20 November 2012

Yesterday night in Gaza

Written by my niece, Hadeel Abu Oun, for the Facebook page "For Gaza, We Blog" on 19 November 2012, and posted here with her permission.


Yesterday night, I almost closed my eyes to catch some Z's after a bloody , miserable day, I barely slept , the sound of explosions began approaching, it was everywhere, I was telling myself it's ok, it's just one, don't worry it's almost over, another explosion, I said that is the last one then everything will be over, Booomb ! Another one, two and three ... it was too much so that I got up from bed.  With every sound of shaking bombs I was fleeing to my parents' room, daddy took me in his arms, he tried hard to stop my rainy eyes. 

Laying between my dad's arms, covering my head under the blanket , closing my eyes to this dark world, having nightmares even while I'm not sleeping, that was how I spent this night. Daddy was watching the window and warning me with every rocket-propelled, he was whispering LIGHT!  As a sign to hold my breath and get ready for the next explosion!

Daddy thought that I was crying because I was afraid of death.  Not really! It was a crying with a different flavor; I was crying because it was the first time to feel that I'm going to lose someone of my family, despite everything was going, I was not afraid of death, it doesn't scare me anymore, even if I knew I would be underground within seconds... but what is scaring me the thought of losing someone I love in these events, I may lose the life of my father, mother, brother, or a friend. I will be lucky if it is about losing my life only. With every explosion, I could see the death becomes closer to one of them, many thoughts were spoiling in my head , I was extremely weak , it was the first time to feel that weakness, I was someone I've never met before.

Fire, bombs, explosions, blood and death, it was too much for a girl in my age to endure, to breathe the atmosphere of blood smell is something terrible!  As if you are experiencing death more than once while you are still alive!!

Then, for a moment, I closed my eyes. There was an instant of extreme cold and total darkness. Suddenly I was in deep, dreamless, sleep.

I opened my eyes upon my mom , she was raising her hands to the sky and praying to God to keep us safe , this increased my faith , I said to myself: they can never defeat us! I decided to curse my weakness and shackle it with chains, I decided to be stronger, yes stronger!

13 October 2012

Kensho (poem for Farzi)


When I fell
In love with you
I awakened
To a truth
Waiting behind
The hidden gate
That never before
Had I really
Loved at all

Looking into
Your open eyes
Seeing you
Seeing me
The protective veil
Of separation
Torn asunder
From between
Revealing and discovering
Exposed and embraced
Advancing, retreating
Back-to-back
Face-to-face
Lips-to-lips
Hands-to-hands
Fingers touching
Tips-to-tips


17 September 2012

The Riots in the Middle East


My first thought when I saw news of the recent riots in North Africa and Southwest Asia, particularly the one in Benghazi resulting in four deaths, including the U.S. ambassador, was that, “Wow, they’re acting just like early Christians!”.

In 325 C.E., the Council at Nicaea was decided not by prayerful consideration and spiritual discernment of truth but by the winner of the street battles between the Athanasians and the Arians (both Athanasius and Arius were presbyters from Alexandria, then the city of the empire second only to Roma itself).  If not the sole deciding factor, it was at least a major consideration. 

A large part of this was due to fact that the council was not called by the Church but by the Roman Empire, over which Constantine the Great then reigned.  At the time, Constantine carried the title Comes Solis Invicti, or Companion to the Unconquered Sun (and did until his death).  He himself was Arian in sympathy, and was later baptized by one of Arius’ followers; Arius himself was too dead to perform the office himself, having been poisoned by disciples of Athanasius.

The “Triumph of Christianity” came about more because of the Edict of Thessalonika in 380 C.E., which made it the official religion of the empire, and because of persecution and attacks by Christians upon temples and other facilities as well as upon pagan believers than due to mass conversion by people convinced of its truth.  Many of the stories told about persecutions OF Christians by pagans are in truth stories of persecutions BY Christians of pagans.

In 391, Theodosius outlawed and ended a large number of pagan practices, including the extinguishing of the eternal flame at the Temple of Vesta and the disbandment of the Vestal Virgins.  In response, Christians rioting in Alexandria destroyed the Serapeum, the chief temple to the syncretic Hellenistic god Serapis, whose much older cult mirrored that of Jesus on very many embarrassing points.  The mobs then destroyed the city’s Museum and burned its Great Library with all its books, a cultural atrocity I named as one of the 10 greatest disasters in world history.

Theodosius ended the ancient Olympic Games and closed the Oracle at Delphi in 393 C.E.

In another notable riot in 415 C.E., also in Alexandria, Christians dragged mathematician and widely-respected philosopher Hypatia, daughter of the last director of the Great Library, from her chariot in the street, stripped her and dragged her naked through the streets to the Caesareum where they flayed her alive with sharpened sea shells, dismembered her body, then immolated her remains.  The crowd taking part was inspired in their actions by Bishop Cyril, the Patriarch of Alexandria later declared a “saint”.

These are only a very few examples of riots, attacks, and persecutions by Christians of ancient pagans that resulted in the “Triumph of Christianity”.  To the argument that those events were 1600 years ago, I point to the Crusades, the Inquisitions, witch hunts, and, for more recent events, the Sabra and Chatilla massacres in Beirut 1982 perpetrated by a Christian militia, and a period of Northern Ireland history known as The Troubles (1969-1998).

But wait, one might say, you can’t paint a whole religion with one brush wielded by a radical extremist few.

Au contraire, I respond.

If the Church is indeed the Body of Christ, that Body is one whole with all its parts, even those damaged, infected with disease, or suffering some other aberration.  Following the logic of those who blame all the Ummah (community) of Islam for the actions of a comparatively miniscule few Salafis, a person with a minor basal cell carcinoma should be euthanized to kill the tumor.

My second response to the riots, nearly simultaneous to the first, came  in answer to a post on Facebook by a close friend who is Muslim and was that, “Don’t they realize that Allah doesn’t need their help?”.  The mysterious name “Allah”, by the way, is nothing more than the Arabic equivalent of the Hebrew (and Canaanite and Phoenician) word “El”, meaning God.

The rather tacky film “The Innocence of Muslims” was produced by Egyptian-American immigrant Nakoula Basseley Nakoula and three other Coptic Christian extremists, who contracted porn director Alan Roberts to actually make the film.  Tasteless, yes, but entirely within the bounds of what is allowed by the First Amendment.

In Egypt, Coptic Christians are often discriminated against and sometimes persecuted and attacked, so we might feel some sympathy with these men’s feelings of aggrievement even while we deplore their bad taste.  As a matter of fact, it was the 1 January 2011 bombing of Coptic churches in Alexandria that served as a prelude to the uprising which overthrew the Mubarak regime.  What Nakoula and his friends ignore is that the Muslims who first occupied Tahrir Square in Cairo and similar public space in Alexandria first came out to protect the Christmas processions of their Coptic Christian compatriots who later stood with them.

The largest blame for the current troubles lies not with the bad taste of Nakoula and his friends but with evangelical Florida pastor Terry Jones of Quran-burning infamy.  Not content with having directly caused the deaths of numerous U.N. workers in Afghanistan, Jones apparently wanted to add to his body county.  The largely-ignored film directed by Roberts rested in well-deserved obscurity for over a year until Jones had its trailer translated into Arabic and uploaded to Youtube.

