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GPS Audiovisual - Buenos Aires, 15 junio, 2021 - Eduardo Montes-Bradley rueda en la ciudad de Mebane, Carolina del Norte, su documental Black Fiddlers, producción sobre músicos afroamericanos cuyas contribuciones a una identidad cultural nacional aún no han sido plenamente reconocidas. Organizado como un libro de cuentos con un hilo conductor común y unificador, navega por el espacio y el tiempo, desde las costas del Atlántico hasta el Pacífico, desde el período colonial hasta la Guerra Civil estadounidense, en busca de hombres y mujeres negros, libres y esclavizados, quienes contribuyeron con su música al paisaje sonoro musical estadounidense. El cineasta argentino radicado en Estados Unidos recogió en Mebane el testimonio de Iris Thompson Chapman. Es la ciudad natal de su pariente How Thomson, quizás el último descendiente directo de un linaje de violinistas afroamericanos que se remonta al siglo XVIII. Iris Thompson Chapman nació en el condado de Orange y completó la escuela secundaria en Central High en Hillsborough. Se matriculó en North Carolina College (ahora NCCU), donde obtuvo una licenciatura en inglés. La Dra. Chapman continuó su educación en la Universidad de Carolina del Sur en Columbia, SC, donde obtuvo tanto su maestría como su doctorado. Por otra parte, Montes-Bradley tiene un proyecto acerca de un documental sobre el reconocido escultor Daniel Chester French, recordado principalmente por su monumental estatua de Abraham Lincoln (actualmente) en el Monumento a Lincoln en Washington, uno de los fundadores de la Sociedad Nacional de Escultura y miembro de la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes y las Ciencias, la Accademia di San Luca, la Academia Estadounidense de las Artes y las Letras y de la Academia Nacional de Diseño. Desde el martes 1 de junio está disponible una nueva serie de largos y cortometrajes realizados en Argentina y Estados Unidos correspondientes al ciclo FOCO MONTES-BRADLEY, muestra retrospectiva del cineasta, ensayista y documentalista Eduardo Montes-Bradley, con la coordinación integral de la multiplataforma GPS Audiovisual. Entre las novedades se incluye el preestreno exclusivo de Alice: At Home with Alice Parker, documental de 30 minutos dirigido y filmado por Eduardo Montes-Bradley, con producción de Heritage Film Project. También volverán a exhibirse Los cuentos del timonel (2001), documental sobre Osvaldo Bayer y Le mot just – Ideografía de Héctor Tizón (2004), documental sobre el poeta jujeño. FOCO MONTES-BRADLEY es una mirada parcial a los trabajos que el cineasta realizó en Argentina, Estados Unidos, Alemania y Brasil entre 1999 y 2020. Cada dos meses incorporará producciones inéditas para la Argentina y reestrenos, que estarán disponibles durante 60 días en forma gratuita y exclusiva en la plataforma Vimeo de GPS Audiovisual.

As an artist in residency in Chesterwood, I will have a unique opportunity to explore a possible documentary film about Daniel Chester French. Donna Hassler invitation, the hospitality of her dedicated team of curatos, the proximity to Concord, and the scholarship of Daniel Preston, Michael Richman and Harold Holzer, will certainly contribute to enhance the experience and the prospect of a new documentary in time for the rededication of the Lincoln Memorial. In the coming weeks I will be sharing more about my DCF journey, a journey that promises to be unique and filled with gratifying experiences.

Black Fiddlers is a documentary film about African-American musicians whose contributions to a national cultural identity have yet to be fully recognized. Organized as a book of short stories with a common and unifying thread, Black Fiddlers navigates space and time, from the Atlantic shores to the Pacific, from the Colonial period to the American Civil War, in search of Black men and women, free and enslaved, who contributed with their music to the American musical soundscape. In eighteenth-century Richmond, Virginia, the filmmaker finds Sy Gilliat (1756-1820), AN acclaimed virtuoso enslaved to Lord Botetourt, Governor of the Virginia Colony. Gilliat performed European opera melodies and a wide variety of dance tunes for the Virginia aristocracy. However, Gilliat’s fame transcended the Governor’s mansion, and his music also filled the rooms of Richmond’s taverns and dance halls where diverse audiences would gather to hear one of the best-known musicians of the day. As our team of researchers and musicians move westward in search of other fiddlers, we find Eston and Madison Hemings in Charlottesville. They were the mixed-race children of Thomas Jefferson and the enslaved Sally Hemings. After their manumission following Jefferson’s death, Eston and Madison pioneered a musical tradition in Charlottesville that could still be glimpsed in the first performances of The David Matthews Band on West Main Street where Eston and Madison lived before moving West to Chillicothe, Ohio. It is in Ohio, however, where the musical legacy of Jefferson’s Black children still resonates loud and clear. In Mount Vernon, not far from Chillicothe, Black Fiddlers’ director Eduardo Montes-Bradley learns of the legend of The Snowden Family Band, a multigenerational clan of Black musicians. The Snowden’s talents have been recognized and celebrated in recent years through the recordings of The Carolina Chocolate Drops and Rhiannon Giddens. “It was the violin playing and not the gold” As the crew resumes the journey in search of Black fiddlers of the past, their attention is momentarily diverted to Wilmington, North Carolina, and the sounds of Old Frank Johnson’s fiddle. Old Frank enjoyed an extraordinary reputation for almost half a century, and according to some he was the James Brown of his time. Back on the road, the Black Fiddlers team hears the echoes of Lewis Alexander Southworth (1830-1917) and the sweet melodies he played to entertain gold diggers, “loose women,” and pioneers in the mining camps of Oregon. “It was the violin playing and not the gold”, he said, that ultimately paid for his freedom. Southworth was a musician, pioneer settler in the frontier, exemplary citizen, and an early champion of voting rights. Pictorial evidence of Southworth’s later years shows him dressed in a dark suit and worn dusty boots, sitting in a rocking chair and gazing at a portrait of Lincoln hanging over the mantle next to his violin. In another photograph, the bridge of his nose crinkles with a smile that extends to his eyes. He holds his violin, a dear companion and witness to the extraordinary transformations that had taken the United States from the early years of British, French, and Spanish colonialism through Emancipation following the Civil War. Black Fiddlers, narrated by Benjamin Hunter and produced in collaboration with distinguished scholars and performers, is not just a documentary, it’s a road movie aspiring to provide the first comprehensive account of America’s rich musical history as told by Black fiddlers of today.

