Susan Grace Banyas is the author of the new book The Hillsboro Story: A Kaleidoscope History of an Integration Battle in My Hometown. A multimedia artist and choreographer, she grew up in Southern Ohio and lives on the West Coast.
Q:
How did you come up with the idea for The Hillsboro Story, and how long did it
take you to write it?
A:
I wanted to investigate a childhood memory—go back to my hometown and find the
people now who were part of the memory then. I didn’t know where this would
lead, but I did know that I wanted to write a story, a history, with multiple
voices, not dominated by the official story, although I was the narrator and
detective, so my query dominated.
I
also knew that to write about this “integration” battle, I wanted to integrate
the voices. I wanted to know what happened, enlarge my own memory, activate
memory to become a catalyst for seeing the larger story of my life, my society.
As
a movement artist, I wanted to write a book about the movement and spiritual
intelligence of protest because as a white person, schooled and socialized in
America, I was denied access to this intelligence because of fear and
ignorance. I had to re-member, piece a history together, retrieve the parts of
my memory -- history that had been kept in the shadows, demonized, or simply
ignored.
The
work evolved over a long time, from the memory itself, which took root in 1955,
to finding my Quaker great-great-grandmother’s Civil War diary in 1982, to
discovering a piece of the memory/story in 1990 at the 25th high school class
reunion, to 2003 when I began the investigation.
I
teach and direct a process called “soul stories” – penetrating a memory through
movement, voice, painting, words, and identifying key images, then
re-constructing the memory as a creative experiment free of habit.
The
Hillsboro Story is a soul story. I decided to apply my method (body first) to
the key memory—seeing the mothers and children outside my 3rd grade classroom
window marching to integrate the schools.
I didn’t know where it would lead. It’s been a 16-year process!!!
I
began by listening, recording the memories, transcribing words, beginning to
sense the people and their experience, feeling the environments, the landscapes
where the memories were born, cross-checking these memories against my own
experience and the historical record. People shared photographs, articles,
time.
I
went to the courthouse to find documents, read what was emerging from the
academy on the issues of segregation, slavery, abolitionism, the Cold War. I
spent several years gathering data, interviewing, and continually tracking
current American politics, which was clearly shifting farther and farther to
the right. I began to see how what happened in the ‘50s, a turning point in
America after the Brown decision, was coming to bear down on the present
moment.
The
Civil Rights movement, the Abolitionist movement, Women’s movement, Gay Rights
Movement, Occupy, Black Lives Matter, #MeToo, Veterans for Peace, Sunrise Movement
– all the movements -- have pushed the country toward a pure democracy and the
fundamental responsibility we have as citizens to nurture and care for each
other and for life itself. The movements did not arise to protect the American
way of life.
Central
to all of this was the fact that I’m a mother. I started the project when my
son was in high school, and like the Marching Mothers of Hillsboro, I wanted to
protest the terrible invasion of Iraq, the destruction of people and culture in
order to control the oil fields.
The
protest story I witnessed as a child became the story of these times as well.
Schools were becoming corporate enclaves of standardized testing and “no child
left behind” -- children were being indoctrinated into a hyper material, violent
war culture through the gaming and advertising industries who were infiltrating
consciousness through the media.
I
wanted to do something because I could see the direct effects of this at the
same time the infiltration was accelerating. What could I do besides worry?
The
first piece I wrote was "No Strangers Here Today" about my Quaker ancestors and
their participation in the Underground Railroad -- my great-great-grandmother’s
diary, set against the backdrop of the Civil War and the Abolitionist movement—this
was the backstory to The Hillsboro Story and a template.
Her
voice inspired a sparse, simple style of observing and noting moments. The
power of her action was embedded in her faith expressed simply through her
memories noted day to day.
Both
works began as theatre, and then I had to figure out how weave these stories, these
voices, into a story about integration. Luckily, I collaborated with an African
American jazz composer to create these theatre works.
“Integration”
became aesthetic and personal. Jazz history is American history, and my work
has been expanded and deepened through engaging with the music, sound, and
culture of jazz at the same time I penetrated the invisible wall of segregation
in my hometown, and crossed the line to the other side, guided by the Muses,
the call and response.
Q:
You're a multi-media artist, and the book includes many photographs along with
the text. How did you decide on the book's format?
A:
I photograph landscapes and people as a way to see and compose. Photography is
a tool in my “everyday dance,” the quality of a moment, a gesture, the
arrangement. The archives people shared – family photos -- spoke volumes about
their lives and exposed me to more understanding of what has value.
