A peculiar, older African American
fellow walked through the doorframe of the speakeasy. His face was weathered
and folded from age. He looked to be at least 75 years old. His crooked back
limped forward as if he was carrying a huge boulder on his back. He slowly
crawled his way to the vacant barstool next to mine. Once he was finally in his
seat, he raised a frail finger to get the bartender’s attention. The bartender,
of course, ignored him in favor of serving white customers, which wasn’t
uncommon even in a progressive city like Chicago.
I gently
held my hand up getting the bartender’s attention. He headed over in my
direction and asked what I wanted. Whiskey neat, I told him. Once the drink was
placed in front of me, I looked around the room to see if anyone was watching.
Once concluding that everyone was too drunk to notice anything, I slyly glided
the gold, gleaming drink to my neighbor. His drooped eyelids lifted in shock
and he turned his attention to me by giving me a small, “Thank you.”
He took a
delicate sip of his drink before setting it down on the mahogany bar. His deep,
brown eyes looked into my sparkling, blue ones. He cleared his throat and
gently asked, “I’m not used to the kindness of your folk. Have you ever been to
the deep South?”
I nodded my
head, yes, yes I have. He told a dark story about growing up as a servant boy
working in the house of a wealthy plantation owner. After the war, he lived in
the sinister streets of New Orleans. He told me he relied on, for most of his
life, the kindness of strangers (which didn’t happen often).
Others whose ancestors weren't even considered people. They know
the history.
His words took me by surprise. In my travels to the South,
all I had known was Southern hospitality by those who had housed me. The rich
history that seemed to echo in every stately building I had been in. I looked
to this man to my left and realized he had known a very different South than I
did.
Two sides to that
coin, two sides to this city, & two sides to its story.
Photo Credits
http://4girlsandaghost.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/oak-alley-plantation2.jpg
http://www.debsnelsonphotography.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/03/Magnolia-Gardens-Charleston-South-Carolina-bridge.jpg
http://media.web.britannica.com/eb-media/67/104567-004-B4654400.jpg
http://crescentok.com/staff/jaskew/TAH/OK/slave2.gif
The font contrast in you post was something that caught my interest beyond just the normal "it's very black and white" concept. It was something that I noticed when I was trying to make it out from the dark background that blended it in. It was that it is a text that is hidden well from the eyes of it's viewer, but still very much there. In contrasting the concept of white and black in the text and in the deep south, you brought up a very impressive way of showing us that there is more than just a color difference and that one race showed prejudice and hatred towards the other.
ReplyDeleteYou showed voice in a way that I haven't seen before, and am very impressed by it. You showed me that something that someone would put off as simply being "too difficult to read" as the exact problem with the times of slavery. things like this were easy for people who weren't interested to gloss over, and those who were trying to find out more to become frustrated with. It was showing an attempt to mask the voices of an entire people in a very fluid way. Great job!