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Fiction
Removal at Seminole Mound
By Linda Trice
A young woman walked quietly through the forest that was unknown to her. In appearance, she seemed like any other female of her age. She wore a long sleeved tee-shirt depicting the logo of the college where she was a student of anthropology and folklore. Her face was summer tanned. What marked her as one on a quest to satisfy the Ancestor was her hair — long, thick braids held tight by leather strings and strips of blood red cloth.
She had always lived with and been raised by the grandmother who sent her on this spiritual journey. It was the custom among their African ancestors to give the first born child to the grandmother. That child would live with her grandmother and devote her life to caring for her. And thus it had been.
Grandmother told the young woman that an African ancestor, a high priest, escaped from enslavement in the Carolinas and came to Florida, where he was given sanctuary by the Seminole. He married into the fold and had children by his wife, who some called a shaman because of her knowledge of herbs and roots. Their children had children by others in the group, some African, some Seminole.
But Andrew Jackson, Wiley Thompson, Thomas Jessup and others demanded the Africans return to perpetual slavery. Their beloved children would be taken from them and sold. The Seminole were told to walk to reservations in Oklahoma and leave their lands for the whites. The United States government called it “Removal.”
The Seminole fought. Many died. The army kept the survivors away from the dead, so the bodies of some, such as the Ancestor and most of his children, were left on the ground to rot.
Thus, the quest of the young woman was to find Seminole Mound, the site of the massacre, and, once there, to set things right.
Her grandmother sent her on this spiritual journey with sacred herbs and knowledge of their chants. Grandmother made the journey when she was a young woman and planted Jimson weed on the sacred site. By the plant and its white trumpet-like flowers, the young woman would know she had arrived at the Seminole Mound.
The young woman was not bothered by the buzzing insects. Her knowledge of the swamps protected her from poisonous snakes, alligators, and other living forms which plague the Northerners who moved to Florida.
At last she came to the area, but as her grandmother had predicted, it was no longer uninhabited. A run down cabin sat on top of the small mound.
She waited until she was sure no one was around, performed her ceremony, then slipped back into the forest and went home. The deed was done.
~~~
Cassandra approached Wiley Jessup’s dilapidated house with trepidation. She tried to shake the feeling off. Locals said the mound was cursed and wouldn’t go near the place. They saw ghosts and strange lights at night. Scientists from the University said it was just swamp gas. She thought of the legend and just as quickly discounted it. That's why the artist had been able to buy the property so cheaply from her agency. After all, the area abounded with wild tales of the supernatural. The Swamp Ape was the regional version of Big Foot. Sensational media placed South Florida within the Bermuda Triangle and claimed the lost continent of Atlantis was off the coast.
Cassandra leaned against a nearly dead tree and appraised the property. Bleak. Dirt. Jimson weed was the only plant, and it was struggling to survive. Locals called it the Devil’s Trumpet because of the triangle shaped flowers. Wiley’s property was just a worthless piece of land. The only use it was good for was just what Wiley was putting it to— a retreat from the world; he had surely done that.
Minutes later, she was sitting next to the painter in his living room. The burly man was dressed in his usual attire— torn denim shorts and a tee-shirt with the arms ripped off. His clothes were faded and splattered with paint.
"Really Wiley, I worry about you,” Cassandra said. “You have such artistic talent, but you're alone too much. You should get out more, be with people."
He ignored her. He was too busy admiring his newest work, a self‑portrait. Although he hadn't hung it yet, it was large enough for him to enjoy as it lay against the wall. "What do you think?"
"It captures your essence,” she said. “It's the real you, the bushy eyebrows, your rugged looks."
He nodded, agreeing with her.
"It's different from your other works, 'County Courthouse,’ ‘Baseball Training Camp.' Those are gritty, yet they capture the essence and culture of Beneva County, of much of South Florida in fact. They're realistic, earthy and so ... so you."
He smiled, looking at the painting, not at the woman.
She put her now empty beer can on the floor and stood. Obviously he just wanted someone to admire his latest work. "Got to go now," she said.
When she reached the door, she looked back at him. Cassandra was about to say something but realized that Wiley was still intently savoring his latest work.
She let herself out, got into her car and drove off. She had her own life to lead.
