The Chapman Family Christmas Letter

Usually we send out a family christmas letter per post. This year we decided not to, but I wanted to do the letter in some form or other... so we are giving it a go on the blog! I know many of the family and friends to whom we usually send the letter read the blog, and if they dont, please go ahead and forward this entry to them. Sorry, for those of who know nothing of the Chapman Family. Either skip or learn.

YONNI
Friends and Family,

Three events of note this past year were trips I made with Joyce and Sandi. Joyce and I went to visit our step-family (left): Naimah, her son
Michael, Leticia, her daughter Malaya, and Bev Grant in New York before Joyce left for Japan. Sandi and I went on two trips. We visited our good friend Alfredo in Woods Hole, and visited my best friend from high school, Fitz, and his
family in Chicago over Thanksgiving.

The BIG EVENT in my life during the past year was finishing my dissertationand getting my Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina. I had to puteverything else on hold to make it to the finish line before the Graduate School deadline. It was definitely one of the biggest challenges of my life. Glad to say, though, perseverence paid off. Sandi provided tremendous practical and emotional support through the hard times,especially at the end. My graduation in August (I actually marched across the stage and shook Chancellor Moeser's hand this past Sunday) brought to conclusion an effort I began in 1990.
Committee members, from left to right, were James Leloudis (advisor), Jerma Jackson, Tim Tyson, Reginald Hildebrand, and Gerald Horne.

Graduate school, for me, was a sustained effort to combine academics and social justice organizing. My dissertation research for "Black Freedom andthe University of North Carolina, 1793-1960" (link is for download, 1.3MB) provided the foundation for building a movement at UNC for honest history and commemoration. Through CHAT (Campaign for Historical Accuracy and Truth) we demanded that the university honestly acknowledge its pivotal role in the promotion of slavery and white supremacy while, at the same time, appropriately honoring the freedom struggle of black workers and others who have been censored from the institution's official history. In 2004 we forced the retirement of the Bell Award, named in honor of 19th century white supremacist Cornelia Phillips Spencer. The next year, UNC erected an "Unsung Founders Memorial" to honor the black workers, slave and free, who built the university. In 2005 the Manuscripts Department of the university library sponsored an exhibit onUNC's role during slavery. This past October, the university launched a "Virtual Museum" to tell the honest history of the institution, "warts and all." The chancellor noted that this initiative was motivated by the Bell Award controversy. In February, the Manuscripts Department will sponsor an exhibit on "Protest Movements in Chapel Hill During the 1960s." This will include the Chapel Hill Civil Rights Movement of 1963-64 and the cafeteria workers' strikes in 1969 against continued Jim Crow abuses of human rights. I am proud of completing my dissertation, but I feel even better about the fact that I was able to contribute to these significant gains in social justice.

Next, I want to build on these foundations, as well as the work others have done in North Carolina, to advance the movement for "Truth, Justice, and Community Reconciliation" in Chapel Hill and throughout the state. I'm looking for funding--any ideas?

JEAN

Greetings from Evergreen, Alabama, where I've been based for the past few weeks. While it's true that "we are always in transition", this has been a special year of change: I left pediatrics and medicine after 40 years and began my 7th decade (i.e. turned 60). I came here to Alabama at the end of November to spend extended time digging about the roots of the family trees (both my father and my mother's families having been rooted in rural agricultural Alabama for many generations), and be-ing with my sisters and other living family.

Back home in Bear Creek, NC (left), my semi-hermit life carries on in my beloved 12' x 12' off the grid little-cabin-in-the-woods. I continue joying in silence, solitude, the natural world, working in the gardens. I am surrounded by rich circles of communities committed to peace, racial and economic justice, nonviolence, inclusivity, and loving and preserving the Earth. Never has the work of those communities been more critical: there is no need to enumerate the current horrors of torture, war, injustice, and racism in the world.

One of the great gifts of this year has been walking for peace. It was wonderful putting one foot in front of another during Holy Week in NC with the Pilgrimage for Peace and Justice, and again in November with Nipponzan Myohoji and the Peace Walk from Atlanta to the School of Americas gathering. I hope to do more walking for peace in 2007.

After taking Joyce to DC and seeing her off to Japan in August, the road led on to Jonah House, where I joined the Atlantic Life Community folk in vigil at the Enola Gay on Aug 6th. The end of August brought farewell to Chatham Pediatrics and travel to Kentucky (by way of Homecoming at the Highlander Center) to spend 5 weeks renewing deep connections with the Sisters of Loretto at the Motherhouse. I was an all-purpose volunteer once again... yes, weeding, power-washing, and wondrous relation-ing!

Oh, I forgot to honor Juanita, my "new" 21-year-old bio-diesel Jetta. Juanita was clearly the next step for me in trying to walk softly on the Earth, as we are blessed in NC with a growing Bio-diesel community (someday I'll get to "straight veggie oil", or better yet, no car at all). "Ruby Pearl the Faithful Toyota" (above) is now working hard as an organizer with FLOC, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, in NC and Mexico!

What a blessing it was to be together with Sandi and Joyce in NC the first half of this year. They are now 24 and 26, and will weave their own stories.

Life grows deeper, richer, more contemplative and more active at the same time. I celebrate Mystery, aspire to integrity, kindness, open-ness, good humor, nonviolence, generosity of spirit and substance, gratitude for this precious human life.

SANDI
I (Joyce) have been given the authority to say a few quick words in Sandi`s name. Several large changes have taken place in Sandi`s life this year. Last August, Sandi turned down a scholarship at Northwestern for a PhD program in political science. It would have been too cold up there anyway, in my opinion.

Instead, she and Sol Oster-Katz moved into a new house together in Durham, and Sandi is reapplying to graduate school locally for next year. Last summer, Sandi also took an awesome backpacking trip around Bolivia and Argentina (the first one to follow in mum`s footsteps and make it to South America!) Currently, she is busy investing time with family and missing me and mother terribly. I will also take this opportunity to praise Sandi for being about the only person who ever calls me here (dad comes in second! Mom doesnt have a phone so I suppose we cant blame her.) What an excellent sister.

JOYCE
Well, everyone has been getting my updates since August on this here blog. I spose I'll say a short word about the first half of the year, though nothing much happened. After returning from 1.5 years in Germany, the 2005-2006 saw me a Senior at UNC-CH. I continued working at my beloved Spotted Dog Restaurant and Bar (if you're in the Carrboro area, please go have some Fido's Fries, they are miraculous. Ask to see Joyce's poem about Fido's Fries:-)

I had a great year living in a house in Carrboro with Spanish friends (left, our housemates), studying linguistics and German, finally being able to bike everywhere I wanted to go (having escaped life at the bottom of the Chapel's Hill;-) and having the whole family in the same country at one time for once!



I graduated in May (left!) and flew off to Russia the next day. After spending several splendid weeks with Ainsley in her apartment in St. Petersburg/Moscow (below), I relocated to Paris, where I spent a month with Maren, my wondrous roommate from my Tulane days (below). Then a quick stop-over in Germany to see my Stuttgart family and Tübingen friends. This accidentally occured during the Soccer World Cup... yikes! Didn't plan for that but it sure was fun. The next week, I packed my bags for Japan, and bid America goodbye once again.













(Left: me and Alexander Prodehl, my future husband, in Stuttgart)

The only exciting current piece of news that I have is that I have re-contracted here with the JET Programme. I'll be living in Japan until August 2008.

That's it from the Chapman Family for this year!