Reflections of the Delta

I took a journal with me and wrote this entry July 12, 2010, my first full day in the Mississippi Delta. For confidentiality purposes, I did not use real names in this piece.

Today was a good day filled with laughter, stories, smiles, stares and humidity. Pennsylvania Eric and I drove to Indianola to check out B.B Kings' blues club for live music- but there wasn't any.
I guess I'm in awe with the landscape. I witnessed an orange setting sun so big and bright, I drove by cotton, soy bean and corn fields. Long, large, wide mileage, as far as the eye can see of land. For me, the level of vastness is overwhelming. It has a way of sucking your energy a bit. Like I wonder, what do people dream here? They must've gotten used to the quiet. I've passed a couple of people that seemed to be doing well. Dressed well...
The men speak much more to me and I wonder if that's a flirtatious thing on their part or jealously on the part of the women. I sometimes hate the way we approach others with skepticism, especially as black women. I get the sense sometimes that I'm being watched. That everyone can tell I'm an out of towner...
This trip really has me thinking of abject poverty and race. In the middle of it all, people still praise and thank God and I think it's incredibly brave but hope they're not ignoring opportunities that God has given them.

Texture

The texture of the Delta:
Everyday was over 95 degrees with 95% humidity, even after 6 o'clock in the evening.
You could feel the strength of the sun and could not stand comfortably in it for more than 30 seconds.
I am probably three shades darker after my week here in the Delta.
If you look straight ahead of you at the landscape, you'd notice hundreds of dragonflies zipping by you, fluttering their light transparent wings and making small smack! noises as they smash against the cement pavement.
Acres and miles of continuous land. Flat land. As far as the eye can see land.
And perhaps in the distance the sketches of trees that look like fluffy broccoli but scattered along the edges of the great Mississippi river that you can't see.
Old, worn, faded, colorful, once vibrant red brick.
Remnants of stores names- missing first, last or middle letters.
Wooden slats in broken windows
Roofless homes with wild green growing on the in and outside.
Shot gun houses
Brown and orange rust on the side of the trailer homes
Crowded clotheslines on front yards littered with parts of cars and trash
Massive fields of cotton, corn, soy beans and catfish farms
Gas stations with the partnerships of food and stationary older men with hats, trapped in game and conversation, watching people pass by.
Crooked street signs- some facing the wrong way or naming the wrong streets
Towns which were filled with vibrancy, energy and promise have been deserted and never reclaimed.
Blue skies, sometimes clouded by gray
Mosquitoes that prohibit you from hanging outside at night
Charming, poetic, and sad

The best compliment I've ever received

Today, July 18, 2010 I received the most rewarding compliment of my entire life!
A man, an older (mid to late 60's) black man with mostly salt and a little pepper gray hair sitting at a small table in McDonalds on highway 61 said to me, "Are you from Mound Bayou?"
I turned to him and smiled so wide.
After being introduced to the neighborhood several days ago, I decided to go back yesterday to take pictures of the Taborian hospital and the Edwards ave street sign.
I assumed he saw me there yesterday.
I assumed he recognized me from the streets, that I looked familiar to him, that I was spotted as a tourist. And I was wrong...
He did recognize me but not because it was rural Mississippi and everyone knows everyone, and he happened to be recalling a fragment of yesterday's memory.
He recognized the pride and grace
He recognized the poise and education
He recognized a light
He saw me as part of a movement, part of a seed that was planted some time ago. A memory that clearly still lives today. To be from Mound Bayou meant to be from an all black successful, educated, privileged community that gave back. An all black community that had their own power, institutions and riches in a way that's not so rare in American history but unique nonetheless.
He told me he is a maintenance worker in the Cleveland school district, I told him I am a teacher.
We chatted about the state of of education in the Delta and for the rest of the day I felt drawn to their cause and wanted to come back to help.
Yes, in all honesty asking me if I was from Mound Bayou was truly the best compliment I've ever received!

Food

I can only attempt to mention the food of the Mississippi delta through this list... I did not have the time to experience it all, but I did taste most of what's mentioned below.

Pulled BBQ pork, grilled corn, okra, green beans, corn bread, lima beans, rice and gravy, smothered fried, smoked, and baked chicken, turkey, stuffing topped with yellow gravy, mashed potatoes, cannied yams, crab cakes, shrimp, seasoned and regular fries, hush puppies, Catfish, kool-icles (pickles soaked in kool-aid for a wk), fried pickles, fried okra

Sweet tea, lemonade, peach cobbler, banana pudding, sweet potato pie, pork and chicken rinds, tamales, fried chicken and pound cake.
On the first day I represented hard and threw down at the lunch table buffet! When I was on line for seconds, I got to witness first hand how the people of the Delta taste their food.
They placed cornbread in a bowl, topped it with string beans or lima beans and added the juices from the beans. I asked someone about this mixture and he referred to it as liquor, lol.