During a recent visit to Marshall Wyatt in North Carolina, I was introduced to “Days and deeds in the Oregon country: Ten-minute stories from Northwest history”, by John B. Horner. In so reading I became fascinated with the trials and tribulations of the old fiddler of whom you’re about to learn more from Peggy Baldwin’s “A Legacy Beyond the Generations”, a text published on the site of the office of the Secretary of State (Oregon). These finding could have not come at a better time as Benjamin Hunter, Loren Ludwig and I continue to search for the stories that are to be included in the upcoming documentary “Black Fiddlers”. I would love to stay, and say more, but let the voice of Louis Southworth sing his own song, after all, that the intent and purpose of “Black Fiddlers”. A Legacy Beyond the Generations, by Peggy Baldwin, MLS Death takes us from this world, yet each of us hopes that somehow we leave a piece of ourselves here. We hope to have made a difference. We hope to have been truly seen for who we are and for that to make a difference in the lives of others. When we have children, we at least know that our legacy will go on. But when we are childless, that mark is more difficult to believe in. When a person is a member of a disenfranchised group, all that may be seen of them is what marks them. Because this could be said to be true of Lewis Southworth, what chance did he have of being seen, appreciated for his true nature, and to leave his mark? Lewis Southworth, called Louie or Uncle Louie by many, was described as that "old cotton-headed fellow who for several years walked the streets of Corvallis leading a big stallion of which he was very proud." In earlier years he was know as a "good young man, quiet and peacable, and obedient to his master."1 All "good" and childlike qualities for a time when African-Americans were not allowed their full manhood. This is a mild expression of the attitudes that Louis encountered in Oregon, when he arrived. His life would take on a dynamics and sureness that belied the expectations of whites around him, who discounted the ability of African-Americans to prosper outside of slavery. In 1853, Lewis came on the Oregon Trail with James Southworth, his master, and James' family, to the Oregon Territory, where the attitudes were about as primitive as the countryside.2,3 As the enslaved, he had no choice in the matter, at a time when Oregon was hostile to ethnic minorities. Many of Oregon's early settlers came from the South, via Missouri, and wanted to avoid the "trouble with negroes" they had witnessed in the places they had come from. Early settlers feared a backlash of violence from African Americans, joining with Native Americans. As a result, most people did not support slavery, or any other activity that would bring blacks to the Oregon Territory. The first exclusion law was passed in 1844, not allowing blacks to settle in Oregon.4 Oregon has the dubious honor of being the only state to have an exclusion provision in the state constitution. Article 1, Section 35 from the Oregon Constitution, passed in 1857, and not repealed until 1926, reads: No free negro, or mulatto, not residing in this State at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall come, reside, or be within this State, or hold any real estate, or make any contracts, or maintain any suit therein. . ."5 The hostility that many people in Oregon felt for African Americans was expressed vehemently by Asabel Bush, publisher of the Oregon Statesman newspaper. He objectified Blacks in an editorial: Their assertions that Negroes are entitled to approach our polls, to sit in our courts, to places in our Legislature are not more rational than a demand upon them that they let all adult bulls vote at their polls, all capable goats enjoy a chance at their ermine, all asses (quadruped) the privilege of running for their General Assemblies and all swine for their seats in Congress.6 Not surprisingly, the African American population of Oregon was very small during the early years of the Territory and State. A mere 54 blacks were counted in the 1850 Census. The population of blacks in Oregon was 1870 was 346. The percentage of blacks in Oregon did not pass 1% until 1960.7 It's not that there was no one in Oregon in that time who believed passionately in the right of blacks to equality. Jesse Applegate, builder of the southern branch of the Oregon Trail, in his position in the State Legislature, was champion for the rights of ethnic minorities.8 But even those who did support blacks settling in Oregon wanted them in their place. Another supporter of the right of blacks to settle in Oregon said: What negroes we have in the country it is conceded are law-abiding, peaceable, and they are not sufficiently numerous to supply the barber's shops and kitchens of the towns . . . If a man wants his boots blacked he must do it himself.9 Did Lewis Southworth have what it would take to survive in this environment? His name was sometimes written Lewis with an "ew" and sometimes Louis with a "ou." His full name was Lewis Alexander Southworth, but it could easily have been Lewis Adaptability Southworth, for that was the trait of this good natured man that helped him most to prosper in this hostile, primitive environment. As the Serenity Prayer goes, he would have the “serenity to accept the things he could not change; courage to change the things he could change; and wisdom to know the difference.” He would work around the limitations he was saddled with in this racially prejudiced environment. And lest we envision him a saint, he could also “dish it out” with the best of them, possibly another trait that ensured his survival. Lewis would disprove the idea that many whites had -- that blacks were not resourceful enough to make their way in this world — by eventually raising $1000, the equivalent of $23,000 in today's dollars, to buy his own freedom.10 When asked why he bought his freedom, in