~~~
There was an opening that night. Wiley's agent strenuously urged him to attend. A Miami collector was interested in some of Wiley's more expensive works but refused to buy them until he had gotten to know the artist. Wine poured freely, as usual.
Afterwards the collector insisted that Wiley and the agent accompany him to The Quay for bourbon and jazz. The collector insisted upon buying “just one more round,” then another, and another.
As Wiley pulled into his isolated house a few minutes before midnight, he realized he'd forgotten to eat dinner. The wine and bourbon made him clutch his stomach.
Instead of going into the kitchen to get something to eat, he went to the self‑portrait. He studied it intently, his hands on his hips, his legs spread. Cassandra was right. It did capture his essence.
He looked past it to a portrait he'd painted of a former girlfriend, a dancer with a ballet troupe. It was unlike most of his work. He had done it in pale pinks and ivory, colors that reminded him of her soft gentleness.
The figure was intent on tying her pink slipper, but, gently and slowly, her head came up. She turned around, stared at Wiley, and stepped out of the painting. Standing quite still, now five feet tall, she moved into a corner and twirled round and around.
To the left of the ballerina, the "Riverview High School Band" began to play. A uniformed tuba player marched off the painting, followed by drummers, bagpipe players, and then the entire band. All two hundred and fifty of them marched with precise steps into the bedroom.
The surf in Wiley's "Siesta Key Beach" began to splash. Some of the bathers spread their blankets in front of Wiley's wall. High school girls started a volleyball game.
Wiley stared, speechless, horrified, but the wine, bourbon and the late hour overtook him. He slumped down onto the blanket of the Siesta Key bathers and passed out.
In the corner, the ballerina still twirled.
~~~
Wiley woke in his bed. He didn't know how he got there. He didn't remember removing his clothes, but there they were, his shirt and best jeans, tangled in a heap on the floor near his good sandals.
He shook his head again, remembering last night. He stared at the painting in front of him. "The Bridge Players" silently inspected their cards. Next to it, another of his works showed diners at a seaside restaurant. The patrons were seated, their cigarettes and coffee cups poised in mid‑air. All the other paintings in the bedroom were as they should be, still.
It must have been the wine, he thought as he showered and dressed.
Not totally convinced that it had only been a bad dream, he inspected the paintings in the living room. The ballerina was still bending over her pink slipper. The band was in their state of blessed stillness.
Wiley shook his head again. It had to have been the wine. From now on he was sticking strictly to beer.
~~~
Soon the house was filled with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and the sounds of Wiley whistling as he began hanging his self‑portrait. An hour later, he made a sandwich with the last roll and whatever cold cuts he had left.
He groaned. He'd have to go into town later. He hated the nosy townspeople, the friendly kids at the checkout. Too friendly. He came out here to paint, not to make friends.
~~~
There was another opening that night. It was so crowded that Wiley didn't get a chance to have more than two glasses of wine. They had no beer. His agent had insisted he come. His agent often had lousy ideas. This was one.
~~~
That night, Wiley approached his house with trepidation. As he stood in front of the door, he thought he heard music.
He smiled to himself. Of course. Probably some kids parked way back doing something they shouldn't in the back seat of a banged up old car. Music carried out here.
As soon as he entered the house, he got a can of cold beer. Savoring a swallow, he sat down on his sofa, put his feet up, and enjoyed his paintings.
When he went to get another beer, he patted his "Pickers in an Orange Grove" hanging outside the kitchen and caressed his "Circus Winter Headquarters" hanging on the opposite wall.
Then he heard a caressing female voice gently call his name.
His head jerked towards the window, then the television.
There was no one outside.
The television was blank.
He shook his head and took another sip of beer.
It was then that he heard the sound. Like a music box. Soft and tinkling.
He looked up. The ballerina was standing before him, smiling. She pirouetted towards a corner and twirled round and around.
The two hundred and fifty member Riverview High School Band played their instruments and marched through the room. The animals from "County Fair" began bleating and weaving through the musicians’ feet. The noise was deafening.
A man with an orange for a face came in from the bedroom. "Come," the man spoke. Mesmerized by the horror, and with an insatiable curiosity, Wiley followed the faceless man, the band, and the parade.
He watched, fascinated as the creatures and the people miniaturized and flowed into their respective frames.
Wiley wheeled around as the person who had led him at the end of the parade into the bedroom shrank and floated into a frame above the bed.
