The Stoop And The Steeple

<p><strong>Three lives intertwined two centuries apart. An exploration of the complexities of race and power at an intimate level.</strong></p><p><br></p><p>In <em>The Stoop and the Steeple</em> Nancy Meyer directs an uncompromising lens at the fifteen years she spent with Mel a Jamaican artist she met on a New York stoop and faces the memory of Zebulon a man her ancestors enslaved. A man who climbed a steeple and crowed. Was it for freedom? We will never know but the mystery of this image drives the author into unexpected discoveries.</p><p><br></p><p>Nancy and Mel married raised a child divorced. Zebulon ran away was captured and sold. Through lyric and narrative poetry Nancy tells a personal story against the backdrop of 18<sup>th</sup> century documents and her eighth-great-grandmother's diary. The poems create a prism each one catches a different light expanding our vision. Of a mixed-race marriage of the dreams that twisted into white supremacy of the stories families tell and those they keep secret.</p><p><br></p><p>Together with its reader guide <strong><em>The Stoop and The Steeple</em></strong> invites deeper contemplation of idealism rupture pain and love across generations and in Modern America and a study resource for educators social justice groups and individuals.</p><p><br></p>