What am I attempting to do....????? ( when I do my thing )

 I am attempting to capture the spirit and dignity and character and elegance of a "people" collectively and persons individual that populated the neighborhoods of most big cities of the US in the 30's ,40's and 50's......The "colored neighborhoods".

At a time when you walked from place to place.... When your "role model" appeared in your mirror everyday...When you and the neighborhood listened to Joe Lewis on the one radio sitting in a window blasting the "blow by blow"...When " what was the number ?" was a way of saying hello...When the corner store and the barbershop were information central....When everybody sat in the back of the bus.....When a maul was a wooden hammer....When Moms was Mabley...When Count was Basie and Jackie was Robinson.....When you "spoke easy" in the speakeasy...When pool rooms were centers of economic activity...and the neighborhood schools were place where learning took place...When you saved money to buy things and charging was what you did to a car battery...When the air on Sundays was filled with "church music" from churches blocks away...and When the "fast lane" was a dirt road...

My neighborhood was Shaw..in Northwest Washington DC...

Where Dunbar was a poet ,a movie theater and a High School....Where You Street was "your street"...Where men tipped their hats to ladies...Where "After Hours" was heard in the middle of the day and "Flying Home" had nothing to do with an airplane...

These bronze "pieces" are my attempt to preserve the memories and feel, of the times and faces, of the decades past....and neighborhoods lost....and in many cases destroyed.

Can you dig it....??????

John

is pictured above