a time in Oregon when slavery was not legal, he said that "his master had been good to him." We have no way to really know how Louis felt. It's obvious that avoiding discord was important -- to not encourage the wrath of whites, who had the law on their side. Besides, these words supposedly out of the mouth of Louis, were reported by J. B. Horner, who sometimes had words coming out of Louis' mouth that appear to have been heavily edited.11 In 1854, Benjamin Richardson allowed Lewis to settle on an Oregon Donation Land Claim that his son had taken up and abandoned, near Monroe, Lane County, Oregon.12 Donation Land Claims were only open to whites. He was not there long because he soon left for the gold fields of southern Oregon. Earning his way to freedom was pressing him to take action. He would earn $300 to bring back to James Southworth on this trip making freedom seem possible.13 As he traveled back from Jacksonville, he was accosted by soldiers fighting in the Rogue Valley Indian War, who threatened to take the rifle he had bought for $50, necessary for protection traveling through this isolated country. Lewis joined them, because as he said, "Feeling as if I could not part with my gun, which was the only means of defense I had, I joined the company."14 Colonel John Kelsay's Second Regiment fought in two skirmishes in March and April of 1856.15 Lewis was wounded in one of those battles. The irony of an African American fighting American Indians, one subjugated race fighting another, should not be lost on us. He would head south again in the Fall of 1858 to Yreka, California. By this time he had discovered that he could make far more money teaching violin and playing for dance schools, than he ever could mining for gold.16 He earned another $400 toward his freedom and his life long dream. In 1859, after Louis had made his final payment to James Southworth to purchase his freedom, James Southworth circulated a petition in Lane County to protect "slave property", which was presented to the state legislature. It's obvious that Louis' dream did not quite coincide with James' action.17 In the end, James did not withhold freedom from Louis, but he never gave him formal papers. The headiness of Lewis' new found freedom added a new-found joy to everything he did. He had worked for years toward this dream and it made all the difference in how the rest of his life would play out. All he accomplished created a life for himself. He would finally settle in Buena Vista in Polk County, Oregon around 1870. He purchased land and established a blacksmith shop and livery stable, on the 100 foot wide Main Street in the heart of this little town of 183 people.18 By comparison with modern day quiet Buena Vista, on a bluff overlooking the west bank of a sleepy portion of the Willamette River, this town was thriving, with two hotels and stores in general merchandise, boots, and groceries. Other businesses included a grist mill for flour, sawmill for lumber, butcher, and saloon. The town had a doctor, a post office, and a two story school that served the 147 students that would be present in the district in 1880. The Methodist Church in Buena Vista could seat 150 people. This was an industrial town, the home of Smith's Buena Vista pottery, producing sewer piper, stoneware, flower-pots, vases, and firebrick, among other things, and employing 50 people in 1880. Steamboats, during a time of heavy dependency on river travel, carried Smith's Buena Vista pottery to its markets, and also served to transport people from Buena Vista up the Willamette Valley. A Buena Vista ferry also operated then, as it does today, carrying people to the east side of the Willamette River.19 Lewis himself may have used that ferry to cross the river, when he courted and later married Mary Cooper on 16 June 1873 in Salem.20,21 Mary had adopted a boy, Alvin McCleary, who was born in 1866 San Francisco to Jamaican parents.22 Lewis would create a life for his new family that would have been impossible during his days of servitude. They lived on in Buena Vista for a few years, Alvin attending the two story school house, Buena Vista Academy.23 The principal of Buena Vista taught Lewis to read and write there.24 And then they took off for a more untamed place. Jim Doty would suggest to Lewis that they look for land to homestead in the Alsea River Valley. Jim appears in many stories about Lewis, and must have been a very good friend. He was white, and 36 years old in 1880,25 while Lewis was 50 that year. Lewis, in his own brand of humor, showing a deeply felt connection to Jim, said "Jim Doty and I were the first two white men on the Alsea Bay."26 According to Alvin McCleary, Lewis' stepson, "In 1879, Lew made a trip up the Alsea river with Jim Doty . . . and they decided to homestead. After travelling up and down the river they selected some land lying on both sides of the creek. Jim Doty, who had brought Lew, offered his companion first choice of land. Lew refused and the Jim selected the north side of the creek and Lew took the south side., which he said he preferred anyway as being on slightly higher ground. Then and there they homesteaded...A year later, in 1880, Lew brought his wife and me and we settled on the land."27 The valley begins, on the west side of the 1230 foot Mary's Peak summit of the Coast Range, as the Alsea River tumbles vigorously out of the mountains. The Coast Range serves to keep most of the rain in the valley, with an average rainfall of 60 inches each year.28 Moss hangs like light green 10 inch icicles from the limbs of trees. Mustard colored lichen and lime green moss clings to the limbs of trees – a 1 inch thick coating on all sides of the branches, giving the impression of leafed-out spring trees in all seasons. The narrow Alsea River Valley, with a strip of bottom land south of the river, and then north, opens up into the broad Alsea Bay on the Pacific Ocean. The west end of Lewis' homestead