The Beginnings...

 When I first sat down to pen this short essay, on
the eve of celebrating my Mom's 89th Birthday
anniversary, it being just one year since she made
her transition (on May 24, 2008). I thought of many
possible topics and themes upon which I could write
in honoring her birthday anniversary and to
celebrate her outpouring of love & the amazingly
bountiful life she shared with us. However, when I
seriously thought back on my own earliest and
fondest memories about Mom, my mind seemed to
drift towards and then immediately centered upon
the period when I was six years old. For that was a
time of great innocence for me as I was growing up
as a child in the Bronx, NY.  A time, when
everything seemed abundantly positive or quite
“right” in my life. Certainly, it appeared to me at the
time that the world into which I was born was quite
bright, cheerful and wonderful. Something ideally
reflective in what the great jazz artist Louis
Armstrong later crafted into his international hit
song “What A Wonderful World.” The feeling I
had was equally reflective of what was represented
in a film targeted for celebrants of the annual
Christmas & New Year Eve holiday season, which
starred the Oscar winning actor James Stewart in a
movie titled “It's A Wonderful Life.” For me, the
era of the late 1950s & early 1960s was a time
when, despite serious economic hardships, it seemed
love abounded and good cheer existed within my
immediate family (Mom, step-brother, step-sister).
However, this initial opinion about my family life
was rather short-lived and would change quite
radically as I entered into my teen years. Soon the
magic of my childhood innocence and idealism
would gradually subside and be displaced with a
more combative or cynical view of the world. As
such, the era could certainly be considered or
defined for me as the “cusp of change.” A period
when quite unprecedented change began sweeping
into the world's conscious reality between the years
of 1954 to 1964. In my opinion, this unique period
in history clearly established the convective
momentum for revolutionary global trends that
induced a quantum leap forward in human
transformation.

Based upon these preceding comments I began
composing this essay, in celebration of my Mom's
89th birthday anniversary, as an offering of respect
to her, and to you the reader. Therefore, what
immediately popped into my mind in preparing this
essay were some thoughts I had about a
misbegotten magical dream world that was
originally conceived of in 1960 by a Texan
entrepreneur by the name of Cornelius
Vanderbilt Wood (1922–1992). Wood, whose
professional background was in the construction
development and management trade field had
previously become a major driving force in the
creation of the Disneyland theme park built in
Anaheim, California, under the guidance of his
mentor and employer Walt Disney. Disneyland,
USA, made Walt Disney a “household name” first in
American and then internationally. He was best
known for his assorted animated cartoon classics
like Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck as well as being
responsible for taking the first major historical steps
towards the development and creation of major film
screen animation features for Hollywood like "The
Lady & the Tramp" or "Pinocciho".

 Cornelius Wood, upon his departure from being
under the employ of the Disney franchise, decided
he would like to create his own theme park, with the
unique title of Freedomland Amusement Park.
His idea was to create a special place that would
symbolize and characterize an almost forgotten era
within the American cultural milieu or experience,
by actually bringing to light certain distinct
poignant features or Americana that the “baby
boomer” generation's offspring could enjoy.
Therefore, the principal focus of the
“Freedomland” venture as conceived by Wood in
the late 1950s was to create an Americana heritage
theme park that would colorfully represent
historical aspects about America, ranging from San
Francisco trolley car street scenes, to the famous
Chicago fire of the 1800s, to New York landmarks
like the Statue of Liberty, with even, a precarious
look into the future (Futurama). Freedomland was
initially designed to become an actual miniaturized
version of the entire USA continental land mass.
The park architecture and land use was laid out
with an approximate representation of America,
“from sea to shining sea” as it were, and as
symbolized in the iconic song, “America the
Beautiful.”

 The actual park site was constructed in the
Northeast section of the Bronx, New York City, just
off the Hutchinson River Parkway and New
England Thruway (Interstate 95) interchanges.
Ironically, the project site at the time of construction
was basically a swamp land or water marsh that
required substantial landfill to support the park's
development. Today the historic site where
Freedomland once stood is presently the location of
the world's largest cooperative housing development
called COOP City. This monstrosity of a housing
complex began undergoing construction once the
closure of Freedomland in 1964 was assured.

The closure of the park was marred and steeped in
controversy. It was alleged that due to the failing
finances of Cornelius Wood and his business
partners, who had claimed the park never made a
profit anyway, that ultimately declaring bankruptcy
and closing the park was what made the best sense.
However, some historians have argued and
attributed the premature closure of Freedomland
was perhaps more likely due to the impending
arrival & opening in 1965 of the New York
World's Fair which was to be located in the next-
door borough of Queens, NY (near the original Shea
Stadium). Perhaps, what troubled Wood most was
the idea of having two major competing amusement
theme parks operating within miles of each other
thus spelling an impending financial disaster for
him. Therefore, the convenient exit strategy seemed
to literally fall in his lap when the lucrative offer
being made by the sponsors of COOP City arrived.

