History Books

Like books, quilts can tell a story. You just have to know how to read them. The stories told by African-American quilts sometimes make use of patterns, symbols and techniques that have traveled oceans and survived centuries. These quilts are filled with the lives of the hands that made them, hands that pass on the histories of families and a people from one generation to the next. The quilts also are works of art. If you've ever looked at your grandmother's quilt and wondered how all those squares came together - or why anyone would take the time to sew scraps together by hand, rather than buy a blanket - you'll understand why researchers such as Cassandra Stancil think studying the quilts of African- Americans, who have been quilting since the time of slavery, is important.

UNLESS Condi Rice plans on taking the Fifth, why shouldn't she testify - under oath - before the 9/11 Commission? Already key members of the Bush administration have appeared before the commission - Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Even President Bush is planning to testify. So why not National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice? The final straw for us was Rice's appearance on "60 Minutes," where she tried to quell the growing controversy stirred by former counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke.

Central Bucks West made history last year by becoming the first Class 4-A school to win two championships in the 10-year history of the PIAA football playoffs. Tomorrow at Hersheypark Stadium in Hershey, the Bucks (14-0) will try to rewrite the record book again. No 4-A team has ever won back-to-back titles. The last obstacle standing between the Bucks and back-to-back perfect seasons is West champ New Castle (11-3). Winner of 29 straight games, C.B. West is coming off a 34-7 win over Parkland.

This is the year that making history finally became a daily event, sort of like making coffee. We got up in the morning, put on the water and counted the number of governments or assumptions that toppled overnight. But making history, it turns out, is more than churning out dates for future students to memorize on their time charts. Making history is also, and in tandem, rewriting the past. In just a few weeks, we've seen Europe updated and backdated with truths. Now we'll find out whose truth will be etched, not only in history books, but in the collective memory.

I grew up hearing, seeing and almost believing that America was white - albeit with a little black tinged here and there - and that white was best. The white people were everywhere in my 1970s Chicago childhood: Founding Fathers, Lewis and Clark, Lincoln, Daniel Boone, Carnegie, presidents, explorers and industrialists galore. The only black people were slaves. The only Indians were scalpers. I never heard one word about how Benjamin Franklin was so impressed by the Iroquois federation of nations that he adapted that model into our system of state and federal government.

My response to the Jan. 19 editorial that said, "Unless the administration changes course soon, 1987 may go down in history books as the year of the arms-control treaty that 'might have been,' " is: If the administration changes course, the late 1980s and early 1990s may go down in history books as the age when the Soviet Union added the United States of America to its roster of happy, peaceful, prosperous countries such as Poland, Afghanistan, Cuba...

Terrorizing a community was exactly the intention of Bobby Frank Cherry and the other Ku Klux Klansmen who planted the dynamite that went off that Sunday morning in 1963. . . . How completely they misjudged the nation's reaction to the deaths of four black girls preparing for choir in the basement of the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala. . . . Putting Cherry in prison, even now, sends a message to many places, ranging from the murdered girls' families to the history books.

Yesterday was the 40th anniversary of the Little Rock Nine. An Arkansan schoolboy who watched that saga unfold on TV is now president. Bill Clinton had to wait for college to attend school with a person of another race - and yesterday he held open the doors of Central High School as the Nine walked through to commemorate what is and what has been. If anything, yesterday's powerful ceremony was about memory. Those of us who were there or watched on TV as the future walked through the door - we should pass on how it looked and felt, what it meant, what it means.

RE JANE Gilvary's enlightening and gregarious piece of literature ( op-ed, "Cracker History 101," July 26 ): Are you out of your cotton-picking mind? How could you use eight names to minimize what more than 100 million white Christians did to the colored man throughout history? ("Colored man" includes Indians, Vietnamese, Jews and others.) How could you stand there and list just eight men who helped give colored men their civil rights, rights that were theirs from the beginning - but not acknowledged by more than 100 million white people?

Until this week, history was exactly the way it was written in history books to most Stoney Creek Elementary School students in Whitpain Township. Then they met Mariline Wilkins, great-great-grandniece of abolitionist Harriet Tubman. Wilkins told them stories that are not in the history books. They especially liked the drama of the story about Tubman killing her own brother. Wilkins, a North Philadelphia resident and an aunt by marriage to Stoney Creek second-grade teacher Rita Johnson, brought history to the students on Wednesday, part of the school's observance of Black History Month.