Then Wiley noticed another painting — his self‑portrait which he had just hung. As he stared, he felt an odd sensation. He was becoming smaller. He was soaring through the air, towards the self-portrait, the image of an artist with a white Devil’s Trumpet flower dangling from his hand.
People still claim to see ghostly lights and hear plaintive cries. Researchers at the University just as adamantly discount it all as local superstition.
The End
*** HISTORICAL NOTE: Andrew Jackson’s invasion of Florida led to the First Seminole War. The Removal Act was passed in 1830. Seminoles were forced to leave Florida and walk to Oklahoma. Wiley Thompson was in charge of the Removal. Thomas Jessup, the commander of all U.S. troops in Florida during the Second Seminole War said about the Seminole, "The country can be rid of them only by exterminating them." ***
By Linda Trice
A young woman walked quietly through the forest that was unknown to her. In appearance, she seemed like any other female of her age. She wore a long sleeved tee-shirt depicting the logo of the college where she was a student of anthropology and folklore. Her face was summer tanned. What marked her as one on a quest to satisfy the Ancestor was her hair — long, thick braids held tight by leather strings and strips of blood red cloth.
She had always lived with and been raised by the grandmother who sent her on this spiritual journey. It was the custom among their African ancestors to give the first born child to the grandmother. That child would live with her grandmother and devote her life to caring for her. And thus it had been.
Grandmother told the young woman that an African ancestor, a high priest, escaped from enslavement in the Carolinas and came to Florida, where he was given sanctuary by the Seminole. He married into the fold and had children by his wife, who some called a shaman because of her knowledge of herbs and roots. Their children had children by others in the group, some African, some Seminole.
But Andrew Jackson, Wiley Thompson, Thomas Jessup and others demanded the Africans return to perpetual slavery. Their beloved children would be taken from them and sold. The Seminole were told to walk to reservations in Oklahoma and leave their lands for the whites. The United States government called it “Removal.”
The Seminole fought. Many died. The army kept the survivors away from the dead, so the bodies of some, such as the Ancestor and most of his children, were left on the ground to rot.
Thus, the quest of the young woman was to find Seminole Mound, the site of the massacre, and, once there, to set things right.
Her grandmother sent her on this spiritual journey with sacred herbs and knowledge of their chants. Grandmother made the journey when she was a young woman and planted Jimson weed on the sacred site. By the plant and its white trumpet-like flowers, the young woman would know she had arrived at the Seminole Mound.
The young woman was not bothered by the buzzing insects. Her knowledge of the swamps protected her from poisonous snakes, alligators, and other living forms which plague the Northerners who moved to Florida.
At last she came to the area, but as her grandmother had predicted, it was no longer uninhabited. A run down cabin sat on top of the small mound.
She waited until she was sure no one was around, performed her ceremony, then slipped back into the forest and went home. The deed was done.
~~~
Cassandra approached Wiley Jessup’s dilapidated house with trepidation. She tried to shake the feeling off. Locals said the mound was cursed and wouldn’t go near the place. They saw ghosts and strange lights at night. Scientists from the University said it was just swamp gas. She thought of the legend and just as quickly discounted it. That's why the artist had been able to buy the property so cheaply from her agency. After all, the area abounded with wild tales of the supernatural. The Swamp Ape was the regional version of Big Foot. Sensational media placed South Florida within the Bermuda Triangle and claimed the lost continent of Atlantis was off the coast.
Cassandra leaned against a nearly dead tree and appraised the property. Bleak. Dirt. Jimson weed was the only plant, and it was struggling to survive. Locals called it the Devil’s Trumpet because of the triangle shaped flowers. Wiley’s property was just a worthless piece of land. The only use it was good for was just what Wiley was putting it to— a retreat from the world; he had surely done that.
Minutes later, she was sitting next to the painter in his living room. The burly man was dressed in his usual attire— torn denim shorts and a tee-shirt with the arms ripped off. His clothes were faded and splattered with paint.
"Really Wiley, I worry about you,” Cassandra said. “You have such artistic talent, but you're alone too much. You should get out more, be with people."
He ignored her. He was too busy admiring his newest work, a self‑portrait. Although he hadn't hung it yet, it was large enough for him to enjoy as it lay against the wall. "What do you think?"