However, I believe the real reason for the ultimate
closure and sale of Freedomland was that the
lucrative offer being made by investors in the COOP
City venture was just to hard to resist. So greed in
my view, replaced patriotism, idealism, or even, the
possible prospect that having both a Freedomland
and NY Worlds Fair might have brought even
more visitors and tourism dollars to New York City.

     @@@@@@@@@@@@

    (Please Continue Reading To Your Right)
A Special TRIBUTE & MEMORIAL for
BERYL E. DAVIS
1920 - 2008
MOM
ONE OF MOM'S
FAVORITE PLACES!
FREEDOM LAND, IN THE BRONX, NY
JULY 4th 2009
Celebrating 89 YEARS, YOUNG!
"HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY"
Nana
Beryl E. Davis was actually born on July 5, 1920.
Mom (Nana) always chose to celebrate her special day on the 4th of July - American Independence Day!
We (as children) always felt EVERYONE was in on her birthday celebration especially when the fireworks & firecrackers started  Popping!
Two Video Classics for MOM's BIRTHDAY!
FREEDOMLAND PROMOTIONAL SERIAL FILM - 1960 (7min.)
FRANK SINATRA IN DOMINICAN REPUBLIC PERFORMING "The House I Live In" (4min.)
* If the Below Video Does Not Open/Steam Properly (this video is a large file over 110
MB) Please Click On Individual Links Listed Below. Also, it may take several minutes
for the video to upload to your computer, so be a little patient.
The Cusp of Change ...
Freedomland Amusement Park (USA)
by Roger M. Davis (aka Adisa Maina Omar)
*Permission is granted for reprints of this article only in its entirety
with credits as follows:
“Roger M. Davis aka Adisaji, Adisa Maina Omar is founder of the
Ikologiks Center for Global Studies – www.ikologiks.org
and an global activist, teacher, writer & the author of Ultimate
Mental Power (pub. 1999) & The Yoga Therapy Handbook (pub. 2007).”
On one of our family visits to
Freedomland we were accompanied
by my Aunts Ruby, Shirley & my
cousin Carl for a day of fun & a concert
given by the American King of Jazz
Louis Armstrong.
I'll never forget after the concert we
went backstage. My cousin asked
Louis Armstrong "how'd you learn to
play so well" and in his famous grin &
chuckle he shouted "practice boy,
practice!" He autographed one of his
handkerchiefs and gave it to my
cousin. I'll never forget the GLOW on
all our faces that day, especially Nana
who like Louis Armstrong choose to
celebrate her birthday every year on
JULY 4TH!
Mom had a love of music, dance, broadway shows & concerts. I
thought it only fitting to end the video above on "Freedomland" with
Sinatra's famous rendition of Paul Robson's "The House I Live
In." In some ways that song is more telling about America than
either the Nation Anthem or America the Beautiful ... ENJOY!
P.S. - The snapshot of the infamous "RatPack" with Sanny
Davis, Jr. is a bonus! Mom loved Sammy & I'll never forget
when she, my sister & I saw him live at the
Apollo Theatre in Harlem, NY.
External Links to Video
Freedomland Video
Sinatra
FREEDOMLAND VIDEO
Frank Sinatra
"The House I Live In"
I decided to focus the main theme of  this essay, in honoring the celebration of the 89th birthday
anniversary of my Mom, with this retrospective for several reasons. First, I believe reflecting on those
early days of living and growing up in the Bronx, NY is inviting us to see a glimpse of how we have
gotten to where we are in 2009. Second, I believe my Mom who loved nostalgia and reflecting on “how
things were” would have gotten a real kick out of watching the film, pictures and other images I've put
together on this website page. Third, when the magic of Freedomland was first unveiled for the world
to see it signaled something that touched the heart, emotions and passions in ways that are often hard
to describe. But, for those who never got to see Freedomland I ask you to just think about your own
“adventures” to places like Disneyland, Conney Island, Great Adventure, King's Dominion, or some
other theme park and I think you'll know what I mean. Lastly, my focus in this article addresses what
I believe is the amusement park's poignant symbolism or relevance to the principal theme of this essay
being the “Cusp of Change.”