Throughout the field hockey season, a one-word question seemed to follow Eastern freshman Austyn Cuneo: How? There's too much on the forward's resumé that shouldn't be accomplished by a freshman. Cuneo tied the New Jersey single-season field hockey scoring record, scored the winning goal in the Group 4 state final, and completely distinguished herself from any other freshman ever to take the field for the nation's most storied high school field hockey program. How?

49ERS (-3) over Eagles: Can Doc Halladay step under center in between starts? The Phils wouldn't need him until at least Monday . . . Exactly what is it about the West that has given the Birds fits recently? Going back to the NFC Championship Game in 2008 against Arizona, a 32-25 loss as a 3-point favorite, our hometown heroes are (if you include Dallas, which is west of the Mississippi) 0-4 against the spread. They have covered only one of the previous seven overall and looked lousy against Washington Sunday.

RE JANE Gilvary's enlightening and gregarious piece of literature ( op-ed, "Cracker History 101," July 26 ): Are you out of your cotton-picking mind? How could you use eight names to minimize what more than 100 million white Christians did to the colored man throughout history? ("Colored man" includes Indians, Vietnamese, Jews and others.) How could you stand there and list just eight men who helped give colored men their civil rights, rights that were theirs from the beginning - but not acknowledged by more than 100 million white people?

A plethora of perfectos What's with the explosion of perfect games in the last 11 months? There have been just 17 no-hitters and perfect games in the last 10 years, but all of a sudden they're nearly as commonplace as Phillies' shutout losses. Mark Buehrle threw a perfect game last July 23; Dallas Braden was perfect May 6, and Roy Halladay entered the history books Saturday. The last time there were two perfect games in one month was - are you ready for this? - June of 1880.

BOSTON - Oh, the stories they will tell. Old men, fat men, back for some kind of old-timers function. After the public part of it, gathered together in somebody's hotel suite, bathtub full of beer and ice. Sitting on the floor, night turning to day, security stopping by and asking them to quiet the laughter. Stories, more stories, some even true. And then one of them will say, "How did we ever do that?" And then another will answer, "I still have no idea. " It is a night they will talk about forever, and the Flyers all know it. For the record, it was May 14, 2010.

In the 1775 Revolutionary War battle on Breed's Hill, which most people call Bunker Hill, Dr. Joseph Warren, a colonial general fond of togas, fell dead with a British musket ball in his head. There were no government provisions for his children back then, so a promising colonial officer vowed to see that they were provided for. A gentleman to the marrow in his bones, our Benedict Arnold. Kenneth C. Davis, author of the best-selling "Don't Know Much About" series, merrily removes the whitewash from an often-bland concept of the past in "America's Hidden History" (Smithsonian Books, $26.95)

News item: Tour guides are suing the city over a law requiring them to pass a test on Philadelphia history. We take you now to Independence Mall, where tourists from Wisconsin are boarding a horse-drawn carriage. Tour guide: Climb aboard! Where are you folks from? Dad: We're from Sheboygan. Guide: Is that west of Manayunk? Dad: About two time zones west, yes. Guide: Well, welcome to the cradle of civilization! Is this your first trip to Philadelphia? Dad: Um, Mesopotamia was the cradle of civilization.

Leave it to Ben Franklin to invent something new for Independence Day celebrations 232 years onward. At 8 p.m. Thursday in front of Independence Hall, Franklin will be marrying that quintessential seamstress, Betsy Ross. Actually, it is a life-imitates-art scene, since it will actually be Ralph Archbold, Philadelphia's premiere Franklin impersonator, marrying his fianc?e, Linda Wilde, who often portrays Ross, thought to be the seamstress for the first American flag. They fell in love during their Revolutionary reenactments and decided to have their nuptials publicly during Sunoco Welcome America!

The Friday night lights of PIAA state subregional play cast a long shadow on the Ben Franklin football team as the Electrons were zapped out of the Class AAA tournament following a 42-12 shelling at the hands of Pottsgrove High School. Pottsgrove, headlined by star senior running back Andre Glover, asserted their dominance early and often, scoring on all but one drive. Glover had a career night, rushing for 282 yards and three touchdowns - the last a menacing, 50-yard scurry up the middle that put the Electrons on the latter end of a 35-6 score midway through the third quarter.

Too bad African Americans are so often judged by their weakest representatives. It's especially tragic because the history of Americans of African descent is a fabulous one, steeped in stunning achievement. You wouldn't know that from the way American culture represents American history. It is a travesty and a tragedy that African American successes largely have been left out of history books, while their failures have been prominently displayed on the nightly news and in bold headlines.