Autumn: From Colorful Leaves to Burning Leaves and Crisp Air

Student Ambassador Update: Hi everyone! Long time no update! Last week I had the incredible privilege of working The HistoryMakers WomenMakers event in New York City (it was wonderful to be back in my city)! I had the privilege of meeting some of the most renowned and groundbreaking Black people and HistoryMakers including HistoryMaker Nikki Giovanni, Ms. Chirlane McCray, HistoryMaker Dr. June Christmas, HistoryMaker Ursula Burns and numerous other incredible and trailblazing Black people. It was such an overwhelming experience and I was honored to be involved and to be invited. It was also so nice to meet Zoé and The HistoryMakers team including, of course, THE HistoryMaker Ms. Richardson! I cannot. thank Ms. Richardson enough for seeing something in me and bringing me to the table both literally and figuratively. This week was also a huge week for my student outreach on campus as my Wellesley spotlight story about The HistoryMakers launched with Faculty Fellow, Professor Fitzpatrick! The campus reception was phenomenal and I cannot wait to continue and begin our events!

Red Leaf Trees Near the Road, Pixabay, https://www.pexels.com/photo/red-leaf-trees-near-the-road-33109/

Our focus for this week was Fall! The search terms that I used were: “Autumn” and “Halloween.” I used these terms instead of “Fall” because they felt more precise and relevant. HistoryMaker Gordon Parks (1912-2006), a renowned photographer, writer, and film director recited a beautiful excerpt from his work that brought about a new meaning to Autumn. He recited, “And you will learn/ that/ All the same things/ Are really not the same,/ that/ You must select your friends/ With the same care I gave/ To choosing your mother, or/ Maybe the wood to build fences./ Avoid the things that die too easily/ And get your own soul ready/ to die well./ Don't get gray by yourself,/ And don't be surprised/ When as you grow older/ You begin to pray more/ And worry less/ Remember most that everything/ I have told you might very well/ amount to everything/ Or/ Perhaps nothing. But be most thankful, son,/ If in autumn you can still manage to smile.”[1] This gorgeous quote is one of the most illuminating moments I have experienced searching in the archive. This term of “autumn” as not just referring to a season but also a time period in one’s life was new for me. Here, HistoryMaker Parks reminds us that it is a special moment to smile in the autumn of our lives. In his explanation of the title of his work, “Half Past Autumn,” HistoryMaker Parks notes, “'I picked it from amongst about ten or twelve titles that I write out and look at them, digest them, and I finally arrived at 'Half Past Autumn.' I know why actually. I think in… my life, at least, in terms of seasons. I figured I've lived out spring, summer, and now autumn coming, half past autumn, and then, at last, winter. And that's how that title came about.’”[2] Here, HistoryMaker Park is transparent about his own way of seeing his life in terms of seasons and “autumn” being a notable one.

HistoryMaker Gordon Parks, The HistoryMakers, https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/gordon-parks-39

HistoryMaker Gwendolyn Patton (1943-2017), civil rights activist and archivist, similarly uses “autumn” to capture a time in her grandparents’ lives. She explained, “Her name was Juanita Foster Bolden Washington [Juanita Foster Washington], she had two husbands and--the love of my life. And then my daddy's parents, Mr. and Mr. Sam [Samuel Patton, Sr.] and Mary Jane Patton [Mary Patton]… and I call my grandmother, Ma Dear, and called my granddaddy, Granddaddy, and he called me, Granddaughter. And we had a very special relationship… here I was, wanting to come home, see the lay of the land, what has freedom wrought for my people in my hometown, Montgomery [Alabama], to be with my grandparents in the autumn of their life…”[3] This way of describing the latter years of her grandparents’ lives as the “autumn” evokes such a beautiful idea of her connection to her grandparents and the ways in which “autumn” is a time of change and new chapters.

