Our second Klein Homecoming was October 5. As we did last year, we met at the cemetery, sang Amazing Grace, and prayed together before adjourning to the house for conversation, fellowship, and a Southern lunch. This time, however, we began with a sage smudge around our assembled circle and a prayer to acknowledge our standing on Muskogee (Creek) land. In addition to the responsive reading of the names of ancestors buried in the two sides of the cemetery, Mr. Henry Smith placed a handmade floral wreath to honor our enslaved ancestors who are buried in unmarked graves and those similarly buried in other cemeteries. Theo Perkins sang Fly Away, with those assembled joining in, to remember Ms. Nola Odem, who had attended the homecoming last year.
There were other ways it differed as well. At the first homecoming, all of us were a little wary, unsure what to expect. That eased as the day progressed, and we shared experiences, recollections, and hopes. This year, those returning were eager to be together and others who had heard about it and decided to come were ready to join in. Two sisters, whose grandparents are buried at the cemetery and who were participating for the first time, made beautiful floral wreaths for the cemetery and the entry gate. There were more children brought this year, and the older ones contributed to the facilitated discussion. At the end of this conversation, facilitator T. Marie King asked each person for a word to describe their feelings. The words included love, grace, unified, thankful, intrigued, opportunity, destigmatizing, progress, choices, beautiful, blessed, educate, knowledge, history, empowerment, and important. These words point to both reconciliation and to a desire to move forward together to create an important new narrative.
We had two short information talks. The craftsmen working on the house, who grew up and live in the area, talked about the progress that has been made over the past year and their experiences in reproducing structural elements from antique pine. Tanya Wideman-Davis and Thaddeus Davis, principals of the Wideman-Davis Dance Company, provided a taste of the site-specific performance of Migratuse Ataraxia to be held in January 2020 at Klein, sharing a video of the work at an historic house in Columbia South Carolina. These talks summarized for me the mission-directed progress we have made at Klein Arts & Culture. And finally, this year Bess Johnson provided video documentation of the events and interviews that will become part of our history room and social media.
I do feel that grace has led us on the path this year and into 2020, beginning with the marvelous experiential dance program that reinterprets the narratives of the house and continuing with two art exhibits later in the year. The Klein house has felt like a vortex, bringing together people and programs. Amazing Grace, indeed.