"It captures your essence,” she said. “It's the real you, the bushy eyebrows, your rugged looks."
He nodded, agreeing with her.
"It's different from your other works, 'County Courthouse,’ ‘Baseball Training Camp.' Those are gritty, yet they capture the essence and culture of Beneva County, of much of South Florida in fact. They're realistic, earthy and so ... so you."
He smiled, looking at the painting, not at the woman.
She put her now empty beer can on the floor and stood. Obviously he just wanted someone to admire his latest work. "Got to go now," she said.
When she reached the door, she looked back at him. Cassandra was about to say something but realized that Wiley was still intently savoring his latest work.
She let herself out, got into her car and drove off. She had her own life to lead.
~~~
There was an opening that night. Wiley's agent strenuously urged him to attend. A Miami collector was interested in some of Wiley's more expensive works but refused to buy them until he had gotten to know the artist. Wine poured freely, as usual.
Afterwards the collector insisted that Wiley and the agent accompany him to The Quay for bourbon and jazz. The collector insisted upon buying “just one more round,” then another, and another.
As Wiley pulled into his isolated house a few minutes before midnight, he realized he'd forgotten to eat dinner. The wine and bourbon made him clutch his stomach.
Instead of going into the kitchen to get something to eat, he went to the self‑portrait. He studied it intently, his hands on his hips, his legs spread. Cassandra was right. It did capture his essence.
He looked past it to a portrait he'd painted of a former girlfriend, a dancer with a ballet troupe. It was unlike most of his work. He had done it in pale pinks and ivory, colors that reminded him of her soft gentleness.
The figure was intent on tying her pink slipper, but, gently and slowly, her head came up. She turned around, stared at Wiley, and stepped out of the painting. Standing quite still, now five feet tall, she moved into a corner and twirled round and around.
To the left of the ballerina, the "Riverview High School Band" began to play. A uniformed tuba player marched off the painting, followed by drummers, bagpipe players, and then the entire band. All two hundred and fifty of them marched with precise steps into the bedroom.
The surf in Wiley's "Siesta Key Beach" began to splash. Some of the bathers spread their blankets in front of Wiley's wall. High school girls started a volleyball game.
Wiley stared, speechless, horrified, but the wine, bourbon and the late hour overtook him. He slumped down onto the blanket of the Siesta Key bathers and passed out.
In the corner, the ballerina still twirled.
~~~
Wiley woke in his bed. He didn't know how he got there. He didn't remember removing his clothes, but there they were, his shirt and best jeans, tangled in a heap on the floor near his good sandals.
He shook his head again, remembering last night. He stared at the painting in front of him. "The Bridge Players" silently inspected their cards. Next to it, another of his works showed diners at a seaside restaurant. The patrons were seated, their cigarettes and coffee cups poised in mid‑air. All the other paintings in the bedroom were as they should be, still.
It must have been the wine, he thought as he showered and dressed.
Not totally convinced that it had only been a bad dream, he inspected the paintings in the living room. The ballerina was still bending over her pink slipper. The band was in their state of blessed stillness.
Wiley shook his head again. It had to have been the wine. From now on he was sticking strictly to beer.
~~~
Soon the house was filled with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee and the sounds of Wiley whistling as he began hanging his self‑portrait. An hour later, he made a sandwich with the last roll and whatever cold cuts he had left.
He groaned. He'd have to go into town later. He hated the nosy townspeople, the friendly kids at the checkout. Too friendly. He came out here to paint, not to make friends.
~~~
There was another opening that night. It was so crowded that Wiley didn't get a chance to have more than two glasses of wine. They had no beer. His agent had insisted he come. His agent often had lousy ideas. This was one.
~~~
That night, Wiley approached his house with trepidation. As he stood in front of the door, he thought he heard music.
He smiled to himself. Of course. Probably some kids parked way back doing something they shouldn't in the back seat of a banged up old car. Music carried out here.
As soon as he entered the house, he got a can of cold beer. Savoring a swallow, he sat down on his sofa, put his feet up, and enjoyed his paintings.
When he went to get another beer, he patted his "Pickers in an Orange Grove" hanging outside the kitchen and caressed his "Circus Winter Headquarters" hanging on the opposite wall.
Then he heard a caressing female voice gently call his name.
His head jerked towards the window, then the television.