Given the reaction in the past to the vidclip of his Quran-burning, Jones could have expected no other result than what he got.  It’s the digital equivalent of shouting “Fire!” in a crowded theater, and therefore a hate crime.  Since deaths have occurred as a result of that hate crime, Jones is guilty of felony murder, and because they collaborated in these actions, Nakoula & Co. are co-conspirators.  Nakoula’s attempt to blame the film on Jews reminds me of Charlie Manson’s attempt to start a race war with the Tate and Labianca murders in 1969.


Postscript: No accounting of Christians rioting for light and transient causes can be complete without mentioning the hundreds, even thousands, of times Christians in Europe attacked their Jewish neighbors en masse for such spurious reasons as alleged desecration of consecrated Eucharistic hosts or alleged blood sacrifice of Christian infants.  Tens of thousands of innocent Jewish men, women, and children were murdered either in these riots or executed on dubious charges, including by burning at the stake.  Not to mention the Spanish Inquisition, which was directed against both Jews and Muslims on the Iberian peninsula.

15 September 2012

God and Caesar


During my junior year at Tyner back in the 1980’s, I took World History as an elective.  One homework assignment was to name the 10 biggest disasters on record.  Not natural disasters but the sociological/cultural/political kind.  At the top of my list stood the Edict of Thessalonika in 380 C.E., which made Nicene Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire.

At the time I was very devoutly Anglo-Catholic and fully intent on going to seminary after university and being ordained an Episcopal priest. 

I had grown up next door to a Jewish couple whose two sons were somewhat ostracized in the local elementary school because their parents withheld them from the Bible classes taught by a fundamentalist evangelical.  So part of my reasoning at the time was that no citizen of the United States should be made to feel second class because of religious belief or lack thereof. 

My main reasoning, however, was that I didn’t want the interests of the state twisting of my religion.  Many fail to realize, or conveniently ignore, the inevitable truth that mixing the sacred and the profane causes both to influence each other, often in ways unforeseen.  Both come out of the tunnel corrupted.

The greatest leap forward of the new American republic’s Novus Ordo Seclorum (“New Order for the Ages”), along with its complete abolition of the Second Estate (Lords Temporal), was its removal of the First Estate (Lords Spiritual) from every single aspect of government.  That innovation has proven to be beneficial not only to the State but to the Church, by taking its role as merely an arm of the state and establishing the separate status to which it is entitled.

In his letter of 1802 in which President Jefferson first used the phraseology that in the United States there was a wall of separation between church and state, he was copying a much earlier figure in the European settlement of what to them was a New World.  That man was none other than Roger Williams, founder of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations and the first Baptist in America.  But neither of them can yet claim to be the originator of the idea.  A much earlier teacher said, “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and to God the things that are God’s”.

Public prayer before meetings of a governmental body such as the county commission or at secular sporting events which have nothing to do with the practice of the Christian religion is the modern equivalent of the Pharisee praying on the street corner whom Jesus condemned.  It is also analogous to a pimp pandering his working girls; those who do so make a prostitute of their God.  Because it is not about religion, but about dominion; it is not about the God they claim to worship but about the power of their “side” here on earth over the earth.  Doing thus hands the religious over to the secular, giving to Caesar the things that are God’s.

27 August 2012

1981 Long Kesh Hunger Strike



In the spring of 1981, I was a senior in high school. The restaurant I was working at was about to close down, but with graduation near I was relieved that my last few months of school were going to have one less to obligation.

On 1 March 1981, I heard on the news that Bobby Sands, an Irish Republican Army (IRA) volunteer from Belfast, had begun a hunger strike. He was going to be the first of many republican (IRA) and republican socialist (Irish National Liberation Army, INLA) prisoners in the H-Blocks at Long Kesh in Northern Ireland. They were going to strike until their demands were met, or die.

Background

From 14 August 1969 through 10 April 1998, the Six Counties of Northern Ireland were ripped apart by a civil conflict known as The Troubles.

On one side were the republican and republican socialist paramilitary groups and on the other side the British Army, Royal Ulster Constabulary, Special Branch, and loyalist (anti-republican) paramilitary groups (Ulster Volunteer Force and Ulster Defense Association).

After the Irish War for Independence, from 21 January 1919-11 July 1921, and the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 6 December 1921, the island of Ireland was split into two political entities. In the south there was the Irish Free State (now the Republic of Ireland), and in the northeast there was the semi-autonomous province of the United Kingdom named Northern Ireland.

Republicans, in the Irish context, were those waging an armed conflict to reunite the south with what they called Northeast Ulster or the Six Counties. Republican socialists also emphasized social justice, economic democracy, and equal rights. For simplicity’s sake, after this I’ll use republican to include both.

Prior to 1 March 1976, both republicans and loyalists were interned under Special Category Status in the Cages, groups of Quonset huts surrounded by chain-link fence topped with razor wire, at Long Kesh. Within each of the cages, prisoners wore their own clothes, were allowed liberal visitation with family and friends, held classes, had large libraries, and had their own officers to govern both their separate huts and over the entire cage. They even carried out military drills.

Early in 1976, the British secretary of state for Northern Ireland, Merlyn Rees, decreed that those arrested for paramilitary-related activities, republicans and loyalists, would after that date be treated as an ordinary criminals.

They would have to wear prison clothes, follow a prison-mandated regimen, and served their time in the newly built H-Blocks. The eight H-Blocks at Long Kesh were each four wings of twenty-five cells, steel and concrete with a central control facility, and were run like a maximum security prison.

They were to be treated as ODC’s (ordinary decent criminals) under the new policy of “criminalization”.

“Ordinary criminals” convicted in special courts set up to try them under special rules designed to rob them of their rights and ensure not a fair trial but their imprisonment. They had one judge and no jury, sometimes no attorney, and could be convicted on mere hearsay of one person and shoddy evidence.

Resistance

The first republican to be sent to Long Kesh under the new rules, Kieran Nugent, refused to wear a prison uniform, saying those were for criminals and he was a political prisoner. The guards beat him, threw him into his cell naked, and gave him a blanket to wear the next day.

Thus the blanket protest began.

Soon some forty republican and republican socialist prisoners were “on the blanket”. Even some loyalists in the H-Blocks joined the blanket protest for themselves. In time more than 300 republicans and over 50 loyalists were on the blanket.

Men on the blanket at Long Kesh, and women on the blanket in Armagh Prison, were refused exercise, reading and writing materials, and access to news. They were kept in their cells twenty-four hours a day, cells meant for one person which now most often housed two. In addition, they were frequently treated to beatings, maltreatment, harassment, and other abuse by the “screws”, the prison guards, in the corridors from their cells to the toilets and showers or when taken to the offices between the wings.

To keep their minds active and their spirits up, they learned Irish shouted through the doors, sang, held political discussions, and told stories, either from their own lives or from well known authors. Bobby Sands was famous for reciting all of Leon Uris’ novel Trinity.

In March 1978, men on the blanket in the H-Blocks, and some of the women at Armagh, began to refuse to go to the showers or the toilets to escape the abuse to which they were subjected on their way to and from those places. They were given chambers pots to urinate and defecate in and bowls to wash up with. They demanded showers in their cells so they could clean themselves adequately and without fear of being attacked. The screws stopped giving them water for their bowls.

Thus began the no wash protest.

A couple of months later, the screws began refusing to let prisoners on the blanket “slop out”, or empty their chamber pots. The blanket men (and women) smashed the glass in the windows of their cells and threw their urine and excrement out of the windows. The screws boarded those up.

With no other recourse, other than to surrender and accept the designation of them by the state as criminals, they got rid of their bodily waste the only way they could. They poured their piss out on the floor of their cells and smeared their shit on the prison walls.