would abut the east end of Alsea Bay and extend down the valley to the east, on the south side of the river. Jim Doty's family would homestead directly across the river. The river would be their transportation, because a reliable road did not traverse the length of the valley until the 1920s, keeping them in a bucolic time warp. Lewis would clear land, plant, and build structures at a record breaking speed. Over a period of six years, he cleared 10 to 12 acres each year, with animal power and a wooden plough. Between February 1880 and October 1885, when his homestead was “proved up”, he built a 18 x 24 foot house, with a 16 foot square wing. He had 10 or 12 acres fenced and in cultivation, a small barn, orchard, and about 27 acres cleared and sown in grass.29 Alvin, speaking admiringly of his step-father: My foster-father, Lou Southworth, took up a place on the Alsea river about four miles above Waldport. Lou ran a scow here in early days and put people across the river or took them up and down the river, letting the tide do most of the work, through the course he had a pair of sweeps to help the progress of the scow. Lou was a good worker. He used to go out into Benton county, around Philomath and Corvallis, every summer to the hay harvest and wheat harvest. In this way he earned money for the winter supplies. When it came to meat there was no expense except for powder and lead. Lou had a good rifle and was a crack shot. We always had plenty of deer, elk and bear meat, and we always had enough bear grease to fry the venison and elk in. Lou also would kill lots of wild geese and ducks as well as grouse and American pheasants. There was plenty of salmon, trout, clams and crabs here; so we lived well.30 Lewis knew how to enjoy life, and lived with enthusiasm, humor, and generosity. Lewis was very fond of his master's brother William's grand daughter, Rhoda Ann Southworth Beem, who he "almost raised." Rhoda Ann's daughter Nettie Beem, my great aunt, told me a story about Lewis. Lewis told small Nettie and her brother Dewey, that if they could catch a horse that he was training, they could have him. They ran and ran, trying to catch that horse. Nettie laughed about that in later years. Lewis knew that there was no chance that the horse would allow them to catch him.31 That may have been the horse he later called Dewey; that he trained to do tricks in Oregon State Fair shows.32 Lewis A. Southworth was about 5' 6" tall,33 wiry and lanky, built for hard work. No pictures survive of the athletic man he had been as a young man. Two photographs, taken in his later years, show a balding man, with white, kinky hair fringing the back of his crown. He sports a white beard with no mustache. In one photography he's dressed in a dark suit, with worn dusty boots, and sits in a rocking chair, gazing at a portrait of Lincoln, hanging over the mantle of a dark, expansive fireplace. In the second photograph, Lewis is dressed in a light colored suit, complete with a vest. The bridge of his nose crinkles with a smile that extends to his eyes – eyes that see the humor and irony in life. He holds his violin in this photograph; a dear companion and instrument of joyous self- expression. He played the fiddle for dances in Waldport with vigor, dancing as he played. As an Alsea Valley old timer said, "Oh, boy, could he play the fiddle! He would sing, ‘Old Nigger34 Lou . . ‘ and he would get out there and dance with it." Dances were a cherished social outing and people from inland Tidewater, where my relatives lived, traveled the 12 miles to Waldport by the sea in small boats down the Alsea River.35 Generosity was a quality those around him came to identify with Lewis. Francis Gaten, who was a young boy living in the Alsea Bay area, said many years later, that Lewis was the only fisherman on the river who would take the time to show him, as a child, how to pack the net for gill netting. Born in 1889, Gaten was treated to many stories during those days on the River with old man Lewis. When in his 80s, Gaten told this story about Louis' encounter with a cougar which shows Lewis good nature: He and Doty was haying one year and they had a dog. And he went over in the crabapples and started barkin, barkin, barkin. He stayed in there barking. They called him out two or three times and he'd run back in and bark. Old Doty said, "There must be something in there. So he went over and looked up in the Crabapple and there sat a great big cougar. An awful big one. He come out and he told Old Louie, "Big cougar. Get your gun." Well, Old Louie had one that he made. He run down and got the single shot muzzle loading proposition. He shot up there at that cougar. It was rabbit loaded and there wasn't very much powder in it and it didn't blow the shot clear through this old cougar. Down him come and he gave that dog a good maulin. The dog fought him good too. But Old Doty took the gun and weighed in and the first lick he broke the stock off and then he grabbed the barrel and he soon made mince meat out of that cougar. He come out a draggin the cougar in one hand and the two pieces of gun in the other, and he didn't say anything about his cougar. "Look, Louie what I done." And old Louie's eyes was sticking out. "Yeah, he said, that is a good dog." "Look at here what I done, I broke the gun." "Oh", he said, "it's easy for me to make another gun, but it's hard for me and you to make a dog like that one."36 Lewis had demonstrated an ability to find opportunities, work hard, enjoy life with humor, and share what he had and knew generously. He certainly heard derogatory racial remarks, but he could “dish it out” too. Gaten told a story about Lewis, Jim Doty, and Dutchman Strope building a sawmill . . . “And every time they would saw something too short, Old Louie would say, ‘Stick a Dutchman under it.' This little Dutchman had gotten just about enough of that and they got one that there that was a little too short and he said, ‘Stick