For the first time in forever I'm actually working on new scholarship -- an essay about Melissa Milewski's important book on litigation by African American plaintiffs during Jim Crow. And of course I'm re-reading Ralph Ellison's work on African Americans' appeal to the rule of law, particularly his "Going to the Territory." Inman N. Page, a graduate of Brown University and later the head of the segregated school in Oklahoma City, looms large in that essay -- in part because Ellison gave that address in honor of Page at Brown, where Page had studied. (Ellison was taught by Page more than fifty years before he gave the 1979 address at Brown). This is yet another example of the unexpected outdoing itself in its power to surprise. That led me to think about my trip back to OKC around 2011 when I took some photos of the now-abandoned Douglass-Woodson School in Oklahoma City. Maybe my favorite picture, though, is the plaque on the Douglass building listing Inman Page as the head of the separate schools.
I'm looking forward to talking more about this essay review; but right now, back to the garage to assemble the pieces of it.
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