Chili pie

Don't be fooled by the name because this is not simply a pie of chili
it's their version of Nachos and cheese, only better (so I've been told)

Frito chips, chili, nacho cheese, jalepenos, and onions.

I watched it being prepared and was tempted to try it, but I don't like nacho cheese :-/

Moved to tears

I wasn't planning to write about this initially but I figured I should share it. In the Delta we visited so many emotional and historically important sights pertaining to civil rights: The Bryant's store in Money (Where Emmett Till "whistles" at Caroline Bryant), The barn in Drew where Emmett was brutally murdered, the courthouse in Sumner where the men who killed Emmett were found innocent.
I was moved to tears on several occasions. But tears actually streamed down my face on two...
The first was the visit to Ms. Fannie Lou Hamer's grave.
She was a sharecropper who joined the fight and tried to get the blacks in her town of Ruleville to register to vote. The registration process wasn't easy- among many things, on the application blacks had to list employers, read, interpret and translate parts of the constitution without help to workers who were completely biased (in light terms). In a culture of terror and fear, she insisted on pushing through Jim crow voting laws and in her attempts to make her voice heard, she was jailed and brutally beaten. I knew of Ms. Hamer vaguely but on this occasion, I heard her story of job loss, relocation, congregation and her rally to gather an integrated representation for the democratic national convention of '64 (Mississippi Freedom Dem. Party). In the live broadcasting of her speech conveying to the American public of the conditions in the south and voting, Lyndon B. Johnson cut her off and switched from the live broadcast.
Something about her persistence in a time of such resistance moved me to tears.

The second occasion was after a couple of hours at the Civil Rights Museum in Memphis when I watched footage, stood in the room and reflected on the place where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.
On the balcony of the Lorraine Motel standing next to his friend Rev. Kyles, as he was speaking to Jesse Jackson below, King was assassinated. And I know that we hear the same "I have a Dream" facts of MLK and so by the time we are of a certain age we think we all of the man meant. But, U.S. history paints Dr. King, Rosa Parks, genocide of Native Americans, and so many other things in a simplistic and therefore inaccurate light. I could go on for days about the new details I've learned about Dr. King over the years and in the Delta..but I won't. I'll just say that 40 years later I am still touched, and moved to tears by his motivation, perseverance and language. 40 yrs later I am still in awe. 40 yrs. later I am still trying to figure out how he maintained peace and even overcame the fear of death.

If you get a chance check out the following documentaries: MLK: from Montgomery to Memphis and The Witness from the balcony of room 306

What we are taught

In an earlier entry I mentioned that Pennsylvanian Eric and I tried to see live music in Indianola on our first night in the Delta. Although we had known each other for less than 24 hrs, I trusted this guy, who I thought was similar to me- probably because he is around my age, and from the same region of the country. I also made the assumption that Pennsylvania E was bi-racial (African American and white). On the 40 min drive from Cleveland to Indianola, I expressed my awe with the landscape that he was used to because he grew up in rural Pennsylvania.
Pennsylvania E was driving pretty fast and I made a couple of comments about his speed but tried to relax and not be so uptight. We pull up to the spot and immediately E begins to take pictures. The spot was on a residential block and there were a least five young men chillin' outside. I was feeling apprehensive and couldn't place exactly why. I had sensed that we were in a "different" part of town, but had no basis to confirm my safety. I was in a completely different place in our country and didn't want to use my experience to draw some conclusions about anything, since I knew it would be so skewed.
Inside, E immediately starts talking to people, ordering beers and in my opinion making himself a very clear presence in the room. Again I was uncomfortable with this...
It took me a day to really understand why..
As a young African American growing up in the North, I know that the legacy and history of the South (particularly the way blacks were treated by whites in the South) remains in me today. It begins with my distrust of strangers but doesn't end there. Learning how to function in a culture of brutality and cruelty has extreme effects, one is the freedom to ask questions.
Follow me here, I was annoyed with E and if you asked me why day 1, I would have said he was asking too many questions. How could he be so naive to put himself out there as an outsider?, and further more, who did he think he was asking so many questions?
I was indirectly taught that you don't ask questions. That things are the way they are and in order to survive you must accept them (at least on a surface level). Those that can excessively ask questions are in a place of privilege because they don't have to think about the consequences of their question asking. Those of us that grew up in certain communities have a looming threat of consequence always hanging above our heads and therefore observe first. I know I tend to be a little dramatic, but I felt like Pennsylvania E had put us in an unnecessary spotlight. At this point, things just didn't add up. Where did you grow up? Where are your parents from? I guess I was looking for something to explain his behavior. I eventually found a possible answer.
Maybe I was super paranoid and maybe I could learn something about fear and questioning from him. A nice, harmless friendly, inquisitive, nature doesn't necessarily always mean ignorance. At the end of the day we were safe and welcomed. Needless to say, we had a good time and experienced a taste of life in the Delta