful dialogue and discussion. It still remains common opinion for many people of color in the city of Boston and Cambridge more so as it turns out, as well as their surrounding neighborhoods. What i gather is that every now and then it happens to all of us blacks, whites, Jews, Arabs, but for the last two decades, it's happened more so to blacks, as an easier target i suppose, view the history of slavery and of course the color-lines etc...

Now, as far as the context of this essay, I certainly would love to focus it on the NOW. Yet, it is almost imperative, in my opinion to mention what occurred or transpired in the past, in order to find grounds to move onto. That said, recapitulating from what Ms. Simmons spoke of, Cambridge's Kendall Square, a vast newly developped Industrial and Chemical Society/city that represent well over %50 of the city's revenues and monies (to put in plain and ignorant economics). What that area used to be that we, myself before 2004 and most of you (not to be conceited) do not know, is that it used to be called Lower Cambridge and was Home to a lot if not the majority of newly-freed blacks that originally relocated to the East Coast for Employments and Educational opportunities.

As you walk through Kendall, especially, from the Marriott or Broadway end towards to Courthouse on Thorndike Street and past that, you will find houses and other complexes owned by ex-slaves and prominent Blacks who made this city the so-called progressive one it is today and as well as one of the meccas of Education to the world today (MIT, Harvard, Darmouth, etc...).

Those awesome Black leaders led us all to where we are at today. I won't get into the deatils from here on; however, i would love to invite whoever is interested in the rest of this snippet here and the entire or fullest story of the history of the first Blacks to end up and live in Boston and Cambridge, to go on and do some research and grab some facts and honor those before us with Respect and Pride both, rather than letting our feelings, our social-economic classes, PHD's and books, as well as mainly the amount of money and fortunes we possess; we ought to look into our History, specially the ONE surrounding us, before we act like idiots superlatives and conceited assholes to all other beings around us.

You can get any legal info or reports as well as Digests ever written in reagrds to this particular story at LEXIS NEXUS, via the Cambridge Historical Commission (ask them from the booklet Ms. Simmons was reading and presenting from, i believe it is still under "The African-American Heritage Trail Booklet).

Thank you for keeping an open mind always, know the facts, know your history!

Koré Van Baldwin

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