Thus began the dirty protest.

Periodically the guards would enter the cells and clean the prisoners and the cells—with fire hoses and disinfectant. In between those loving sessions of tenderness and care, they lived with piss, shit, maggots, and flies, with only a single blanket to clothe themselves with and a thin mattress on which to lie or sit.

In the midst of the indignity in which they lived, these prisoners clung to the dignity of their right to be recognized as the political prisoners they were and treated accordingly.

After nearly three years of going to great lengths to resist and enduring tremendous deprivation, forty-five republican prisoners declared a hunger strike on 27 October 1980. Three women at Armagh joined them on 1 December, with dozens more men in the H-Blocks soon on 15 December.

They had five demands:

(1) the right not to wear a prison uniform;
(2) the right not to do prison work;
(3) the right of free association with other prisoners, and to organize educational and recreational pursuits;
(4) the right to one visit, one letter, and one parcel per week;
(5) full restoration of remission of sentence lost through the protest.

Six prisoners from the loyalist group Ulster Defence Association (UDA) began a hunger strike on 12 December calling for their segregation from republicans and return of political status, but called it off five days later on 17 December after appeals from the (Anglican) Church of Ireland.

As one prisoner, Sean McKenna, neared death, the British government told the republican prisoners they were prepared to grant their demands on a phased basis. The prisoners voted to end their hunger strike on 18 December, after 53 days.

And the British government reneged on its deal.

The Hunger Strike of 1981

The prisoners made the decision to conduct another hunger strike. Only this time instead of a mass protest, one prisoner would be going on hunger strike at a time, followed by another a couple of weeks later, staggering out the number and enabling them to carry out a prolonged campaign.

On this round, only those who had not been involved in notorious incidents were allowed, they had to be in good health, and they had to discuss their decision with their families or loved ones.

As I mentioned before, Bobby Sands of the IRA began his hunger strike on 1 March 1981, the anniversary of the beginning of criminalization.

Francie Hughes of the IRA followed him on 15 March.

Patsy O’Hara of the INLA and Raymond McCreesh of the IRA joined them on 22 March.

On 9 April, Bobby Sands, IRA prisoner on hunger strike, was elected to the House of Commons for the seat of Fermanagh-South Tyrone. I remember being overwhelmed with relief, thinking, “Now she’ll have to give in, at least part way,” she being Maggie Thatcher, then Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

But Maggie the Hen did not have the shred of humanity I assumed she had, and Bobby Sands MP died at the age of 26 on 5 May after 66 days on hunger strike.

The government of the Islamic Republic of Iran renamed Winston Churchill Boulevard, where the British Embassy still sits, as Bobby Sands Street.

I heard the news on the car radio while driving on the interstate. I had to pull over, and couldn’t stop crying for ten minutes. I had to circle my car and smoke a cigarette before I could concentrate on driving again.

Each time the rest of the summer, no matter where I was, I had to stop and take a few minutes whenever I heard the news about one of them.

Joe McDonnell of the IRA joined his comrades on 8 May.

Francie Hughes died at the age of 25 on 12 May after 59 days on hunger strike.

Brendan McLaughlin joined his comrades on 14 May.

Patsy O’Hara died at the age of 23 and Raymond McCreesh at the age of 24 on 21 May
after 61 days on hunger strike.

Kieran Doherty of the IRA joined McDonnell on 22 May.

Kevin Lynch of the INLA joined his comrades on 23 May.

Brendan McLaughlin was taken off hunger strike after 12 days when he suffered a perforated ulcer and internal bleeding on 26 May.

Martin Hurson of the IRA joined his comrades on 28 May .

Tom McElwee of the IRA joined his comrades on 8 June.

On 11 June, hunger striker Kieran Doherty of the IRA and blanketman Paddy Agnew of the IRA were elected TD's in the Republic of Ireland.

Paddy Quinn of the IRA joined his comrades on 15 June.

Mickey Devine of the INLA joined his comrades on 22 June.

Laurence McKweon of the IRA joined his comrades on 29 June.

On 5 July, through intermediary Brendan Duddy (codenamed “Mountain Climber”), Thatcher’s government offered the prisoners the right to wear their own clothes and made other concessions, and the prisoner leadership of the PIRA (Bik McFarlane, OC, and Richard O’Rawe, PRO) agreed to accept.  After word passed outside to Gerry Adams and his “Kitchen Cabinet” (Martin McGuinness, Danny Morrision, Tom Hatley, and Jim Gibney), they vetoed the prisoners' acceptance and ordered them to continue.  They gave the excuse that it more was needed, but the real reason was that Adams and the rest want to keep up political support for the upcoming August by-election for Westminister to fill the seat vacated at the death of Bobby Sands.  Adams and the Kitchen Cabinet kept the contents from the leadership of the IRSP, who would have ordered their members off the strike, as well as from the candidate, Owen Carron.

Joe McDonnell died at the age of 30 on 8 July after 61 days on hunger strike.

Pat McGeown of the IRA joined his comrades on 9 July.

Martin Hurson died at the age of 29 on 13 July after 46 days on hunger strike. He had lost the ability to hold down water and died from dehydration.

Matt Devlin of the IRA joined his comrades on 14 July.

In the second half of July, Fr. Denis Faul, realized Maggie Thatcher had a head like the Rock of Gibraltar and was a bit lacking in the soul department, and would never express a gesture of humanity.  A strong supporter of the prisoners in the H-Blocks and a frequent visitor to that hellhole, he began trying to convince the families of those on hunger strike to take their sons off once they lost consciousness.

Paddy Quinn lapsed into a coma on 31 July after 47 days, and his parents took him off hunger strike.

Kevin Lynch died at the age of 25 on 1 August after 71 days on hunger strike.

Kieran Doherty died at the age of 25 on 2 August after 73 days on hunger strike.

Liam McCloskey of the INLA joined his comrades on 3 August.

Tom McElwee died at the age of 23 on 8 August after 62 days on hunger strike.

Patrick Sheehan of the IRA joined his comrades on 10 August.

Jackie McMullen of the IRA joined his comrades on 17 August..

On 20 August, Owen Carron of Sinn Fein was elected as the Anti-H-block/Proxy Political Prisoner candidate to the Westminister seat of Fermanagh-South Tyrone vacated by Bobby Sands upon his death.

Pat McGweon lapsed into a coma on 20 August after 42 days, and his family took him off hunger strike.

Mickey Devine died at the age of 27 on 22 August after 60 days on hunger strike.

Bernard Fox of the IRA joined his comrades on 24 August.

Hugh Carville of the IRA joined his comrades on 31 August.

Matt Devlin lapsed into a coma on 4 September after 52 days, and his family took him off hunger strike.

Laurence McKweon lapsed into a coma on 6 September after 70 days, and his family took him off hunger strike.

John Pickering of the IRA joined his comrades on 7 September.

Gerard Hodgkins of the IRA joined his comrades on 14 September.

James Devine of the IRA joined his comrades on 21 September.

Bernard Fox was taken off hunger strike on 24 September after 32 days when his condition suddenly deteriorated rapidly.

Liam McCloskey took himself off hunger strike on 26 September after 55 days when his family made it clear they would intervene if he fell into a coma.

Patrick Sheehan (55 days), Jackie McMullan (48 days), Hugh Carville (34 days), John Pickering (27 days), Gerard Hodgkins (20 days), and James Devine (13 days) ended the hunger strike on 3 October after realizing their families, as well as those of potential strikers who have not yet joined, had listened to Fr. Faul.