Of course, there were more familiar stories relating to the season of autumn. For instance, HistoryMaker Billy Joe Evans (1942-), a chemistry professor and former director of the Materials Science Department at Howard University, tells us, “I'm always excited about school and the campuses are so nice in the autumn, somewhat quiet, the leaves are falling and one can walk the pathways comfortably. I grew up in the south so the spring wasn't really my favorite because it got hot very soon, very quickly. And so by May, it was really too hot to be in the rooms and we had no air conditioning so I guess that's why autumn is my favorite time of year.”[4] Similarly, talking about the sensory experiences of autumn, HistoryMaker The Honorable Audrey Collins (1945-), chief judge of the Central District of California from 1994 to 2013 shares, “I remember like when we were in Yeadon [Pennsylvania], it was very pretty, the leaves. I've always loved like the leaves in autumn, it was particularly beautiful… And we stay out in Tarrytown [New York] and I just look at leaves and I take pictures of leaves and I walk in leaves. So it's just, it's just so beautiful. And I think of that and I associate that I think very much with my growing up because of the seasons. Because I've never quite gotten over missing the seasons… So I used to go to New York kind of in the spring, 'cause that's what's beautiful. But I've kind of switched to the autumn because I just love looking at the leaves and that sound. You talk about a sound. I even took video this year when I went back to New York on my little iPhone… there's just the crunching. I'm walking in the leaves and they're crunching. So just that's a great sound to me, the crunching.”[5] The leaves were unsurprisingly a common highlight of the autumn season for various HistoryMakers.

HistoryMaker Gwendolyn Patton, The HistoryMakers, https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/gwendolyn-patton-41

HistoryMaker Billy Joe Evans, The HistoryMakers, https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/billy-joe-evans

HistoryMaker The Honorable Audrey Collins, The HistoryMakers, https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/honorable-audrey-collins

There were also some more unpleasant experiences associated with autumn. Take, for instance, HistoryMaker William Massey (1956-), who co-founded the Conference of African American Researchers in the Mathematical Sciences and was the first tenured African American mathematician at an Ivy League (Princeton), who remembers of autumn, “Well, I know I can, in St. Louis [Missouri], well, one distinct smell they don't really have today is in the autumn, when people would rake all their leaves into the street and then they would burn the leaves. But now, that's, you know, no one does that any more.“[6]

Red and Brown Leaves, Pixabay, https://www.pexels.com/photo/red-and-brown-leaves-235767/

This burning smell was also an associated memory for HistoryMaker The Honorable Deborah A. Batts (1947-2020), a former U.S. District Court Judge and the first openly gay federal judge. HistoryMaker Batts remembers, "“There are other smells I guess, sort of autumn smells. Like when I grew up, when people raked leaves they used to burn them. And obviously you do not do that now, you know, environmentally but the smell of… either wet falling leaves with the various colors or… if I smell something that smells slightly like burning, I mean one of the things that will go through my mind is… you know, if it smells like burning leaves I know it's not, but… it does.”[7] I don’t think that I realized that people used to burn their leaves because that is more uncommon now but I continue to learn so much from the archive and I am very grateful for that! Please check-in again next week for a new topic and post!

HistoryMaker William Massey, The HistoryMakers, https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/william-massey

The Honorable Deborah A. Batts, The HistoryMakers, https://www.thehistorymakers.org/biography/honorable-deborah-batts

Notes:

[1] Gordon Parks (The HistoryMakers A2001.054), interviewed by Julieanna L. Richardson, March 12, 2001, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 5, story 5, Gordon Parks reads from 'Half Past Autumn'

[2] Gordon Parks (The HistoryMakers A2001.054), interviewed by Julieanna L. Richardson, March 12, 2001, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 5, story 2, Gordon Parks discusses 'Half Past Autumn'

[3] Gwendolyn Patton (The HistoryMakers A2007.098), interviewed by Denise Gines, September 5, 2007, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 2, tape 8, story 2, Gwendolyn Patton remembers her return to Montgomery, Alabama

[4] Billy Joe Evans (The HistoryMakers A2012.177), interviewed by Larry Crowe, October 22, 2012, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 1, story 2, Billy Joe Evans lists his favorites

[5] The Honorable Audrey Collins (The HistoryMakers A2013.344), interviewed by Larry Crowe, December 18, 2013, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 2, story 7, The Honorable Audrey Collins describes the sights, sounds and smells of her childhood

[6] William Massey (The HistoryMakers A2013.065), interviewed by Larry Crowe, March 8, 2013, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 1, story 10, William Massey describes the sights, smells and sounds of growing up

[7] The Honorable Deborah A. Batts (The HistoryMakers A2007.239), interviewed by Adrienne Jones, August 15, 2007, The HistoryMakers Digital Archive. Session 1, tape 3, story 1, The Honorable Deborah A. Batts describes the sights and smells of her childhood