 In short, I believe that the unique era in American history which happened to coincide with the
erection of Freedomland was indeed responsible for moving America and the rest of the developed
world in a highly transformative way. From the factories of the Industrial Age to the dawning of what
would become this modern Information Age change was afloat. It is precisely on the “cusp of change”
that this has occurred! Consequently, this essay has no peculiar interest in becoming a personal
diatribe on the more private or personal aspects of the embryonic relationships formed with my mother
as a child. Instead, I want to express in this work a contrite reflection and gaze into the nuances,
flavors and spices of what really has constituted in my view one of the most important stages in
American history or in the modern world. So I hope Mom will be happy with what I have written in
this article and she forgives the lack of a testimonial flair or memorial on her behalf in this edition. But,
I sincerely believe what I am sharing in this article would have been appreciated by her since in a
arcane sense it is meant to say thanks for making my early childhood days such a blessing. Because,
the world I knew and explored in my early childhood was quite different than our fast-paced, fast-food,
hi-tech globalization centered values of today. It was clearly a time when Americans seemed much
more confident and defiant in their great experiment called democracy, despite the hardships they had
been faced with in the aftermath of the Great Depression years, or the devastation of World War II
(1930s to 1940s).

The Americans of the 1940s up to the end of the 1950s embraced a set of virtues & self-determined
values that some historians would readily label as conservative, individualistic, patriotic, but equally
self-sacrificial. In his popular book “Bowling Alone” by Harvard Professor Robert Putnam,
suggested repeatedly that this period of the 1930s, 40s, 50s up to the early 60s was certainly a time of
intense civic, collective, social groupings or complex interplays in American society. In his well thought-
out analysis he raises the idea  that social capital, political capital are as potently affixed to the
American experience as the economic capital (free market economy) that is commonly seen to drive
American progress. So I can agree with Putnam that there was something unique and sacred about
that era. However, I sense the idea that we are loosing this focus, as he represents in the book, is
somewhat flawed since what is changing is not the end of civic interplays as he suggests, but in my
perspective just their mere evolution through new diversified mediums like the Internet. However, for
me personally, the early 1960s was still a time when young kids played strike-out and stick-ball in the
school-yard or participated in group games like “round-up” or “touch football”. Indeed, the youth of that
era were never locked into an all-day "sit at home" affair of watching DVDs, playing Nintendo or X-
box, and spending enormous amounts of time on Internet social websites like MySpace, Twitter or
Facebook or in chat rooms as they do today. So Putnam in his thesis is perhaps right and wrong since
what is changing so much is not that we are loosing our focus on civic society or social capital, but it is
that we are evolving new ways and methods to express or achieve it. But, I'll save this discussion for
another time since I don't want to lose track of what the main theme of this essay is about.

In retrospect, I believe the “cusp of change” asserted itself between 1954 - 1964 with the obvious
growing awareness of America's leadership role in the world which emerged out of World War II and
the Great Depression dust bowl of the 1930s. Alternatively, I equally believe the specific ten year
period from 1954 to 1964 in American history was a time when young people, racial minorities and
women were beginning to assert their presence and role within the fabric of America as perhaps never
before seen in history. And, if not heard or acknowledged, then they were determined to set that fabric
ablaze! Such was the case of what followed soon after the “cusp of change” (1954 1964) when in the
mid-1960s and early 1970s the anti-war (Vietnam) movement, rise of the Black Panthers, Weathermen
Underground, Students for Democratic Society (SDS), or in contrast the John Birch Society, and
remnants of the McCarthy anti-communist forces, or the Klu Klux Klan, White Citizen Councils, or the
Richard Nixon operatives that led to Watergate (1970s) and his subsequent downfall as President of
the United States dominated that era. So in reference to some of the preceding thoughts, so we don't
get too confused, I found this era (1954 – 1964) or the “cusp of change” was shockingly filled with
the consequences or aftermath of that infamous witch-hunt of the 1940s and 1950s waged by the
staunch anti-communist leader Senator McCarthy. It was a time when labor unions were under
sharp attack, the lynchings of Negroes were still common throughout the South, and women were still
relegated to their kitchens, or fashion shows, and beauty parlors. It was a time that saw a widening
Cold War developing that pitted the former Soviet Union (USSR) and USA in an ever escalating
pitched battle or chess match against each other in order to determine which system (capitalism or
socialism) would dominate the world. Ironic, since these two adversaries once were strong allies in
World War II. The era was also symbolized by the horrors of the early 1950s Korean War conflict that
divided the Korean people. A phenomena that still exists to this day. Because, the Korean conflict
under the armistice agreement lingers with us some fifty-five years hence in 2009 with the continuing
tensions between North Korea and the world over their acquisition of nuclear weapons.