For years afterward, Fr. Faul was known to republicans and republican socialists, especially among then current prisoners and ex-prisoners, as “Dennis the Menace”.

After the hunger strike ended, the British government, quietly and in stages, fulfilled all five of the prisoners’ demands, though not in writing.  The concessions are exactly the same as those offered on 5 July.

In other words, Joe McDonnell, Martin Hurson, Kevin Lynch, Kieran Doherty, Tom McElwee, and Mickey Devine died because Adams and his Kitchen Cabinet (McGuinness, Morrison, Hatley, and Gibney) were more interested in ephemeral political gain than in the health, welfare, and lives of republican prisoners.

Hunger strike in Irish culture

The idea of hunger strike in Irish culture is sacred. Its roots as a form of protest against transgression or for compensation of a grievance go back 2500 years. The practice was even codified into the system of ancient Irish law that later known as the Brehon Laws.

The Brehon Laws survived in parts of Ireland until 1625, mostly in the west (Connaught) and the north (Ulster). In the Highlands and the Isles of Scotland, the Brieve Laws (as they were called there) survived until 1746.

The only other culture known to have codified laws governing hunger striking is that of ancient India, where its roots go as far back as those in Ireland.

Hunger striking has been a form of republican protest since the early 20th (late 12th) century, and several republicans have died. The Irish, especially republicans and even loyalists, consider faking a hunger strike or bluffing about one an extremely grave transgression.

When Sean MacStiofain, chief of staff of the Provisional IRA and one of its founders, was arrested in Dublin and brought before the Special Criminal Court in November 1972, he defiantly told the judge that within six days he would be dead. Placed in jail, he immediately began a hunger and thirst strike. Under pleas from the Catholic Church, he ended his thirst strike, accepting juice and soup but no solid food.

MacStiofain remained on what he was calling a hunger strike for 57 days, when he was ordered off by the army council for bringing the IRA into disrepute by cheating on his fake hunger strike. After his release from jail, he found he had lost all credibility and status over the matter. He never again held a position of any rank with the republican movement.

Similarly, a former commander from the loyalist UDA imprisoned in the H-Blocks declared a hunger strike and was found to actually be gaining weight. He likewise lost all prestige and credibility with his organization.

During the Irish War for Independence, Thomas Ashe (1917), Terence McSwinney (1920), Joe Murphy (1920), Michael Fitzgerald (1920), and Conor McElvaney (1920) died on hunger strike.

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the longest hunger on record without force-feeding lasted 94 days. It was carried out in 1920 at Cork Prison by John Crowley, Peter Crowley, Thomas Donovan, Michael Burke, Michael O'Reilly, Christopher Upton, John Power, Joseph Kenny, and Seán Hennessy.

The men were striking in support of Terence McSwinney, the lord mayor of Cork, who had been striking in Brixton Prison in England for repatriation. After he died, Arthur Griffith, acting Priomh Aire (Prime Minister) for the nationalist government, ordered the men in Cork Prison to cease their strike on 12 November.

After the Irish Civil War, Denny Barry and Andrew O’Sullivan died on a mass hunger strike by over 8000 IRA prisoners across the Irish Free State in 1923 in protest against their continued imprisonment. After their deaths, the strikers ended their protest.

During The Emergency, Ireland’s name for World War II, Tony D’Arcy (1940), Sean McNeela (1940), and Sean McCaughery (1946) died on hunger strike.

Sean McCaughey was the first blanket man. Imprisoned in Ireland for membership in the IRA in 1941 , he refused to wear a prison uniform and lived in a blanket for five years. In April 1946, he went on hunger strike, and after 16 days refused water. He died on 11 May at the age of 30 after 23 days of hunger then thirst strike.

Prior to the big one in 1981, two IRA volunteers died on hunger strike during The Troubles.

On 14 November 1973, the “Winchester Eight” convicted of that year’s bombings in London—Dolours and Marian Price, Gerry Kelly, Hugh Feeney, Roy Walsh, Martin Brady, William Armstrong, and Paul Holmes—launched a hunger strike demanding to be treated as political prisoners and to serve their time in Ireland.  Soon four of them dropped out, leaving just the Price sisters, Kelly, and Feeney.  They refused food for 208 days, during which they were force-fed 170 times, though that ceased on 18 May 1974, with the IRA POWs continuing their hunger strike.

Their strike had been joined on by two other (English-resident) republicans at another prison on 31 March 1974, Frank Stagg and Michael Gaughan, who were likewise subjected to forced-feeding.  During one of these procedures on 3 June 1974, Gaughan was killed.  Four days later, the Price sisters, Kelly, and Feeney were repatriated to Northern Ireland.

Meanwhile, Stagg was moved to another prison in England.  In protest against the strip-searches both he and his family were subjected to every visitation, he began another hunger strike on 14 December 1975.  He was joined a week later by his comrade Gerry Mealey.  Realizing the intransigence of the British government, he convinced Mealey to end his hunger strike in early February for the sake of his wife and his children.  Stagg died 12 February 1976, after 62 days on hunger strike.




23 August 2012

C'est bientôt la fin (The end is soon)

The official video of the song, which was the number one song in France in 2010 for very good reasons, comes from that year's fabulous " Mozart l'opera rock ", the composers of which were Dove Attia, Jean-Pierre Pilot, Rodrigue Janois, Vincent Baguian, and William Rousseau.


(Lyrics and translation @ http://lyricstranslate.com/en/c039est-bientot-la-fin-its-soon-end.html)

C'est Bientôt La Fin

Ce soir c'est le grand bal
Mets du fard sur tes idées pâles
On va faire tanguer les étoiles
Bien plus haut,
Bien plus haut, encore
Ce soir c'est le grand jour
Allons voir tomber les tambours
La fanfare des soldats de cour
Sonne faux
Sonne faux, encore
Allez viens
C'est bientôt la fin
De ce monde
Qui n'entend rien
Allez viens
Sonner le tocsin
Fais valser leurs vieux discours
Viens danser c'est notre tour
Ce soir c'est le grand soir
De velours nos rêves se parent
On accourt pour un nouveau départ
Bien plus beau
Bien plus beau, encore
Allez viens
C'est bientôt la fin
De ce monde
Qui n'entend rien
Allez viens
Sonner le tocsin
Fais valser leurs vieux discours
Viens danser c'est notre tour
J'ai bu l'amour
Au souffle amer
J'ai vu les tours
Tomber sur terre
J'ai vu l'or noir
Saigner la mer
Tous les regards
Vers l'éphémère
Je vois fleurir
Le jour nouveau
Je crois le rire
Du fou là-haut
Je veux saisir
Tous les mystères
Et m'affranchir
De l'éphémère
Ce soir c'est le grand bal
Mets du fard sur tes idées pâles
On va faire tanguer les étoiles
Bien plus haut,
Bien plus haut, encore
Allez viens
C'est bientôt la fin
De ce monde
Qui n'entend rien
Allez viens
Sonner le tocsin
Fais valser leurs vieux discours
Viens danser c'est notre tour
Allez viens
C'est bientôt la fin
De ce monde
Qui n'entend rien
Allez viens
Sonner le tocsin
Aimons-nous sur leurs décombres
Aimons-nous pour un nouveau monde