Memory
is multi-dimensional. As a choreographer, I dance between these dimensions in
order to honor the complexity and power of memory, and to have the freedom to
place images on a page, play with time, slow the reader down to feel-think,
construct a narrative free of logic and structure organically and with
precision. I think we need to THINK differently if we want to change our
society. How do we practice this? How do we do this?
Q:
Did you write the book in the order in which it appears, or did you move the
chapters around to create a certain effect?
A:
I knew I wanted the story and backstory, to use these conventions of a
storyteller. I had to figure out how to set up a fluid structure -- from soul
and body to geopolitics. I compose in small chapters, scenes, and the book is
structured like cinema, which is why my muses are both E.B. White and Federico
Fellini in the book. Thankfully, I had a great editor, alive in the here and
now, who saw the weaving and strengthened it.
Q:
What do you hope readers take away from the book, given the continued focus on
race relations in today's political climate?
A:
I want the book to go to high school students so they know that their memories
are part of history, that we are all part of history and it is alive, not
something dead and over. I hope this book is part of the conversion that this
country is undergoing, now that the dark side is completely exposed, and
fascism is on the rise globally.
This
county has never come clean about its history of slavery and genocide of
Indigenous people, never owned its track record of being an empire with the big
bombs, who can dominate and police the world to extract resources to run its
systems. I hope the book stimulates conversation and action related to not only
WHAT we learn but HOW we learn.
How
do I own my history as a descendant of settlers and immigrants? Where does my
memory meet the memory of those who descended from slave owners and slaves,
Shawnees and Lenapes, coal miners and farmers. We all peopled the territory I
grew up in. As I say in the book, the story is not about small-town drama,
although drama drives the story. The story is about power, about who controls
memory.
I
hope the book empowers people to look at their own families and cultures
honestly, to know and feel the subtle ways racism and misogyny appear and play
out. We are embedded in this system built on war and genocide and colonization;
and the journey to understand this at a subtle level is deeply personal. I hope
we ask our Elders to share their stories in order to empower us with the truth
of lived experience. I hope the book is a tool for creative action and deeper
listening, a tool to give voice to history, through the body.
The
book was written through the help and guidance of many people who trusted me
with their memories, whose experience shaped history, history alive through
shared stories. It was from a deep sense of trust, without and within --
spiritual leadership from those living and those who have passed on -- that I
was able to create this kaleidoscope history.
We
are a collection of oddballs, so why not embrace our crazy differences, harness
our creative voices, try not to kill each other, and co-design new systems that
protect children and mothers, nurture community growth and development. We can
build a new world, but we can’t accomplish this without seeing how we got here,
how power works, how to shadow dance in relationship to forces designed to use
and abuse people, “remove” anyone in the way. I hope we re-member to remember
why we were born and our gifts we each bring to the world.
Q:
What are you working on now?
A:
I moved to Astoria, Oregon, at the mouth of the Columbia River four years ago
(to finish the book) and discovered how ruthless and domineering the timber
industry is. Clear cuts are accelerating at the same time climate change is
accelerating.
There
is a direct relationship and not much discussion because of the economic
domination of this industry, which is not local or family owned anymore. These
are Wall Street corporations mowing down the great forests of the Northwest, to
profit shareholders.
I
collaborated with two other artist activists to bring the discussion forward
through a series of events over the course of a year and a half -- to allow the
forests to speak through the multiple voices -- scientists, activist, artists,
poets, policy makers. We called it Forest Visions Project. The results are
powerful and in motion.
I
want to continue pushing for the Green New Deal as a vision for retooling
society, with art and storytelling as the central language for thinking outside
the box in order to innovate new solutions. Life or death? Climate change is
the fundamental issue of our times. I am listening and learning.
I
have another project -- a section cut from the book because it has its own
life. The working title is Kundalini
History/Voices from the Great Serpent -- a theatre/dance/music piece in the
works -- based on interviews, research, personal experiences, and six primary
voices who call forth the wonder of the ancient earthwork, The Great Serpent
Mound, 20 miles from Hillsboro.
This
sacred site is the source of wisdom that is being recovered and reimagined. A
crop circle appeared opposite the site in 2003, when I returned to Ohio to
begin The Hillsboro Story. The Serpent is calling. Now what? What I am discovering is truly mind-boggling.
More later.
Q:
Anything else we should know?
A:
Deborah, thank you for the opportunity to speak about the work. I appreciate your interest in the book and
the issues.
--Interview with Deborah Kalb
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