a God Damned nigger under that ‘un.'"37 Lewis, in 1883, donated 1⁄2 acre of land in Alsea Bay, at Oakland Landing, for a school, where a building was erected typical of unpainted clapboard siding schools.38 Perhaps he felt, because it was his land, generously donated, that he should have more influence on decisions that were made, and so the story from Francis Gaten goes: There was three old fellers -- Old Louie Southworth, Nick Contantine, and Old John Turk. One was a nigger, one was a Greek, one was a Turk. They'd hold meetings about, oh, they'd hold one at least once a month, and sometimes every week. That was what they lived for, them school meetings, ya know. And they could never get along. They would always have some kind of a falling out over them. Old Louie was there one day and things weren't going just to suit him. He jumped up and says, "I makes a motion and I seconds it. This Meetin's adjuned." And old Nick Constantine says, "Oh Louie, you cannot do dat." "No, but I can punch you God damned head in." Well, they went at it. Us kids didn't keep 'em from fightin' it, either. . . They went down first. They clenched and then they went down. And then they got up on their feet again, and then they got down again. Old Louie just took Old Nick down, right down. And they landed right in the yellow jacket's nest. They didn't have on no hats. Nick was down so far on the ground, and Louie was kinda on top of him. These yellow jackets just swarmed on top of Old Louie's head. Louie said, "I thought it was that Greek a pecking me on the head."39 In these stories, you can hear the teller's regard for Lewis' pluck and admiration for the strength of character that exemplifies a true pioneer. You can also hear labeling. He was never just a man. He was viewed through a racial veil, always to be a "nigger." It would be said of his step son Alvin, that even during the days of the KKK in Waldport, he was considered to be a descent, respectable citizen, and so "they left him strictly alone."40 He was respected, but not one of them, except for a few, like Jim Doty, who could see Lewis first as a person. Lewis must have sometimes had a lonely existence, in a time when African Americans and Whites did not easily mix. And the African American population was so low in Oregon, especially in the rural areas where Lewis lived, he had to companion himself in creative ways. When the Baptists told him that he could not play his fiddle and go their church, his course of action was clear: Was brought up a Baptist. But the brethren would not stand for my fiddle, which was about all the company I had much of the time. So I told them to keep me in the church with my fiddle if they could, but to turn me out if they must; for I could not think of parting with the fiddle. I reckon my name isn't written in their books here any more; but I somehow hope it's written in the big book up yonder, where they aren't so particular about fiddles. Every man has his own way of looking at things and lovin' them. You have yours and I have mine; and my way is to love this old friend of mine that always pleased me and never went back on me. [He said that after a person plays his fiddle], "he knows he's happier and better, and his next day's work is easier. He has a smile and a kind word for everyone he meets, and everyone has a smile and a kind word for him The world is heavenly to that man, and his feelin's are nigh to religious."41 In 1901, Lewis' wife, Mary Cooper Southworth died.42 He continued to live in the Alsea Bay until 1910,43 but by August that year he had moved to Corvallis in the Willamette Valley. He purchased a house, on the corner of 4th and Adams, in a neighborhood of Victorian houses like the ones nearby that still survive and are listed in the National Register of Historic Places.44,45 In the next few years his health took a turn for the worse. Lewis worked hard until he could work no more, in the days before social security. Most people must have done that, especially if they did not have family to take care of them. At the end of his life he ran into financial difficulties and members of his community came to his rescue, raising money to pay the rest of his mortgage.46 He had married Josephine Jackson, who was 31 years his junior,47 in 1913, when he was 84 years old.48 Josephine, a nurse, was taking care of him and they married, he lying in bed and her standing alongside.49 He died in 1917 and was buried in Crystal Lake Cemetery in Corvallis.50 Years later, a woman named Jessica Dole would take up a cause in the name of Lewis Southworth.51 Two features on Lewis' land on the Alsea River were named Darkey Creek and Darkey Road. Darkey Creek was a branched creek, that ran through Lewis' homestead property, with a west branch of 21⁄2 miles and an east branch, approximately 1 mile long. Jackie fought, and surprisingly it was a fight, to get the names of the creek and road changed to Southworth Creek and Southworth Road. Others argued that is was part of our history, without regard for the hearts and minds of African Americans who would see it today, and without thought of the man they had been named for. In the end, don't we all have the same need " to be truly seen " beyond the externals of skin color, size, gender. If we could talk to Lewis we would say: We see you now, Lewis. You did not leave a legacy of descendents, but you left a legacy of vigor, joy, generosity, love of life, and maybe a little mischief. You leave a legacy in the hearts of us, reaching back in time, who feel we know you. Every time we drive past Southworth Creek, in the verdant Alsea River Valley, we think of you and you live on. 1. "Aged Colored Veteran Answers to Call", Weekly Gazette Times, Corvallis, Oregon, 28 Jun 1917, page 3, column 5. REFERENCES James B Southworth Oregon Donation Land Claim entry file, Roseburg Land Office, certificate 866, T16S R5W, WM, Sec. 16, 17, 20, 21, 1 January 1866; microfilm, Oregon and Washington Donation Land Files, (Wilmington, Delaware: Scholarly Resources, 2000). John B. Horner, “Oldest Nego Now Lives Here”, Weekly Gazette Times, Corvallis, Oregon, 16 July 1915, page 3, column 1 – 2. Elizabeth McLagan, A Peculiar Paradise: A History of Blacks in Oregon, 1788-1940, The Oregon Black History Project (Portland, Oregon: The Georgian Press, 1980), 19. Ibid., 187. Ibid., 42. Ibid., 185. Ibid., 28. Ibid., 28. 