The USA I grew up in during the pre-dawn hours of the 1960s was under the veil of a fabled land
called “Camelot.” Given the surprising narrow election results that placed John Fitzgerald Kennedy
into the White House this fabled land of “Camelot” emerged as the theme for the next three years of
his short life. The Kennedy election seemed to spark a new sense of optimism in the USA. Because, the
election of this charismatic and youthful, first Irish Catholic born US President, seemed to slowly
transform our coveted white Anglo-Saxon Protestant ethic view of the world, or the “Leave It To
Beaver,” “Mickey Mouse Club” and “Davie Crockett: King of the Wild Frontier” mentality that seem to
dominate the cultural life of the 1950s and early 1960s into the trash bin of our consciousness. The
period of the early 1960s seemed to shatter our naive illusions about the world even as the Great
Depression and two World Wars still were operating in our rear-view mirror of perception. Because, as
the growing reality and horror of what nuclear warfare would incur entered into our collective psyche,
we as a nation found ourselves swinging between the pendulum of denial, fear and regression or
patriotic zeal, expectation and vision. Thus, it was in this assorted stew of conflicting realities
concerning world history and our American experience that I could easily title this essay “The Cusp of
Change...”.

 Why? Because, a “cusp” is like the twilight zone or setting and rising sun where neither darkness or
light seems to command or prevail. In astrological terms the “cusp” is the dividing line between two
“ages” (i.e. Aires & Taurus) whereas, there is a seeming overlap between two conditions or realities.
Similarly, I can say that from the time I was born in 1955 to the year of 1964 (when Freedomland shut
down) was like a global “cusp line” that saw immense technological changes (i.e. the invention of TV &
radio, computer, space exploration) in our lives and extensive global geo-political changes (i.e. the end
of colonial regimes) as never before seen in history.  Moreover, from the birth of the modern Civil
Rights Movement under the leadership of Martin Luther King, Jr. onto to our radical changes in
hairstyles and clothing attire; first, being ushered into focus by the new musical craze sensation import
from the UK known as the Beatles, or the “Afro hairstyles” of the “black is beautiful” movement,
Americans and the world as a whole were being transformed. The “Cusp of Change...” between 1954
to 1964, which saw the re-birth of a land called “Camelot” during the Kennedy years was in some
ways not markedly different in tone or tenor than the “candle in the wind” marked by the life of
Princess Diane, or the collapse of the Berlin Wall, the release of the jailed South African leader
Nelson Mandela, along with the end of apartheid; or perhaps, as it is today being symbolized in the
notion of “transformation” that has been reawakened recently with the election of President Barack
H. Obama. For certainly, the idealism of the youth, or the dreams and aspirations of the
disenfranchised, or the implicit hope we each have for a better day are as real to us now on this 2009
Independence Day as it was to those in the baby-boomer generation that led to the amazing changes
of the 1960s and created that dream space called Freedomland.

The election of America's first president of African-American descent was something my Mom certainly
did not live to witness. But, I know she would have been immensely proud and amazed at this
milestone in American life given America's sorrowful, sorted and pitiful past history regarding race
relations or the rejection of progressive causes like women's rights. So it is time for me to say please sit
back, get a nice cup of herbal tea as I reminisce a bit more, and continue taking us down memory lane
with this special remembrance of the times surrounding the life of my Mom, myself, and what was once
known as Freedomland USA.

    END PART I

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Glenn Gales & his two-year old grandson Julien, who also
shares the birthday celebration of July 4th!
Your Comments on the "Cusp of Change" Article or this Page, Are Always Welcome!
Your Posts Below!
I read the tribute to Ms Beryl and I hope others that read it, enjoy it like i did.  You really took us
back down memory lane from the 60's up to the present and I'm sure that many of us, that grew up
in that 50', 60's and 70's era have fond memories of what it was like to listen to the magical music,
listen to the many revolutionary speakers, dress in our best clothes (hang out at parties) of that time
and go to the theme parks in our different cities. For African Americans-around this area
(Washington, DC) our hang out park was Marshall Hall.  We would board the boat down at 6 and
Half street S.W. and enjoy the many entertainment venues that were offered even before we arrived
at the park.  (There was always a band, food for sale, slot machines and bowling, right on-board).  
The white (peoples) park was Glen Echo Park (since DC was still under segregation at the time).  

I certainly enjoy those days and your tribute to Ms Beryl brought back those memories.  I never
heard of Freedomland until reading this article.  Later on, of course, we had Kings' Dominion and
Six Flags. I know your mom would have been very pleased with your tribute to her and hopefully
friends and family members can appreciate the time and effort u put into making such a tribute
possible. It would be nice for them to give a response too.    
    Peace, Glenn M. Gales
Glenn Gales & his two-year old grandson Julian, who also
shares his birthday celebration around July 4th!