Braided in Fire
The brutal killing of George Floyd by a white policeman sparked off international riots, provoking a deep global soul-searching about racial equality. I can't breathe he said, several times, and then he died. History is about us, now, not some faraway people. Martin Luther King delivered his 'I have a dream' speech to more than 250,000 people in Washington, and then got shot for his pains in Memphis, Tennessee. But dreams persist. A grey haired white woman, Solace Wales, spent decades unearthing the story of two marginalised groups, black soldiers and white peasants, in Sommocolonia who met and cooperated (and some of them died) during the German rush to take over Italy. The Germans didn't succeed, of course, but nobody knew that at the time. The villagers warmly welcomed the black soldiers as their liberators, and these two groups really helped one another in touching ways, both small and large... Click to download the PDF of this article.