10.Weekly Gazette Times, Corvallis, Oregon, 16 July 1915. 11.John B. Horner, “Uncle Lou and His Violin,” Days and Deeds in the Oregon County. (Portland, Oregon: J. K. Gills, 1928, 139 – 146. 12. Ibid. 13. Ibid. 14. Ibid. 15.Charles H. Carey, General History of Oregon (Portland, Oregon: Binfords & Mort, Publishers, 1971), 597. 16.Weekly Gazette Times, Corvallis, Oregon. 17."Petition of James B. Southworth and Others Praying the Recognition of the Right of Legislative Protection of Slave Property", 4 January 1859, Item No. 10974, Oregon Territorial and Provisional Papers; microfilm reel 73, Oregon Territorial and Provisional Records, United States Department of State (Salem, Oregon: Oregon State Archives). 18.Isaac Connett and Mary Eliza Connett to Lewis Southworth, Polk County Deeds, Book 7:12, Polk County Courthouse, Dallas, Oregon. 19.Howard McKinley Corning, “Ghost Towns on the Willamette of the Riverboat Period,” Oregon History Quarterly, XLVIII (June 1947): 55 - 68. 20.Alsea Bay and River: Early Recollections, Alvin McCleary file, ALSI Historical & Genealogical Society, Waldport, Oregon. 21.Jeanne Custer and Daraleen Wade, compilors, Marion County Oregon Marriage Record 1871 - 1874, vol.2 (Salem, Oregon: Willamette Valley Genealogical Society, 1979). 22.Alsea Bay and River: Early Recollections, Alvin McCleary file. 23.Fred Lockley, “Impressions and Observations of the Journal Man,” Oregon Journal, Portland, Oregon, 23 December 1932, page 6. 24.Bob Zybach, “Southworth Made Mark on Region” Corvallis Gazette- Times, Corvallis, Oregon, 21 February, 1991; clipping from Louis Southworth file, Benton County Historical Museum, Philomath, Oregon. 25.James H. Doty household, 1880 U.S. census, Benton County, Oregon, population schedule, Lower Alsea, Enumeration District (ED) 9, p. 102B, dwelling 8, family 8; digital image by subscription, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com: accessed 28 September 2005); from National Archives microfilm T9, roll 1080. 26.Oral history interview with Paul Keady and Francis Gatens, audiotape (Portland, Oregon: Oregon Historical Society, 197-?) 27.Alsea Bay and River: Early Recollections, Alvin McCleary file. 28.Guin Library (Wind, temperature, pressure, precipitation), HMSC Weather Summaries, Oregon State University Hatfield Marine Science Center (http://hmsc.oregonstate.edu/weather/summaries/index.html : accessed 29 April 2006). 29.Lewis Southworth homestead entry file, Oregon City Land Office, certificate 2015, T13S R11W Sec. 26, 10 March 1886; General Land Office Records, Bureau of Land Management, record group 49; National Archives and Record, Washington D. C. 30.Oregon Journal, Portland, Oregon, 23 December 1932. 31.Interview with Nettie Beem Haggerty, at Nettie’s home in Enterprise, Oregon, by Peggy R. Burrell (now Peggy Baldwin), 1978. Nettie Haggerty is now deceased. 32.Oral history interview with Paul Keady and Francis Gatens. 33.Height based on a photograph of Lewis holding his violin. Based on the standard 14-inch 4/4 violin, his height would be about 5'6". 34.The word “nigger”, which is repugnant to many of us today, will be used only when in quotes. The fact that a label like “nigger” did not have the shock value in Louis’ day as it has today, is a measure of the racial views of the time. 35.Oral history interview with Paul Keady and Francis Gatens. 36. Ibid. 37. Ibid. 38.Corvallis Gazette-Times, Corvallis, Oregon, 21 February, 1991. 39. Ibid. 40. Ibid. 41.Horner, “Uncle Lou and His Violin,” Days and Deeds in the Oregon Country, 130 – 146. 42.Cemetery Records and Tombstone Inscriptions of Benton Count (Corvallis, Oregon: Mid-Valley Genealogical Society, 1990), 118. 43.Louis A. Southworth household, 1910 U.S. census, Lincoln County, Oregon, population schedule, Alsea Precinct, Enumeration District (ED) 166, p. 6A (penned), 187A (stamped), dwelling 122, family 122; digital image by subscription, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 6 February 2006); from National Archives microfilm T624, roll 1281. 44.G. A. Whiting and Retta G. Whiting to Louis Southworth, Benton County Deeds, Volume 52: 226, Benton County Courthouse, Corvallis, Oregon. 45.H. S. Penot House, 242 SW 5th Street; Dick Kiger House, 508 SW Jefferson Street; and O. Wilson House, 340 SW 5th Street. "Walking Tour of Selected Historic Sites and Structures in Downtown Corvallis", City of Corvallis, Oregon (http://www.ci.corvallis.or.us/index.php?option=content&task= view&id=1053&Itemid=1262: accessed 29 April 2006). 46.“Ellsworth Post Boosts for Ex-Slave,” Weekly Gazette Times, Corvallis, Oregon, 26 April 1917, page 5, column 4. “Helping Aged Negro Soldier L. Southworth,” Weekly Gazette Times, Corvallis, Oregon, 28 June 1917, page 3, column 3 - 4. 47.George F. Sanborn household, 1910 U.S. census, Multnomah County, Oregon, population schedule, 2-Wd Portland, Enumeration District (ED) 131, p. 8A (penned), p.192A, dwelling 63, family 58 ; digital image by subscription, Ancestry.com (http://www.ancestry.com: accessed 6 February 2006); from National Archives microfilm T624, roll 1285. 48.Lewis Southworth & Josephine Jackson, marriage license no. 25703, Multnomah County Marriage Book 33: 392, Marriage License Section, Portland, Oregon. 49.Oral history interview with Paul Keady and Francis Gatens. 50.Louis Southworth, certificate of death local register 31 (1917), Bureau of Vital Statistics, Oregon State Board of Health, Portland, Oregon. 51.Brian T. Meehan, “Historical Name or Slur?” Oregonian, Portland, Oregon, 22 July 1999, page A01.

