Spring

It was a typical April day. We had sun and reasonably mild temperatures (16C) in the morning and early afternoon, then overcast and wind-whipped rain by 4:30. No afternoon walk today.

I did get out in the morning for my usual exercise. In my biography of Frederick Douglass, Lincoln has won the 1864 presidential election after all. On election night, a group of racist whites accosts Douglass on his way from the polling booth in Rochester. He stands up to and vanquishes them without having to strike a blow - this according to an eyewitness who was walking with him. 

The war is winding down, but much remains to be decided. The vote for freed blacks remains a critical issue for Douglass and other abolitionists, but there is considerable push-back, including from within the Republican Party. The orator is back on the road, often at Jubilee meetings across the north, exhorting blacks to be self-reliant and industrious. 

He also speaks in Baltimore that winter of 1864. Maryland, one of the slave-holding border states that stayed with the Union, votes narrowly to abolish slavery before the war ends. Douglass urges southern blacks to stay on the land, save up and buy land. But it very quickly becomes clear they will be frustrated. Whites won't sell land to blacks in the south, even land that sits unused.

It's all seems so depressingly familiar.

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Nothing else much accomplished today - other than setting up a new printer, making our dinner and frittering away time trying to solve cryptic crosswords. The only thing remotely creative I did was work on some more of my winter 2012 photos.

I was working on them out of order yesterday. In today's batch, we're still in Valencia, at the end of Ralph's stay with us - so before we head to Girona. We're out in the evening more than Karen and I usually are, enjoying the pre-Fallas activities, including a big fireworks and light show display in City Hall Square. 

I don't know why I like this picture. It's really not very good, but it expresses to me the joy Spaniards seem to take in being together in a crowd. That night we were jammed into the square shoulder to shoulder, waiting for the fireworks to begin.

In our own neighbourhood of Ruzafa, a couple of the biggest fallas - both sponsored with big money from beer companies - are being constructed at street corners near us. We go out in the evening to check out the progress and enjoy the festival vibe.

This last was taken in the Basilica in the Square of the Virgin, while a church service was in progress.