There was no one outside.
The television was blank.
He shook his head and took another sip of beer.
It was then that he heard the sound. Like a music box. Soft and tinkling.
He looked up. The ballerina was standing before him, smiling. She pirouetted towards a corner and twirled round and around.
The two hundred and fifty member Riverview High School Band played their instruments and marched through the room. The animals from "County Fair" began bleating and weaving through the musicians’ feet. The noise was deafening.
A man with an orange for a face came in from the bedroom. "Come," the man spoke. Mesmerized by the horror, and with an insatiable curiosity, Wiley followed the faceless man, the band, and the parade.
He watched, fascinated as the creatures and the people miniaturized and flowed into their respective frames.
Wiley wheeled around as the person who had led him at the end of the parade into the bedroom shrank and floated into a frame above the bed.
Then Wiley noticed another painting — his self‑portrait which he had just hung. As he stared, he felt an odd sensation. He was becoming smaller. He was soaring through the air, towards the self-portrait, the image of an artist with a white Devil’s Trumpet flower dangling from his hand.
People still claim to see ghostly lights and hear plaintive cries. Researchers at the University just as adamantly discount it all as local superstition.
The End
*** HISTORICAL NOTE: Andrew Jackson’s invasion of Florida led to the First Seminole War. The Removal Act was passed in 1830. Seminoles were forced to leave Florida and walk to Oklahoma. Wiley Thompson was in charge of the Removal. Thomas Jessup, the commander of all U.S. troops in Florida during the Second Seminole War said about the Seminole, "The country can be rid of them only by exterminating them." ***
Hybrid
One World, Or None
By Allison Whittenberg
Mama, how come you never told me about
the A-bomb?
Were we too busy
running from the men
with pillowcases and sheets
to duck and cover?
How come there’s never
any of us in those
public service announcements?
They claim we can’t get
a suntan, but are we also
immune to gamma rays?
Is it like flesh colored
crayons, something that
was created without
us in mind?
There weren’t
whites only signs
on the air raid shelters
so I guess
they would
have
cracked
open
the door,
if we knocked
hard enough,
right?
We would have been
one
big,
at last,
happy family,
at the end of the world,
wouldn’t we?
By Allison Whittenberg
Mama, how come you never told me about
the A-bomb?
Were we too busy
running from the men
with pillowcases and sheets
to duck and cover?
How come there’s never
any of us in those
public service announcements?
They claim we can’t get
a suntan, but are we also
immune to gamma rays?
Is it like flesh colored
crayons, something that
was created without
us in mind?
There weren’t
whites only signs
on the air raid shelters
so I guess
they would
have
cracked
open
the door,
if we knocked
hard enough,
right?
We would have been
one
big,
at last,
happy family,
at the end of the world,
wouldn’t we?
Non-Fiction
Welcome to the Neighborhood
By Lisa Braxton
They stepped out of front doors, proceeded down spacious brick pathways to the foot of their manicured lawns, and with the precision of a military unit, pivoted to face us. All of them were white—men and women—homeowners in a leafy enclave in Fairfield County, Connecticut suburbia anchored by raised ranches, Dutch Colonials, and split-level homes.
All eyes were on us—my mother, father, sister and me—as the realtor led us down the front steps of a well-appointed three-bedroom, three-bathroom house with a two-car garage that she’d just shown us.
It was around 1969. I was eight or nine-years-old at the time. My dad was carrying my sister, who was a toddler. I remember my parents’ stride toward our car slowed as they realized that we were under surveillance. The members of our “audience,” consisting of about a dozen people on both sides of the street, were expressionless, motionless, arms hanging at their sides. Their body language was unreadable, but their presence screamed volumes.
I don’t recall what the realtor said to my parents as she took in the scene, but I remember that she was flustered, apologetic, and tripped over her words. It was a moment that she had apparently not anticipated—the visceral reaction of white residents at a black family being shown a house in their affluent neighborhood. At my age, I didn’t think deeply about their demonstration, but I did find it odd that all of those adults were standing on their front lawns, their eyes on us. As my father put our car into gear, I scooted to the edge of my seat in the back to eavesdrop on my parents’ conversation as I often did when we were on car rides.
My mother leaned toward my father, and in a hushed tone said, “They don’t want us living here.” After a moment, he gave a slight nod and said just as quietly, “I know.” I slid back on my seat, my eavesdropping undetected.