It's Soon The End

Tonight is the great ball
Put make-up on your pale ideas
We're going to sway the stars
Much higher
Even much higher
Tonight is the great day
Let's go and see the drums fall
The court's military band
Sounds wrong
Sounds wrong, once again
Come on
It's soon the end
Of this deaf
World
Come on
Sound the alarm
Send their old speeches flying
Come to dance, it's our turn
Tonight is the great night
With velvet our dreams adorn themselves
We rush up towards a new start
Much more beautiful
Even much more beautiful
Come on
It's soon the end
Of this deaf
World
Come on
Sound the alarm
Send their old speeches flying
Come to dance, it's our turn
I've drunk the love
Whose breathing was bitter
I've seen the towers
Fall to earth
I've seen the black gold
Bleed the sea
All the looks
Turned toward ephemerality
I can see the new day
Bloom
I believe in the crazy man's
Laughing up there
I want to grasp
All the mysteries
And free myself
From ephemerality
Tonight is the great ball
Put make-up on your pale ideas
We're going to sway the stars
Much higher
Even much higher
Come on
It's soon the end
Of this deaf
World
Come on
Sound the alarm
Send their old speeches flying
Come to dance, it's our turn
Come on
It's soon the end
Of this deaf
World
Come on
Sound the alarm
Let's love each other on their ruins
Let's love each other for a new world

08 August 2012

Chuck Hamilton, my resume


Chuck Hamilton 
Chattanooga, TN 37421

QUALIFICATIONS SUMMARY

My 13 years of computer and internet experience include 3 years as sole administrator for a Facebook newsgroup and a blog with over 100 entries since May 2011.  I am articulate and persuasive, with attention to detail and accuracy, and can be either descriptive or concise as needed.  I have a passion for research and fact-checking.  I engage well with people of all classes and cultures, including from other countries, and have spent four years in the Philippines and several months in Europe.


EDUCATION

University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, Bachelor of Science, Political Science, minors in history and psychology, 1985
Defense Language Institute, Associate of Science, Vietnamese Basic, 1987, with honors

EXPERIENCE

2007-2011 – Student, Dalton State College, Dalton, GA
2006-2007 – Laser-cutter Operator, Steel Warehouse of Chattanooga, TN
2002-2006 – Quality Control Technician, Southern Telecom, Chattanooga, TN
2000-2002 – Driver/Warehouseman, Quality Industrial Supply, Lakesite, TN
1998-2000 – Substitute Teacher, Hamilton County Schools, Chattanooga, TN
1995-1998 – Nursing Assistant, Parkwood Nursing Home, Chattanooga, TN
1992-1995 – Home Service Agent, American General Insurance, Chattanooga, TN
1990-1992 – Caseworker, U.S. Refugee Program, Manila, PH
1986-1990 – Communications Technician, U.S. Navy, Clark Air Base, PH

COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT

Association for the Preservation of Cultural and Natural Resources
Presidents’ Council, and Student Activities Committee at Dalton State College
Secretary, Parliamentarian for campaign seeking to preserve environmental and cultural   resources at Moccasin Bend
Rotary Club, Toastmasters, & Jaycees in Angeles City (Philippines); MEDCAPs and Charitable Outreach Committee (Chairman) at Clark Air Base


LANGUAGES

English, Vietnamese, Spanish; some French, Farsi, Tagalog, and Kapampangan


INTERESTS & TALENTS

Encouraging and inspiring others
Managing people
Problem-solving
Organizing events
Public speaking
Organizing information
Intercultural relations
Global affairs
Digital photography
Writing
Copy-editing
Research
Analysis
Dealing with people
Travel
Networking


Blog:

(Notes from the Ninth Circle)

Photo portfolio:


Newsgroup:

(Chuck Hamilton’s News)

26 July 2012

Chattanooga and its Historic Suburbs



(For the most up-to-date and accurate information, see the entry "South Hamilton Co. TN communities and placenames" at https://notesfromtheninthcircle.blogspot.com/2017/01/south-hamilton-co-communities-and.html)

When I was younger—much, much younger—I used to wonder when I heard my older relatives talking about my dad being born in Alton Park, my maternal grandfather being from East Chattanooga, my paternal grandmother being born in East Lake and going to church in Ridgedale, and my cousins living in Tiftonia.

After I returned from the Philippines near the end of 1991, I began researching local history, first focusing on East Brainerd, with my best source being Becky Eaves.  For Native American history, my primary human source was ethnohistorian Raymond Evans.  For other than for East Brainerd, I have found the local history section on the 3rd floor of the Chattanooga-Hamilton County Bicentennial Library to be an incredible source.

The following is based on research from the large collection of historic maps, newspaper clippings, and books on local affairs that section offers.  The suburbs here are those directly dependent on Chattanooga and founded in the city’s “Dynamo of Dixie” era.  Most, but not all, were annexed before or in 1930.  The boundaries listed are not from scientific surveys, and many suburbs were not exactly square. 

In the beginning of what would become the City of Chattanooga, there was Ross’ Landing trading post.  There was a ferry too, which crossed the Tennessee River to Lower Ferry Road to link up with the county seat at Dallas.  Contrary to common belief, the Landing was named for Lewis Ross, not his brother John.  Lewis, who lived in what became Charleston, Tennessee, was the businessman of the family while John was the politician.

John never lived in Rossville’s Chief John Ross House either.  His grandfather, John McDonald, who sold the land that became Brainerd Mission did, however, and so later did John’s daughter and son-in-law, Nicholas Scales.

When the little town first incorporated, it adopted the name of a Cherokee town abandoned by the Removal that was a few miles distant, Tsatanugi, or Chattanooga.   No one knows why that name was chosen rather than that of the closer Cherokee town of Citico (at the mouth of Citico Creek), but it may have been because of the farm and tannery of Daniel Ross located near Tsatanugi, in the area that became St. Elmo.

In the area of the later town of St. Elmo and former town of Tsatanugi, another village grew up called Kirklen, named after one of the original post-Removal settlers.

The original borders of the town were the river in the north, James St. (9th, or MLK, between Chestnut and Market Sts.) in the south, Georgia Avenue on the side of Brabson Hill in the east, and Cypress St. at the foot of Cameron Hill in the west.  Its main street has always been Market St., its second street, now Broad, at first named Mulberry St., became Railroad Ave. in 1850.

In 1851, the city annexed territory out to what are now Baldwin St. in the east and W. 23rd St. (then Missionary Ave.) in the west; these were the city boundaries in the Civil War.  After the war in 1869, the city expanded to Central Ave. (then East End Ave.) in the east and W. 28th St. (then Chattanooga Ave.) in the West.

Downtown

Chattanooga’s “official” Downtown has always been the same as the original town, of which four streets to the west of Pine St. (Poplar, Cedar, Cypress, and Pleasant) were obliterated by the construction of the freeway.  Also lost from downtown to the freeway was Stillhouse Hollow between Cameron and Reservoir (Kirkman) Hill.

Irish Hill once sat between Cherry, Lindsay, 8th, and 9th Sts.  Many do not realize that the first railroads into Chattanooga (Western & Atlantic and East Tennessee & Virginia) were built by the same workforce that did so elsewhere in the country: immigrant Irish.  Most accounts tell that this population disappeared with the arrival of the Civil War.  However, that leaves unexplained how the Irish of Chattanooga contributed a regiment to the Fenian Brotherhood’s Army of Irish Liberation’s invasion of Canada in 1867.  Sts. Peter and Paul Church is all that remains today of that community.

Bluff View was once the premier place for the wealthy to live in downtown Chattanooga.  At the end of High St., it survives as Hunter Art Museum, Houston Museum, and Mary Portero’s Bluff View Arts District, which preserves the great majority of the former homes.

