New Haven Independent

“Right this way, ladies and gentlemen,” Mayor DeStefano seemed to be saying to the smartly stepping members of the Hillhouse High School Drill Team, as he welcomed the first box of 1,000 free copies of Harper Lee’s 1960 novel of race relations and growing up in the South, To Kill a Mockingbird, proudly carried by Tesheya Santos, into City Hall Friday.

It was the beginning of the flight of Mockingbird, or the launch of New Haven’s Big Read. People all over town will read the novel and then discuss it over the next months. For the changing schedule of events through June 9-10, click here.

With more than 80 events scheduled between now and June 10 — readings, movie screenings, intergenerational discussions, and concerts inspired by Mockingbird’s themes — the Big Read’s aim is to bring New Haven together in a citywide reading and discussion of the novel and its themes. Mockingbird culminates on the Green on the weekend of June 9th and 10th with events headlined by former United States Poet Laureate Billy Collins and a concert and performance hosted by Spike Lee, who knows a thing about race relations. That weekend, in turn, launches New Haven’s International Festival of Arts and Ideas.

Mary Lou Aleskie is the executive director of the International Festival of Arts and Ideas festival. The organization received the initial funding for the Big Read through a much sought-after grant from the National Endowment for the Arts and is coordinating with the New Haven Free Public Library (NHFPL) and just about every other organization in town. Aleskie’s mission is to bring vitality and cohesion to the community through the arts. And, she said, there is an awful lot to talk about in the novel.

“For example, there’s, of course, race relations, social justice and criminal justice, and there’s a lot in there about gender too. Take Scout, for example,” Aleskie said, referring to the young heroine/narrator of the novel who watches her white father Atticus defend a black man wrongly accused of rape in 1930s Alabama. “I mean for me what’s interesting, among much else, is that Scout is really a tomboy and she has to deal with the demands made on her to be someone she isn’t, to grow up as a prim and proper Southern girl.”

The mayor got the discussion started by reading a section on another major theme of Mockingbird, courage - this time lines spoken by the dad, Atticus, to Scout from chapter 11, referring to a neighbor’s bout to overcome morphine addiction before her death: “I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It’s when you know you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.”

There was certainly a lot there for New Haveners, conscious of last year’s gun violence-marred summer, to think about. Further on the theme of courage, both the mayor and Aleskie thanked the city’s legislative delegation, particularly mentioning State Sen. Toni Harp, for their successful fight to restore to the state budget $1 million for support of the International Festival of Arts and Ideas, without which there would be no Big Read.

“We’re going to have a party, a festival, surrounding this book,” the mayor added, “and among the things we’re going to see is not only how we’re different, but how in the most important human ways, we are all the same.”

In the spirit of the conversation, here’s a quick tour of what To Kill A Mockingbird has meant, thus far, to a number of the people gathered for the festive launch. Newhallville Alderwoman Katrina Jones (D-21), sitting to the mayor’s left, said she is familiar with the book through her work in New Haven’s adult education system. “We work with Gateway Community College,” she said, “and one of the professors regularly shows the movie and compares it to the book. But you know what I really find most interesting when I think about it is the way that young girl, Scout, relates to the black housekeeper. Scout really has her own problems of course, being raised by a single dad, a busy lawyer, but as she does this, through her friendship with the housekeeper, she’s also learning another culture.”

The woman sitting to the mayor’s right is Nkenge Hook, a librarian assistant from the NHFPL, who, perhaps inspired by the book, had turned to the mayor and asked him about getting involved in politics. “The mayor suggested I sign up for the next Democracy School, which I think I’ll do. I have seen a lot in the city. I grew up in Newhalville and went to Hopkins and I was bussed everywhere, and the disparities between the two worlds, well, you know … I was militant for a long time, but now I see that to change things you have to get involved and to serve.”

And they young women pictured at the top of this article, sitting in front of what was termed “Mockingbird Mountain,” the display of some of the 1,000 copies for free distribution, were discussing their upcoming contribution to the Big Read. Diamond Robertson, on the left, age 13, is studying at the Fashion Model Institute with her teacher Corinne Thomas. Thomas had read the novel about three times, she said, and loved it. Diamond is going to read the book this summer for the first time, and then, on the concluding weekend of June 9-10, put on a performance of some kind, yet to be determined, but related to fashions — maybe tomboy clothes of Scout!

As City Hall emptied out, among the last to leave the Big Read’s launch was Marna Seltzer, the project coordinator. Newly arrived from Chicago in New Haven (where her husband is a graduate architecture student), Seltzer said the project is remarkable in how it has brought together so many dedicated New Haveners from across walks of life, classes, interests, ages. For her one of the most remarkable facets was a series of breakfasts orchestrated in January, when the initial grant came through, to bring together community leaders, philanthropists, and political people to get energized about the project.

“We asked three groups of 20 to read the novel,” Seltzer said, “and then, over informal breakfasts at the library, discussions were led by Dorsey Kendrick [president of Gateway Community College], Kica Matos (now City Hall’s social services chief), and Roxanne Coady, owner of R.J. Julia Booksellers in Madison. It was remarkable how honest people were in discussing race, in the novel and in their lives and in New Haven, and many other subjects. I don’t think it would have been so easy in Chicago.”

Finally, another facet of the Big Read was being launched, so that nobody will be left out, a block or two away, at 209 Orange St. This is the home of Recording for the Blind & Dyslexic (RFB&D), a national not-for-profit that has been in this location for 15 years and has 160 trained volunteer readers. One of them, Yale Renaissance literature graduate student Erin Peterson, was about to go into one of the recording booths, welcomed by RFB&D’s state director, Anne Fortunato, to begin recording… guess which novel?

The 1,000 free copies will be available for those who would like one at New Haven Reads, 45 Bristol Stt. Almost all the city’s bookstores are offering a 20 percent discount, and all the library branches are stocked up with books, DVDs, and audio recordings too.

A few intriguing events pulled at some random from the long list include: April 23, at 7 p.m. at the Dixwell-Yale University Learning Center, at 101 Ashmun St., a screening of the movie version of Mockingbird, with the fabulously moral Gregory Peck. Then on April 25, at l p.m., the seniors at the West River Senior Center will be discussing the novel. On May 2, there will be a marathon reading of the text, all branches, with books given away to attendees, along with refreshments. If you want to read a section, ten minutes per person, sign up by calling Carol Brown at the library: 946-8835.

For the Big Read’s changing events schedule between now and June 9-10, click here. And remember what Scout says: “It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.”