QUICK NOTES for BLACK FIDDLERS As we gear towards the hectic days of principal photography on the road, I rush to put on paper a few relevant notes, stories that I would like to remember some day in case they don’t make it to the Final Cut. The story of Joseph Bologne, could very well be one of those. He might not have looked Black in some of the whitened portrait, but the fact remains that he was indeed a light-skin Black men, perhaps one of the most notorious mulattoes in Europe’s 18th century. His name was Joseph Bologne often referred to as Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-George. He was the son of a planter and his wife’s Senegalese slave.The story of interracial marriages, even those between plantation masters and slave women were more frequent that in the Antilles and in the British colonies that what I had initially presumed, when I started learning about the practice, first next to Bettye Kearse for “The Other Madisons”, and most recently researching Black fiddlers in the during the 18th and first half of the 19th century. “Notorious in the Neighborhood” by Joshua D. Rothman is perhaps one of the most enlightening reads on the subject of “sex and families across Color Line in Virginia 1787-1861”. Regardless, not all mulattoes where as successful as Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-George, nor achieve the same level of notoriety. According to Wikipedia, Joseph Bologne was was a French composer, virtuoso violinist, a conductor of the leading symphony orchestra in Paris, and a renowned champion fencer. Born in the then French colony of Guadalupe. Where he was just seven years of age, his father took him to Paris and dropped him off at a boarding school. Years later will join the Légion St.-Georges, the first all-black regiment in Europe, fighting on the side of the Republic. Faithful to his French DNI, he will be remembered by a love interest of his as someone who was "admired for his fencing and riding prowess, he served as a model to young sportsmen (someone) who formed a court around him. A fine dancer, Saint-Georges was welcomed at balls and boudoirs of “highborn" ladies. He loved and was loved." Joseph Bologne composed string quartets (His Violin Concerto in a Major, Op.5 served as underscore in a recent a scene I was editing for "Black Fiddlers"), operas. The first critical edition of his lone surviving opera, L'Amant anonyme (The Anonymous Lover), was prepared by Opera Ritrovata for streaming performance by Los Angeles Opera and the Colburn School in November 2020 (Wikipedia). Today he’s remembered as the first Black-European composer if one is to consider that George Bridgetower was just twenty-two by the time that Bologne died. Bridgetower is another interesting composter which unlike Chevalier de Saint-George we shall visit in "Black Fiddlers” with the help of Nicole Cherry from the University of Texas, and Rita Dove, author of "Sonata Mulatica". However, going back to Bologne, also referred to as the Black Mozart, it will be fair to say that he seemed to be a more complex individual, a man of war and and strong political stands, a fencer, a dancer and, of ofcourse, a composer.

NEW RELEASE OF DOCUMENTARY FILM ABOUT CHORAL COMPOSER ALICE PARKER Hawley, MA April 15, 2021– Melodious Accord, Inc. and Heritage Film Project announce a new release of ALICE: At Home with Alice Parker, a 30-minute documentary directed and filmed by Eduardo Montes-Bradley of Heritage Film Project. GPS Audiovisual in Buenos Aires will release the film on June 3, 2021, making it available to viewers across South America with Spanish subtitling. Alice Parker (b. 1925) is a distinguished composer, conductor, and teacher of choral music. In a career that spans some seventy years, Alice found early prominence as protégé of conductor Robert Shaw, with whom she collaborated as researcher and arranger of folk songs, hymns, and spirituals for the Robert Shaw Chorale. Her hundreds of original compositions include hymns, anthems, song cycles, choral suites and four operas. Renowned within the choral music community, she is widely sought after as a teacher and clinician. As Artistic Director of Melodious Accord since its founding in 1985, she has led performances and workshops, and held hundreds of her signature community SINGS. In ALICE: At Home with Alice Parker, the composer collaborates with Eduardo Montes-Bradley in an intimate portrayal of her life that illuminates her artistic achievements and her passion for life. Alice Parker says, “It was a delight to work on this film with Eduardo. He captures well my life, my home, and the choral music that means so much to me.” Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the film’s premiere took place in an online event hosted by Chorus America on October 8, 2020, with over 500 virtual attendees. The following week it was featured at the Virginia Film Festival; it is currently available for streaming through Films For Change and Kanopy. View the film on Heritage Film Project Official Site. Melodious Accord, Inc. is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization founded by Alice Parker and a close group of friends who shared her passion for singing and song. Emphasizing melody as an unparalleled means of communication for human beings, it promotes the message that singing together brings immediate benefits--physical, mental and spiritual--to those who join in this most participatory of all the arts. Melodious Accord has carried out its mission over its 35-year history by presenting concerts and making recordings, providing opportunities for advanced study, and sponsoring Alice Parker activities. Heritage Film Project, founded in 2008 by husband-and-wife team Eduardo Montes-Bradley (writer and director) and Soledad Liendo (producer), specializes in documenting the lives and works of the creative class—artists, writers, musicians, filmmakers, scientists, and scholars. Our subjects typically work against the grain, and in their unconventionality Eduardo and Soledad find a special stimulus to their own creativity. Press Contacts: For Heritage Film Project Name: Eduardo Montes-Bradley Mobile Phone: (434) 422-0883 Email: eduardo@montesbradley.com For Melodious Accord Name: Beth Neville Evans Mobile Phone: (646) 784-7924 Email: bethneville@gmail.com