Cameron Hill was a prestigious West Side neighborhood in its own right, with two houses along its crest and others on Cameron Dr., with slightly less prestigious homes along its southern end on East Terrace and West Terrace.  A spacious Boynton Park once adorned its peak, only to become fill dirt for the freeway.  In its place, the Cameron Hill Apartments were constructed, now replaced by offices for Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

The upper ends of Cherry, Walnut, Lookout, and High Sts. and Georgia Avenue were also once affluent residential areas.

West Side

The West Side once included the area beyond Cameron Hill and the residential area between W. MLK (once W. 9th St.) Blvd. and W. Main St. (once Montgomery Ave.), from the river in the west to Carter Street in the east.  The north-south cross streets included Pine, College, Poplar, Cedar, Cypress, and Grove Sts.  Nearly all the West Side fell to the freeway and to the Golden Gateway “urban renewal”; all that remained were two small streets of row houses, but these too fell to the bulldozers when Findley Stadium was built.


Until the Golden Gateway came, W. 9th St. passed south of Cameron Hill and the one which crossed it where W. MLK Blvd. now does was W. 6th St. 

During the post-bellum, Second Industrial Revolution, the entire West Side was owned by the Roane Iron Company, then by the Chattanooga Land, Coal, Iron, and Railway Company.  The Roane Iron Works served as the centerpiece and main source of jobs in the manufacturing district west of Cameron Hill.  When the iron works closed due to being unable to compete with modernized techniques adopted by northern factories, the works shut down, and so did much of the West Side.  From being a mostly working class district, it became a center of poverty.

College Hill is actually a lower hill west of Cameron Hill, as one can see from the large panoramic photo behind the desk of the library’s local history section.  It remains as the College Hill Courts, or Westside projects.  Despite the fact that the hill and surrounding flats were farther from the pollution of the factories to the immediate west, this was where the rank-and-file of the factories lived, with a longer commute.  In the early 20th century, the name College Hill was synonymous with what we now called Westside.

Tannery Flats was a tenement that was originally company housing for the workers of the Chattanooga Tannery, which once stood along the river west of Cameron Hill.  It lay south of where W. 6th St. (now W. MLK Blvd.) came over the hill.  Of its four or five small blocks, only Ash St. remains.  During the heyday of Roane Iron, this was where the middle management lived.

Blue Goose Hollow was a slum  north of where W. 6th St. (W. MLK Blvd.) came over Cameron Hill.  It began as a company housing for workers at Roane Iron Works and is famous for being the birthplace of the Empress of the Blues, Bessie Smith.  Fulton St. is all that remains.  The upper management of Roane Iron lived here.

The public wharf was along the river at the end of W. Montgomery Ave. (W. Main St.).

East Side

The East Side runs between E. MLK Blvd. (formerly E. 9th St.) and the river, from Georgia Ave. to Baldwin St., and at one time included some of the most posh neighborhoods in the city, along with some of its worst slum areas.  Some of the East Side has been taken over by buildings and parking lots for Unum Provident, but most of the East Side that has disappeared has been swallowed up by the growing campus of the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga (UTC).

Battery Place lies along the street of the same name between the river and Riverfront Parkway, formerly the site of a Civil War battery.  It was, and still is, one of the more prestigious areas in which to live downtown.

The Big Nine is the nickname for the stretch of E. 9th St. (E. MLK Blvd.), particularly between Houston and Magnolia Sts., that was the paramount cultural and commercial center of the African-American community in Chattanooga.  Amongst the barber shops, retail stores, and numerous clubs, its center-piece until 1985 was the Martin Hotel.  It once stood where the Bessie Smith Hall is now.

Tadetown was the residential area for African-Americans that sprang up after the Civil War along the north side of E. 9th St.

Scruggstown was the residential area for African-Americans that sprang up after the War along the south side of E. 9th St.


East 8th Street, from Mabel St. to East End (now Central) Ave. was once a vibrant neighborhood in its own right.

The University of Chattanooga (UC) in the late 19th and early 20th centuries occupied only the block bound by McCallie Ave. and Douglas, Oak, and Baldwin Sts., and it shared the block with one of the public elementary schools.  It did, however, also own the block between Douglas and Baldwin to Vine Street.

The Whiteside Flats were cheaper rental housing in the vicinity of UC.

Fort Wood, currently occupying the area between Palmetto and 5th Sts. and McCallie and Central Aves., at one time extended west to the line of the East Tennessee, Virginia, & Georgia Railroad, which is now barely discernible on the UTC campus.

Park Place originally lay Park and East End (now Central) Aves. And 10th and Flynn Sts., the south side of the latter, which in the late 19th century was called St. Charles St.  It can now be said to take in the territory to Magnolia St.

Onion Bottom lies between East 11th St., Central Ave., and the East End switchyards.  If you doubt it is bottom land, wait for the next gullywasher.  In the early 20th century, it contained the city workhouse, a dump, a coal processing plant, and one of the largest and most notorious slums in the city, with a mixed population.

South Chattanooga

South Chattanooga is not simply a geographic designation, it was a land company that developed the area for residential housing.  Everything south of Main Street to W. 23rd St. (or the freeway since its construction) and west of Market St. is South Chattanooga.

Hooterville lies south of the freeway to Chattanooga Creek.  That’s the name the locals have given it and those who know them.

Fort Negley, built around the site of the Civil War fort, stands east of Market St. to Rossville Ave. and Washington St., between Main and W. 20th Sts.

Jefferson Heights lies east of Fort Negley but straddles Main St., with Madison St. as its east boundary and the railroad to the south.

Cowart Place is south of Main St., across South Market St. from Fort Negley, extending south to the freeway.

The Suburbs

Though Chattanooga has always had satellite communities since even before the Civil War, its real historic suburbs did not come into existence until its speedy and broad industrial expansion during its “Dynamo of Dixie” years in the latter 19th century.

Until the late 1880s, the primary suburbs for Chattanooga were St. Elmo (originally named Kirklen) and Hill City on the north side of the river.  Beginning with the economic boom of 1887, however, numerous suburbs spread across the Chattanooga Valley beyond the city limits, which for decades rested at East End (Central) Ave. and Chattanooga Ave. (West 28th St.).  Each of these suburbs had at least minimal self-government, some of which were incorporated towns.  These differed from subdivisions, generally called “additions” at this time.

The opening of the Walnut Street Bridge paved the way for explosive growth north of the river and spurred development south of it as well. 

This system of suburbs was bound together by one of the country’s best trolley systems, the Chattanooga Union Belt Railway.

Alton Park lies south of W. 37th St., east of Alton Park Blvd., and north of W. 47th St., and is bordered on the west by Hawkins Ridge.  It began life as Oak Hills.  It was annexed in 1930.

Amnicola was the large farm of first the Crutchfield family and later the Montagues along the Tennessee River, south and west of South Chickamauga Creek and northwest of the railroad.

Angora Hill is the eastern wing of the U-shaped eminence north of Trueblood Hill/north end of Missionary Ridge joined to Billy Goat Hill by a narrow ridge.  It was occupied by Union troops under Sherman’s command during the Battle of Missionary Ridge.  Gun emplacements and rifle pits from the battle still exist.

Avondale originally lay between the railroad and Missionary Ridge, north of Wilson St. and south of what is now Infantry St.; later it spread south to Citico Ave.  It was annexed in 1923.

Belvoir was the residential area around the large home of Col. W.R. Crabtree that became part of the larger community of Brainerd.

