Blog archive
June 2023
Communications Project with Cal State LA
06/02/2023
Creative Aging
06/01/2023
May 2023
One Villager's Story
05/31/2023
Pasadena Area Literary Arts Center
05/31/2023
Pasadena Village Responds to Rainbow Flag Burning at Pasadena Buddhist Temple
05/31/2023
Plan Ahead - And Be Prepared
05/31/2023
Tuesday, May 23 Pasadena Celebrated Older Americans
05/31/2023
Rumor of Humor #15
05/28/2023
Reparations, Social Justice Activity
05/24/2023
Rumor of Humor #14
05/19/2023
Rumor of Humor #13
05/12/2023
Issue #12
05/09/2023
Science Monday - Review of Meeting on April 10, 2023
05/09/2023
Conversations Re African American Artists Before 1920
05/08/2023
Beyond the Village – Suzi and Phil Hoge
05/01/2023
Congratulations Wayne April! Honored at UNH
05/01/2023
Table Topics
05/01/2023
Volunteer Appreciation at the Village
05/01/2023
“ACCIDENTAL HOST—The Story of Rat Lungworm Disease”
05/01/2023
April 2023
Jumbo Joy
04/24/2023
Pasadenans Recent Experience With Racism
04/23/2023
Recent Events Reflecting Racism
04/23/2023
Fig and Goat Cheese Bruschetta
04/18/2023
Photography for Social Justice
04/11/2023
Issue #8
04/07/2023
BEYOND THE VILLAGE - Catherine Deely
04/06/2023
Creative Writing in Older Adults
04/06/2023
Gifts of Love
04/06/2023
March 2023
Issue #7
03/31/2023
Issue #6
03/26/2023
Great Decisions update
03/14/2023
Dominion Lawsuit, South Africa and 710 Stub
03/08/2023
February 2023
2023 DEI Progress
02/27/2023
BEYOND THE VILLAGE - Doug Colliflower
02/26/2023
CONVERSATIONS WITH ART
02/26/2023
GREAT DECISIONS
02/26/2023
OLDER ADULTS RESOURCE FAIR
02/26/2023
The Important, Influential Books in our Lives - Revisited
02/26/2023
History, Resolution of the 710 Freeway
02/19/2023
Eminent Domain, 710 Highway
02/13/2023
Bernard Garrett, 710 Freeway
02/06/2023
Men's Times Gatherings
02/03/2023
January 2023
Pasadena's Senior Commission
01/30/2023
BEYOND THE VILLAGE - JIM HENDRICK
01/27/2023
GRATITUDE - IT'S GOOD FOR YOU!
01/27/2023
JEFF GUTSTADT - FORENSIC PATHOLOGIST
01/27/2023
Bernard Garrett, Incredible Black Entrepreneur
01/17/2023
What is the "Spirit Talk" Group About?
01/16/2023
Same Ol’ New Year, Brand New Me
01/12/2023
Review of 2022, Consideration of 2023
01/06/2023
BEYOND THE VILLAGE - PATTI LA MARR
01/03/2023
FROM THE CHAIR
01/03/2023
WALK WITH EASE
01/03/2023
COUSINS - A STORY OF REDEMPTION
By Blog MasterPosted: 05/25/2021
I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia, the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit together at the table of brotherhood. Martin Luther King, Jr.
In May, 2021, Pasadena Village’s 1619 Project Discussion Group arranged for two special guests, Dr. Betty Kilby Fisher Baldwin and Phoebe Kilby to introduce their book, “Cousins” in a Zoom presentation. A rapt audience of members and guests listened as they described a Black family and a White family, descended from the same slave holder, and how these two women met one another, bonded with each other, and decided to share their story.
It all started when Phoebe Kilby was in college, at Eastern Mennonite University in Harrisburg, Virginia, and became involved with a program called “Coming to the Table” sponsored by the Center for Peace and Reconciliation. Coming to the Table takes the dream of Martin Luther King, Jr. and seeks to bring together people of different racial backgrounds to explore racial injustice and to work towards reconciliation.
Although Phoebe grew up in Baltimore, her family was deeply rooted in Virginia dating back to pre-Revolutionary War days. She knew they owned a farm, but she never imagined that her family may have been slave owners. However, when she was at college she noticed articles in the local newspaper about people with the last name of “Kilby” who were Black and active in the civil rights movement. She began looking at census records and legal documents and discovered, first, that in 1840 her great, great grandfather was listed in the census as owning two slaves. Further research left her with the strong feeling that Betty Kilby Baldwin was a descendant of one of those slaves and that they were related.
With encouragement from the folks at “Coming to the Table” she reached out to Betty with her findings and, with some trepidation, asked if they could meet.
At this point in the presentation, Betty Kilby Baldwin took over the narration. Betty knew she was descended from slaves and always suspected she had relatives who were of mixed race. She and Phoebe arranged to meet and afterwards Betty declared, “She walked in with no sign of fear, doing the very thing I had done so often when I walked into a new situation. I knew then, she’s just like me, only in a different color.”
As it turns out Betty had played an important and traumatizing role in the battle for integration in the 1950’s. As Betty tells it, “My father owned land at one time, but he lacked the ability to make the case to keep it. He always believed that he lost his land because he wasn’t educated.” Therefore, in 1958, Betty Kirby became one of the plaintiffs in a federal lawsuit to integrate the Warren County High School in Front Royal, Virginia. To try to avoid integration, Virginia actually closed its public schools for a year. But in 1959 Betty Baldwin and 20 other Black students walked through a hostile crowd to begin their high school years.
Betty’s high school years, and those of other Black students who were the “foot soldiers” in the battle to integrate schools on a daily basis, were full of stress and trauma. Not one white student reached out to befriend her. On the school campus one day she was trapped in a room and raped. And yet – Betty was eventually able to go from “being terrorized to saying, Hello Cousin.” She did it by listening to her father who likened hating to taking poison. She determined that no one was going to stop her from achieving what she wanted. And with that in mind she realized that, while she couldn’t do anything to undo what had happened to her, people like Phoebe also couldn’t undo what their ancestors had done. “It’s up to us,” said Betty, to make things better.
After Phoebe and Betty met, they continued their dialogue towards reconciliation. Phoebe and Betty, along with members of Betty’s family, worked successfully to have a historical marker erected outside of the Warren County High School to honor and memorialize the courage and the sacrifices made by the young students who integrated the Virginia school system.
But Phoebe wanted to do more. “My family, as slave owners, committed atrocities. Even though I never enslaved anyone, my family did. How could I begin to make reparations for what families like Betty’s endured?” Phoebe saw how important education was to Betty and her family. So, in 2014, she established the Kilby Family Scholarship fund that provides scholarships for the descendants of the Kilby family. To date more than 15 scholarships have been awarded. Explained Phoebe, “We think of reparations as a national issue. But we can do things personally and at a community level to begin the process of healing.”
All proceeds from their book, “Cousins” go to the scholarship fund. Betty and Phoebe continue their work of justice and reconciliation, and the presentation affirmed the difference that each person can make to bring justice to our nation.
To view the video presentation, Click here