I’m way behind the curve. Keeping up and grooming a blog takes time and substance. Not that my current life lacks either but managing both while fundraising can be challenging. I can’t say that I never had to beat the drum to pull off getting a documentary across the finish line, but frankly most have resulted from commissioned work, a commission with a budget attached. But what if the project grown beyond the plan to require a greater effort. Well, that happens to be just the case of Black Fiddlers. I was originally supposed to document the lives of Easton, Madison and Beverly, three of Thomas Jefferson’s enslaved children with Sally Hemings, all musicians and fiddlers. However, it did not take long to figure out that they were just three brush strokes in a very complex and intricate canvas of Black fiddlers from Maine to Virginia, from Ohio to Appalachia and across the extensive network of southern plantations. Freemen and the enslave, almost no women to account for, playing European as well as folk music. from colonial times through Emancipation. During that period the fiddle and the banjo became the basic molecular structure of America’s folk music tradition. Much has been said about the latter, but close to nothing about the former. We heard of the close relationship of Solomon Northup and his violin in Twelve Years a Slave, but the fact is that black fiddlers in America at that time were in the thousands and Northup was in no way an isolated event. I knew then I had to tell the big story, the complete story of Black men and their fiddles, and by then the budget had nearly triplicated.to allow longer time for research, new talent, distant locations. I’m not complaining, the story is simply put fabulous and complies with the notion that a story that’s never been told, and that must be told, will be told. So now I also seeing myself in the role of a fundraise. I know I can do this. I made several documentaries in Central America during the Civil War coordinating part of undergrown organization meant ensure that the exposed film would make it to the lab in Los Angeles and then to the editor room in New York, and finally back to El Salvador or Managua for approval and distribution. Only in the last few years live has become somewhat more predictable, but documentary film making has never been as PBS would like you to think. Next week I’ll we start making plans to reach out to friends and friends of friends knowing that they will be happy to hear me say: “I have a great idea for your next tax-deductible contribution. So, give me some money and let’s go out for a drink, I’m buying”.

In about then days from today I will be sitting with John Jeramiah Sullivan in his home in Wilmington, NC. The purpose of the interview is to document for Black Fiddlers, his impressions on early American music. In a recent profile of Rhiannon Giddens publish on the New York Magazine, Mr. Sullivan partially reveals his re-discovery of Francis “Frank” Johnson, the first Black composer to be published in the United States. I landed on the article only to realize that his commitment to. and passion for band-string music, early fiddlers, and other forms of early Black culture in America was remarkable. If all goes well, I might even get a closer look at his collection of photographs recently featured in “Another Article” by MOMA Magazine. In the previously mentioned profile of Rhiannon Giddens, Sullivan mentions ethnomusicologist Kip Lornell who, in the mid 1970s, was associated with “Born for Hard Luck” an extraordinary documentary film portrayal of “Peg Leg Sam”. I contacted Mr. Lornell and he also has agreed to meet and share with us his vast experience on the field, and as a music scholar. We are currently working to schedule that interview as well into the production schedule for Black Fiddlers. With the collaboration of John Sullivan and Kip Lornell, added to those of Rhiannon Giddens, Benjamin Hunter, Jacqueline Djedje and others already committed, Black Fiddlers rises to a new production level that will allow us to reach a much larger audience, while paying an honest and broader tribute to African American fiddlers of the past.

We learn something new every day, and every day we prove ourselves wrong on what was learned as if the learning process would require constant vigilance and testing. To learn and to stand corrected, both revelations do please me greatly. Today I learned, from Dena Ross Jennings about the meaning of the word Sankofa, a term linked to the Ghanaian textile industry, a textile made of handwoven cloth strips of silk and cotton known as Kente. The Kente cloth symbol is often a bird looking look over a precious egg. This symbol is known as Sankofa. Popular believe in Western Africa has it that it is good look back, or to go back and fetch that precious egg you or perhaps someone else left behind. What my friend reminded me is that the spirit of Sankofa is profoundly rooted in the nature of my work as a documentarian. In fact, my entire life has been one in which I search, mostly for someone else’s eggs, but also for mine. Furthermore, I’m now tempted to incorporate that image of the bird looking back to her precious egg as a graphic concept that will rebrand Heritage Film Project. To all, and to Dena Ross Jennings who opened my eyes to this beautiful story, I also say Sankofa!

Meet the two final concepts for the official posters of ALICE: At Home with Alice Parker. One features Winter as a central piece. Winter is an oil on linen by Trina Sears Sternstein, and the other a portrait of Alice Parker in her home-kitchen (Hawley, Massachusetts. December 2019) by Enrique Shore. Both versions of a similar tone will be used to showcase the documentary film by Montes-Bradley about composer Alice Parker. Thumbnails on streaming platforms will slightly differ to accommodate the limitations on screen.