"My Christmas Letters" by Jacob Holdt


Christmas / New Year 2020 - 50th year

 

Back to overview of 38 years of Christmas letters


Note, the annual Christmas letters ended the year I quit
 touring in the US and no longer felt that my working life
was exciting enough to write about.

 

 

DEAR FRIENDS


I wish you all a much better and Corona and Trump free New Year.

What is there to report from a year without travel, with closed lectures and virtually without close contact with anyone other than the family in our Corona hideout in our summer cottage?

THE FAMILY
Well, it was good that our son Daniel, who after hitchhiking through every country in the world, was close to being locked down by the Corona here in Malaysia ......



....... but managed to get home just in time also to celebrate his 40th birthday, for which I gave him our new joint antology in the Adventure Club, "The Adventurers (De eventyrlige)". For no Danish adventurer has hitchhiked as much as Daniel ....



During the Corona lockdown we had more family togetherness than for a long time. Also with our daughter Lalou, who after being a psychologist for traumatized Child soldiers in Somalia and Mali, raped women in Iraq and royhingyas in Bangla Desh, now came home to work in a nearby psychiatric hospital. Among the clients she helped was a friend of mine from the adventurers at the club, Uri Golman, after he was almost murdered in the Congo.



The summer holiday in Norway with Vibeke and our dog Tajo did not go so well since we were deported upon arrival due to Tajo's lack of rabies vaccination. So instead we ended up vacationing in Denmark since the rest of Europe was locked down... here Vibeke in the old territory we for a hundred years lost to the Germans. Why did we have such bloody fight to get it back here at Dybbøl Mill when it today with our open borders in the EU doesn't matter anymore. Now we just regret that the British don't want to stay with us after New Year.



My dad's 100th birthday I celebrated with my two brothers and by making this musical picture book about his life.
 



A LITTLE ABOUT MY "WORK"
as an involuntary retiree


However, it was a journey in itself this year to follow something I never thought would happen - that half of the United States rose up in protest against systemic racism after the George Floyd assassination, about which I made this tribute.

It inspired me to make a new book in support of the Black Lives Matter movement in the United States. There are probably plenty of good books on the subject, but virtually none with photos of the deeper historical racism which is behind today's exploding anger. And hardly anyone has - like me - photographically followed the oppression of American blacks for so long - almost all the way back to the civil rights struggle's hope for a better future. Especially young people today do not know that side of American race relations, which I therefore now try to portray in pictures and words in "Roots of oppression".
Including my recent work with the Ku Klux Klan and mass murderers in the chapters "Trying to understand the roots of white hate."
Trump's sanctioning of this almost hidden hatred has now caused it to explode out in the open ....even with armed militias threatening to overthrow democracy.

The work on the book and the correspondence with the characters described evoked memories of all my years on the roads of the United States as a messenger between black and white America. In that way I realized how many of my old friends have now died. Eg. all the black friends (except Tony, Howie and Muwwakkil) who were portrayed in the film which Danish TV made in 1991 about my contrast journeys between the richest universities and the poorest ghettos. Not least this year, several have died from Covid-19, such as my regular loving hostess though 47 years, Lela Taylor, who is seen in the final scene's Thanksgiving dinner with Wanda, who loved to sit in my lap as a 4-year-old ....
 


...... why I tried to repeat the feat with her in the movie as a 23-year-old :-)




And this is how she looks like 52-year-old today, when Lela's large family has become my Facebook friends.

Many of the 27 Danes, I had with me on my American tours met Lela, who made even Danish Attorney General Søren Pind crack up a whole night. You can see her and many of the other friends in the film here made by Danish TV in 1992 (55 min. in oldfashioned editing and transferred from old VHS tapes).

1st movie:
 
”Jacob Holdt in Amerika”

Wilma here is probably best remembered from the movie. I continued to live with her in her one-room shack almost until her death in 2014 ....




MY WORK HERE AT HOME

In that regard, the great black American artist, Arthur Jafa is now opening an exhibition in MOMA Louisiana. He is also known for making Kanye West's videos and his own video "Love is the message" have gone viral during the Black Lives Matter movement this year.
He always claims that his inspiration came from watching my show, American Pictures, in 1985 as a student in Howard University in Washington. We have a conversation about this here on page 40 in Louisiana Magazine.
You can read our conversation here in English.

 




MY WORK IN THE UBUNTU HOUSE

Here in Copenhagen, the loss of our patron for my dialogue center, the Ubuntu House, Nelson Mandala's daughter, Zindzi, who died of Covid-19, shocked me right after I made this farewell video to her about our many years of collaboration.



 



ANOTHER TRAVEL MOVIE IF YOU DIDN'T ALREADY SEE IT

2nd movie:  ”Jacob and the Klan”

And if you need another movie during your Corona lock down, here is one about the right-wing extremist forces which Trump has so dramatically brought out in the open during his short term. This road movie is about my friend Jeff Berry, who at that time was considered the most hateful and greatest Klan leader in the US. He is e.g. the only Klan Leader ever who had the courage to march into New York City, as seen here with his wife Pamela on Broadway. Since then I often lived with her and still write with her for the chapter in my new book about "The roots of white hate."




As Jeff himself told me about the Klan's invasin of NYC, where he is seen here, “It was my greatest moment of fame. We had 6,000 bodyguards and 60,000 worshipers. ” Well, those were his words for the protective police and furious counter-protesters confronting these 17 rural rednecks who had never been to such a big city before. "It is our right to travel in America, isn't ?" :-)

So in this movie, I took Jeff on a trip to visit all my old black friends seen in "American Pictures". He had not expected it, but their forgiving attitude towards him affected him so much that shortly after the angry ending in the film, he went home and disbanded the entire Klan group. That made some members incl. his own son so furious that they tried to beat him to death. He was laying in a coma for two months and when he finally woke up he was both blind and paralyzed for life, as seen here at his crutches during my last visit with him before his death.
But he was happy and relieved, for now he preached love in front of a forgiving cross in a church rather than hatred around a burning cross in a forest ......just as he now advocated the integration of blacks and whites, as seen here :-)




And with this little story of how there is hope for transformation and forgiveness for all of us (climate-traveling) sinners, I would like to wish
you a really good birthday party .....
for our dear cousin here .......



Merry Christmas

Jacob Holdt


 


From my run Christmas morning along the harbor of Copenhagen ...

 


Jacob Holdt
Gernersgade 63, 1319 København K

Tlf.  20-324412  jacob@holdt.us
 

 

 

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