Billy Goat Hill lies at the end of Chamberlain Ave., which at one time was Sherman Blvd. beyond Wilcox Blvd.  It is the westwing of the U-shaped eminence north of the end of Missionary Ridge.  It was occupied by Union troops under Sherman’s command during the Battle of Missionary Ridge.  Gun emplacements and rifle pits from the battle still exist.

Black Bottom got its name from the coal sludge dumped into Chattanooga Creek from the factories lining its path through the valley.  An effort was once made to restyle it “Harrisburg”.  Now the site of Piney Woods housing complex, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries its population was nearly all white.  It was annexed in 1930.

Boulevard Park was a suburb in its own right that lay west of Rossville Blvd. below E. 40th St. opposite Cedar Hills, and is now that suburb’s western half.  It was annexed in 1925.

Boyce was an organized town east of Boyce Station on the Nashville, Chattanooga, and St. Louis Railway and the Citico yards between Elmendorf and Cushman Sts. and Dodson Ave.  It later absorbed the community of East Chattanooga (East Section), then became part of the greater town of East Chattanooga after merging with Sherman Heights.

Bozentown came into being around 1910 within what was originally supposed to be East Chattanooga, between the railroad and the river.  It lies between the much later subdivisions of Sherwood Forest and Riverside Park.  Its “main street” was and is Wood Ave., upon which the First Baptist Church of Bozentown sat until recently (it now occupies the former Ridgedale Methodist, where my grandmother attended church).  It (along with its neighbors) was annexed in 1968.

Brainerd came into being in 1926 when the smaller communities of Olde Towne, Sunnyside, Dutchtown, Belvoir, and the Mission merged by popular vote under that name.  It was annexed in 1930.

Brown’s Ferry, also called Brown’s Valley, is the northern section of Lookout Valley, more or less everything north of Cummings Highway to the Tennessee River.

Bushtown was the first black-governed municipality in the State of Tennessee.  The suburb lays between the railroad, Citico Ave., E. 3rd St., and Orchard Knob Ave.  It was annexed in 1923.

Cedar Grove is listed as a community of 109 residents in the Chattanooga City Directory of 1900, this community had a depot on the Belt Line between National Cemetery and Orchard Knob.  It was, perhaps, the name for the community between Olympia/Warner Park and the National Cemetery west of Holtzclaw Avenue.

Cedar Hills lies at the foot of Missionary Ridge south of E. 40th St.  and east of Rossville Blvd., though it is now considered to take in the former Boulevard Park west of the boulevard (in fact, Cedar Hills Schools is there).  It was annexed in 1925.

Churchville is Bushtown’s nextdoor neighbor, and lies within Citico Ave., E. 3rd St., Orchard Knob Ave., and  N. Willow St., extending to Dodson Ave. between Blackford St. and E. 3rd St.  Like Bushtown, Churchville originated as a black-governed municipality in the late 19th century, next to the Belt Line station called Stanleytown.  It was annexed in 1923.

Citico City lies west of the railroad and north of E. 3rd St., and extended west to East End Avenue, originally founded in the early 1880s for Afro-American workers at the Citico Furnace.  Lincoln Park, the actual park founded in 1918 from which the  neighborhood gets its modern name, once lay between East End Ave. and Wiehl St until the hospital expanded to include it; a much reduced park remains.  It was annexed in 1886.

Clifton Hills straddles Rossville Blvd. below E. 28th St. down to E. 32nd St. east of Rossville Blvd. and to E. 33rd St. west of it.  It was annexed in 1925.

Curtain Pole was the community in the vicinity of the H.L. Judd factory, built about 1890.  Later Sherman Hill Baptist Church formed the center of the community.  Off Amnicola Highway along the road of the same name.


Doty, so named for Doty’s Junction station where the line of the Belt Railway connected with Central of Georgia Railway, lay about halfway between Alton Park and Poeville.

Dutchtown once stood in the area of the Lerch St. and Glendon Place neighborhoods and was the residential area around the dairy of Jacob Kellerhalls that later became part of the greater community of Brainerd.

East Chattanooga comprises everything north of Ocoee St. between the railroad and the Ridge until Campbell St. passes east thru Fords Gap.  As it now stands, this suburb came largely as the merger of the former town of Boyce with the suburb of Sherman Heights.  Originally, East Chattanooga was going to be a planned town between the Cincinnati Southern Railroad and the Tennessee River; this section was later known as East Chattanooga (West Section).  The only part of that actually inhabited was the African-American community of Bozentown.  East Chattanooga (East Section) was developed east of the tracks north of the town of Boyce, originally under the latter’s name, before changing to East Chattanooga.  The station on the Southern Railway for Sherman Heights was East Chattanooga, and Sherman Heights merged into the town of East Chattanooga around 1910.  East Chattanooga was annexed in 1923.

Eastdale came together as Hornville in the 1890’s, changing its name to Eastdale in 1909 in hopes of soon being annexed.  The former Eastdale Baptist Church moved to Ooltewah-Ringgold Rd. and became Eastwood Baptist.  It was annexed in 1957. 

East End, a name which has largely disappeared from usage except maybe by longer term residents, was for a long time one of Chattanooga’s largest suburbs, home to a sizable working class population that worked in many of the surrounding factories. Its station on the Belt Line was called Rathcliff.   Currently it lies south of E. 34th St. between Jerome Ave., Hamill Rd., and 4th Ave., though many people refer to the area as part of East Lake.  It was annexed in 1930.

East Lake lies along the foot of Missionary Ridge between E. 28th and E. 40th Sts. and 4th Ave., its central attraction being the still beautiful East Lake Park.  It was annexed in 1925.

East Ridge is a town that was organized in 1921 to prevent annexation from the earlier communities of Penny Row, Nickel Street, and Smokey Row, later taking in the Spring Creek and Scruggs Bridge communities.  It is still independent.

East St. Elmo (see Poeville)

Eden Park was one of the more prominent subdivisions in Highland Park suburb, from Willow St. to Lyerly St., between Main St. and Anderson Ave.

Ferger Place was a very posh subdivision in Oak Grove suburb on Morningside and Eveningside Drives.  It remains quite attractive.

Fort Cheatham, once the site of the headquarters of the Confederate general of that name during the Army of Tennessee’s siege of Chattanooga, is at the foot of Missionary Ridge between the freeway, E. 28th St. and 4th Ave.  It was, ironically (given its namesake), one of the oldest historically black suburbs.  It was annexed in 1925.

Foust Place, south of the freeway between S. Hickory St. and 4th Ave. and north of E. 28th St.  It began life as the suburb of New England Park, but came to be called by the name of the housing development that covered its entire territory.  It was annexed in 1925.

Gamble Town is the section of St. Elmo at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries centered around Harris Ave. that was populated by African-Americans.

Glenwood lies north of McCallie Ave. next to Missionary Ridge, west to Derby St. and north to E. 3rd St., taking in Derby Cir.  It was annexed in 1922.

Gobbler’s Peak is a knoll just south of Bozentown.

Hell’s Half Acre was one of the most interestingly-named areas of Chattanooga.  Or I should say “three”, since there were three areas so-nicknamed.  The “main” neighborhood so-called was between E. 16th St. and the railroad to the south, taking in Doris, Fillmore, Fagan, and Polk Sts. within those bounds.  There was another Hell’s Half Acre next to Tannery Flats and yet one more Hell’s Half Acre near Moses St., which once ran near W. 19th St. beyond Riverside Drive.

Highland Park lies between McCallie and Holtzclaw Aves. and Main and S. Lyerly Sts.  The elevated part of the suburb is the Civil War-era Indian Hill.  Highland Park Baptist still stands in its original location.  The suburb was annexed in 1929.

