SailorTwain344
by Mark on February 10, 2012 at 12:01 amHello dear Twainers.
Well I’m a little breathless, having finished cleaning up pages for Sailor Twain, and it’s off into copyediting asking “make an honest book out of me.” While under deadline the past weeks, it’s been an immense help having Salty Aire guest blogging. It’s adding up to some rare insights into 19th century America and little known but seminal figures in Black history. Mr. Mikorenda is a non-pareil tour guide! Wouldn’t you want a book from this man??
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William Cooper Nell
“I have borne allegiance to principles, rather than men.”
by Jerry Mikorenda
A renaissance man with a flair for activism, William C. Nell was among the first important chroniclers of African American life in the United States.
Born in 1816, the Boston native was the son of a prominent abolitionist. As a boy, he was recognized as the best scholar in his segregated school only to be shunned by the mayor at the awards ceremony. The incident ignited a passion for justice in Nell that would last a lifetime. He began writing plays, articles and debating racial inequality as an apprentice for William Lloyd Garrison’s newspaper The Liberator.
Nell House in Boston
During 1835, Lizzie Jennings’ older brothers William and Thomas relocated to Boston. The Jennings brothers and their new neighbor became fast friends. The three young men with similar interests came from a common background. Their fathers were both successful tailors active in the antislavery movement. Nell was as fascinated about blacks who served in the American Revolution as the Jennings’ sons were in talking about their grandfather Jacob Cartwright a veteran of the war.
William and Thomas became important members of the prestigious Adelphic Union Library Association formed by Nell. The group featured speakers such as William Lloyd Garrison, Horace Mann and Charles Sumner. During the 1840s, Nell began his long fight to integrate Boston schools. Mobilizing parents to political action, he organized protests, sit-ins, school boycotts and petition drives that culminated with the landmark case of Roberts v. City of Boston in 1850. Although unsuccessful, in five years Massachusetts passed a law banning school segregation.
Nell was equally successful leading the fight to desegregate the Boston railroad. Lawsuits heightened awareness of unequal travel conditions, but ultimately failed as did Thomas Jennings’ lawsuit over his assault in 1841. At a meeting led by Fredrick Douglass, the Boston antislavery society resolved to confront the segregation Dr. Jennings faced. Using protest to sway lawmakers, the “Athens of America” as Boston was called ceded to public outcry and legislated equality.
In 1847, Nell joined Frederick Douglass as editor of the North Star. Three years later, he wrote the Services of Colored Americans, in the Wars of 1776 and 1812 followed by Colored Patriots of the American Revolution. In 1861, he became the first black to work for the U.S. Post Office. He died in 1874.
Discussion (23) ¬
Well I would say finding Camomile is the closest Lafayette will ever come to finding true love, but what has it got to do with getting Twain back in one piece? (Literally together, or still alive!)
Great blog as always Salty
Ella! At last, we see her!
A few weeks ago, the history department at my college brought a professorial candidate in to give a lecture on a topic of her choice–the American abolition movement. Suffice to say, her lecture wasn’t any better than tonight’s guest blog post!
I forgot to say–WHAT is up with the matryoshka doll!
What Mere said, both times.
And it looks like Ella and Jacques Henri has an interest in hiding Twain. I wonder if…ack! I’ll just have to wait until Sunday night (and keep checking back to see what everyone else said!)
Poor Twain doesn’t know that Cam had returned to the younger Lafayette, or that they’ve been together, or anything about them after he stomped off from the dinner party, does he?
Thank ye kindly Kyra, Mere n DR. Of course, if Salty was doin’ da talking ya lecture would’ve benn in dur Ratskeller as we used to call it to keep me lips from dryin’ out .
I have to agree with Mere. What is up with the matryoshka doll?
Everything Mere said. Yes.
And everything Mark said about Salty! That’s a resounding YES from me; I would love to read a book by Mr. Mikorenda. What a gripping, solid addition to Sailor Twain! Beautifully done.
Oh, it’s a matryoshka!
I had been wondering why J-H was holding a disk with a familar face on it. Apparently I was thinking too two-dimensional.
That might not be Ella. The neckline on the dress is different from what we last saw. Or maybe it is her; the Hudson probably has a lot of lost clothing to be had, and there’s probably a seamstress somewhere in that underwater town. (Which brings to mind the current mortgage mess, and so many houses being, uh, underwater.)
Picture of Ella on ship: sailortwain.com/blog/2011/12/12/sailortwain316/
Many of the old stories about giants or magicians and such who kept their hearts outside their bodies had a whole sequence of objects in which the heart was hidden: e.g. at the bottom of the third tower there is a well; inside the well there swims a duck; inside the duck there is an egg, inside the egg is the heart, you’ll never find it, bwah hah hah. Maybe the nesting doll is meant to be a new means of capturing South’s heart, if it becomes light enough to float back up out of the box. Hearts can be stolen.
Either it contains something, or it’s meant for containing something. I’ve got my popcorn.
Ella and a nesting doll! What more could a girl want?
I’m really confused by the doll. Though nesting dolls have been carved in China and Japan (as in, the Japanese daruma doll) since the 11th century, several sources say the first real matryoshka doll set of the type portrayed here wasn’t created until 1890, by a craftsman and a painter.
It sure as hell looks like one, but maybe it’s not a matryoshka doll that Jacques-Henri’s carrying, after all?
Ella’s back! Ohmigosh!
I think I remember an edited out chapter title referring to nesting dolls. I wonder if the numbering of the dolls might relate to the spell buster? 7 loves, 7 dolls?
If Lafayette has managed to break the curse hanging over him, could this be what motivation, South needs, to sink the Lorelei? If he was able to leave the ship, she would certainly have to act before he could do so.
Are the dolls working for Lafayette, or against him? Could his fate be sealed in a similar manner like the protagonist in R.L. Stevenson’s, “Bottle Imp?” Maybe seven loves is what kicks in the curse, and Lafayette becomes the final, innermost doll himself, trapped for all eternity. Anyone for voodoo and just desserts?
If Lafayette is aware that his relationship with Camomille may be fatal (when he states he is lost). Could this be why he gives Camomille a summoner?
Mermaidan – I really just interpreted that statement as that of a lifelong rake who’s suddenly met his match in a lady! Remember Lafayatte’s bigoted discussion of women and their need for a “singular sun”–in contrast to men, whose “hearts” just can’t be satisfied by one love?
But perhaps I’m missing some deeper meaning in the details! As a rule, I try not to be St. Augustine, finding a “clue” that “proves” the veracity of Christians’ claims in every line of Jewish scripture.
I’ve been reading this comic from the beginning, and this is my first time commenting. . .I CAN’T TAKE THE SUSPENSE! There’s so much impending doom! I don’t want anyone to die, I want a happy ending. Can’t we live in a bubble forever? At least in this virtual, black and white comic world.
but why is he holding a Matryoshka doll???
Happy! At last!!!!
My turn! a Matryoshka doll??? is it connected to the Russians who were giving Pike so much grief?
To answer a question I had a few pages back, it looks like the younger brother Lafayette is definitely the object of South’s enmity, not the older one. sailortwain.com/blog/2010/08/27/sailortwain105/