Copyright © 2023-2024. All rights reserved by Suzanne Sunshower.
PUSH! is a new writing partnership between myself and my long-deceased dad. For almost twenty years, from deep within the 1960’s to the early-1980’s, my dad wrote weekly editorials for a popular Black newspaper called The Michigan Chronicle. I am lucky to have a 20-lb satchel filled with the delicate sheets that are his typewritten originals. I say delicate not just because of their age, but because most of these editorials were typed on what we called “onion paper” which, as its name suggests, is incredibly thin.
Ok, so how is this a partnership, you ask? Well, I thought it could be meaningful to revisit some of these classic editorials and then to write 2023 companion pieces about the same topics. Every couple of weeks, I'll post one of my dad's original articles alongside my brand-new musing that it inspired.
When going through the stacks, I often read snatches and think about how much has transpired since whatever societal observance my dad was making in his day. Just as, at times I am struck by how much the country has come back around again. In my new musings I will make some observations of my own, and together we will decide if the findings are all positive.
Warning: As it’s been a few years since I’ve written an essay, I may sometimes veer off course or even break into poetics… so hold onto your hat.
Also, I will not be ‘correcting’ his 60s/70s/80s word choices – such as “Negro” etc. None of his words are incorrect, he used the verbiage of his time – and wrote for a Black paper, don't forget. So let’s not let our 2020’s sensibilities get the best of us, the whole point of this partnership is to compare situations; we already know there will be contrasts.
PUSH! is the jumping off point, but I do not know where it will lead - especially going into the 2024 election cycle. What I hope, in these more than simply ‘troubling’ times, is that the pieces in PUSH! will remind us how much we have fought for and how far we've come in this country, and that we will feel re-encouraged by that.
Or, if it seems that in some cases we have not come far enough, then I hope we will feel inspired to PUSH! ourselves and each other farther.
- Suzanne Sunshower
PUSH! is a new writing partnership between myself and my long-deceased dad. For almost twenty years, from deep within the 1960’s to the early-1980’s, my dad wrote weekly editorials for a popular Black newspaper called The Michigan Chronicle. I am lucky to have a 20-lb satchel filled with the delicate sheets that are his typewritten originals. I say delicate not just because of their age, but because most of these editorials were typed on what we called “onion paper” which, as its name suggests, is incredibly thin.
Ok, so how is this a partnership, you ask? Well, I thought it could be meaningful to revisit some of these classic editorials and then to write 2023 companion pieces about the same topics. Every couple of weeks, I'll post one of my dad's original articles alongside my brand-new musing that it inspired.
When going through the stacks, I often read snatches and think about how much has transpired since whatever societal observance my dad was making in his day. Just as, at times I am struck by how much the country has come back around again. In my new musings I will make some observations of my own, and together we will decide if the findings are all positive.
Warning: As it’s been a few years since I’ve written an essay, I may sometimes veer off course or even break into poetics… so hold onto your hat.
Also, I will not be ‘correcting’ his 60s/70s/80s word choices – such as “Negro” etc. None of his words are incorrect, he used the verbiage of his time – and wrote for a Black paper, don't forget. So let’s not let our 2020’s sensibilities get the best of us, the whole point of this partnership is to compare situations; we already know there will be contrasts.
PUSH! is the jumping off point, but I do not know where it will lead - especially going into the 2024 election cycle. What I hope, in these more than simply ‘troubling’ times, is that the pieces in PUSH! will remind us how much we have fought for and how far we've come in this country, and that we will feel re-encouraged by that.
Or, if it seems that in some cases we have not come far enough, then I hope we will feel inspired to PUSH! ourselves and each other farther.
- Suzanne Sunshower