Hill City originated as Camp Contraband during the Civil War.  Its boundaries are Manning St., Stringer’s Ridge, and the backside of North Market St.  At one time, it was a mixed municipality which stretched to Forest (later Forrest, now Forest again) Ave.  It merged with the town of North Chattanooga in the 1920s.

Hornville (see East Dale)


Indian Springs


The northern portion of what later became Glenwood, so called for having been the site of one of the two internment camps during the Cherokee Removal in Hamilton County.

Fords Gap is the gap between Trueblood (Tunnel) Hill of Missionary Ridge and Billy Goat Hill.

Lincoln Park (see Citico City)

Lookout Mountain incorporated in 1891, the same year Crawfish Springs, Georgia, changed its name to Chickamauga in honor of the soon-to-be national military park.  It’s still independent.


Lovell Air Field – Originally established in 1928 on pasture land owned by Dr. J. B. Haskins as Brainerd Aviation Field, its terminal sat across the tracks from Chickamauga Station and the adjacent village of Chickamauga, later called Shepherd.  It was renamed for founder of the Aero Club of Chattanooga (1917), John E. Lovell, when it became the official airport of the city in 1930.

Lookout Valley is the community in the valley west of Lookout Mountain from the stateline to the Tennessee River.  The Cherokee town of Tuskegee was there before the Removal, and for a long time the area was called Wauhatchie.  It acquired the name Tiftonia from a late 19th century housing development.  However, to locals this name meant just the middle section straddling Cummings Highway; the northern section was Brown’s Ferry and the southern section near the railroad station was still Wauhatchie.  It was annexed in three stages in 1972, 1995, and 2003.

Lupton City is on the south end of Lupton Drive below Hixon Pike.  It was founded as a company town for workers at Dixie Spinning Mills finishing plant.  It was annexed in 1968.

Marr Aviation Field – The Chattanooga City Chamber of Commerce opened the city’s first airfield in 1919, dedicated to local aviation pioneer Walter L. Marr, in the open area bound by the Cincinnati & Southern to the west, Dodson Ave. to the east, Avondale to the south, and Anderson (now Crutchfield) St. to the north.  It ceased to operate in 1934.

Mindell Park was a fashionable, though less prestigious than Ferger Place, neighborhood of the suburb of Oak Grove.  It lay along Orchard Knob Ave. and Hawthorne St.

The Mission was the loosely-defined area in the vicinity of the former Brainerd Mission to the Cherokee across the creek from Old Chickamauga Town.  It became part of Brainerd.

Mission Ridge Junction, which gets its name from the junction of the Belt Line with Missionary Ridge Incline Railway, lay between the Ridge and South Lyerly Avenue from Kirby Avenue to McCallie Avenue.  It has been entirely swallowed up by McCallie School.

Missionary Ridge lies along the crest of the ridge of the same name and was incorporated in 1891, the same year as Lookout Mountain, Tennessee, and Chickamauga, Georgia.

Mountain Junction, also known as South St. Elmo, lies between Forest Hills and Lookout Mountain from W. 47th St. to the stateline.  It was annexed in 1930.

New England Park (see Foust Place)

North Chattanooga began as a planned town in 1913 and was incorporated the same year.  Its boundary was originally Forest Ave.  In 1915, the town forbade African-Americans from living in its limits, an ordinance made practically null and void by its later annexation of Hill City, which was a majority black town.  North Chattanooga was annexed in 1930.

Oak Grove sits north of the freeway between Holtzclaw Ave. and S. Lyerly St. to Main St.  Among others, it contains the subdivisions of Ferger Place and Mindell Park.  It was annexed to the city in 1913.

Oak Hills (see Alton Park)

Olde Towne was the business section and its immediate neighborhood of what became Brainerd by popular vote in 1926, east of Tunnel Blvd.

Orange Grove borders the Chattanooga National Cemetery on the south and sits north of the railroads tracks between Central and Holtzclaw Aves.  Orange Grove School was originally here, which is how it got its name. It was annexed in 1913.

Orchard Knob is north of McCallie Ave. and south of E. 3rd St., between Holtzclaw Ave. and N. Lyerly St.  It was annexed in 1922.

Park City, one of the smaller suburbs, is north of Doyle St., along Cannon Ave., all of it east of Rossville Blvd.  It was annexed in 1930.

Piney Woods (see Black Bottom)

Poeville, also called Arlington, East St. Elmo, or South Alton Park, lies along both sides of Central Ave. east of Mountain Junction and Forest Hills south of Piney Woods.  It was annexed in 1930.

Ridgedale lies adjacent to the Ridge between the freeway and Kirby Ave., west to S. Lyerly Ave.  Its former Methodist Church which my grandmother attended is now First Baptist of Bozentown.  Ridgedale Baptist is now on Hickory Valley Rd.  It was annexed in 1913.

Ridgeside is that part of Sunnyside which self-incorporated rather than be annexed into Chattanooga along with the rest of Brainerd.  It includes the subdivisions of Shepherd Hills and Crescent Park.  It is still independent.

Riverview  is separated from North Chattanooga by Hixon Pike.  Once centered around the 30-room Lyndhurst mansion of John T. Lupton and still taking in the Chattanooga Golf and Country Club, this suburb was annexed in 1930.

Rosstown once lay north of McCallie Ave. between Derby and Kelly Sts. up to E. 3rd St.  At one time it was populous and prosperous enough to sponsor a baseball team in the city’s local Negro League.  Parkridge Hospital now occupies a good deal of the former suburb, and only two small of its original blocks remain.  It was annexed in 1922.

Rustville, named for a Dr. Rust, was not in South Chattanooga as the current real estate designation has it.  It spread south of Chattanooga Creek and west of Alton Park Blvd. above W. 37th Street and also included the area now known as Hooterville.  It was annexed to Chattanooga in 1930.

St. Elmo (Kirklen) lies between Hawkins’ Ridge and Lookout Mountain north of 47th St.  The oldest suburb of Chattanooga, it began life as Kirklen before the Civil War and was renamed because of a novel based there.  It was annexed in 1930.

Sherman Heights was a prestigious suburb of the late 1890s that sprang up north of Crutchfield St. and east of Dodson Ave., extending up onto the foot of Missionary Ridge to the east.  It was more or less the same area as the currently-designated Glass Farm District.  The suburb’s Glass Street was Chattanooga’s first paved street.  It merged with East Chattanooga after 1905.

South Alton Park (see Poeville)

South St. Elmo (see Mountain Junction)

Stanleyville was a historically black community north of Blackford St. and south of Citico Ave. between what are now N. Willow St. and Arlington Ave. that eventually got swallowed up by Churchville.  It was annexed in 1923.


Suburba


The southern portion of what later became Glenwood, so called after the post office of that name on the Mission Ridge Incline Railway.

Sunnyside was the residential area east of Tunnel Blvd. that grew up around the home of Judge R.B. Cooke and later became part of the greater community of Brainerd.

Tiftonia is the middle section of Lookout Valley.

Trueblood Hill is the northernmost hill of Missionary Ridge, called Tunnel Hill by Confederate Maj. Gen. Patrick Cleburne as well as his opponent Maj. Gen. William T. Sherman.  It is separated from Billy Goat Hill by Fords Gap.

Wauhatchie is the southern section of Lookout Valley.

White City sits west of Jerome Ave., south of E. 32nd St., and includes everything to Chattanooga Creek.  It was annexed in 1930.