At that age I knew a little bit about prejudice. I had a classmate who made a remark when we were in the third grade that stunned me. My class was lined up at the water fountain after coming back from chapel at the church next door that operated our parochial school. She blurted out angrily, “I wish all the black people would go back to Africa!” When I came home upset about the incident my parents sat me down for a talk and said that most likely she’d heard that remark from her parents and was repeating what they’d said.
A child in my neighborhood with whom I’d spent countless hours having pretend picnics and competing on who could swing the highest on my swing set made the statement one day as we played near the fence that divided our yards, “White people are better than black people.” With indignation I retorted, “No, they’re not!” My naïve childhood self didn’t understand why anyone would think something so ridiculous. I felt that the idea of white people being better than black people turned logic on its head. How could one group be better than another?
After we ping-ponged our positions on the matter for a while, I ran into the house to tell my mother about my friend’s unfathomable pronouncement. I still remember the pained look on my mother’s face
.
At the time of the silent front lawn protest, I didn’t know that this was but the latest racial indignity my parents had had shoved in their faces. They came of age in the early 1950s in the western section of Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley region, known generally for its picturesque, bucolic nature, but also for an ugliness manifested in hostility for many African Americans.
Because of Jim Crow laws, my parents attended segregated schools. They told me that whenever they came close to approaching a white person on the sidewalk, they had to lower their heads and step into the street. Taking a bus involved going to the “black” section in the back and standing if there were no seats, even if there were empty seats up front. Dining out involved going to the back door of a restaurant for takeout. My mother recounts saying nothing for fear of reprisal when white individuals would cut in front of her at retail stores when she was in line to pay for a purchase. And when she did get to the front of the line, she’d count her change to make sure she wasn’t being cheated.
My parents shared these accounts with me, and later, with my sister when she was old enough to understand, because they wanted us to have the best life possible. They wanted us to advocate for ourselves and understand that people would not always have our best interests in mind. They didn’t want us to be held back by people who used race as a means of control and disrespect.
Both of my parents knew that because of the racial climate, growing up poor in the South with only high school educations and not having connections to anyone with any level of power or influence, their prospects would be limited if they stayed in Virginia. Like a massive number of African Americans from southern rural areas during the middle of the past century, they made their way North. For my parents, “The Promised Land” was Bridgeport, Connecticut, an industrial force at the time.
Once they’d arrived, they realized that they hadn’t escaped racism, but encountered a subtler form of it. My mother would respond over the phone to a classified ad for an employment opportunity, be encouraged to come to the location to fill out an application, and then be told once she walked in the door that the job had been filled.
My parents discovered that there were only certain apartment buildings in the city that would rent to them and moved into one housing African American and Latinx renters. When they purchased their Cape Cod-style home in early 1961, they were the only non-white family on their block in the working-class neighborhood. A neighbor later told my mother that after she and my father bought the house, a man who lived around the corner from them went to every house on the block and “warned” them that a black family was moving in. She was told that one family put their house on the market in response and moved to the suburbs. It was common knowledge that at least one property owner, in possession of a large parcel of land in the neighborhood, would not sell homes to African Americans.
By the time my parents looked at that house in suburbia—one of many like it that they were shown during that period of time—my father had moved up from a machinist at the General Electric plant in Bridgeport to foreman. My parents were opening up a business, a high-end men’s clothing store. They had me enrolled at the parochial school and my mother was considering pursuing a bachelor’s degree and possibly law school. Mom and Dad were invited to join some of the African American professional charitable and civic clubs and organizations in Bridgeport. Moving out of their starter home to suburbia seemed like a logical step.
My parents chose not to pursue that house. Most likely they were concerned about hostility from the neighbors in light of the demonstration. They probably worried about my sister and me being subjected to racial taunts and remarks from neighborhood kids and classmates and also thought we’d feel isolated. Every so often on car rides near that neighborhood I’d overhear my mother, her voice catching in her throat, go back to that day and say to my father how terrible it was for, “those people to come out onto their front lawns like that.”
Mom and Dad stopped looking at houses and made improvements to the Cape Cod. They had the roof raised on the back and the attic upgraded so my sister and I could have separate bedrooms. By the time I reached my early teens, I noticed significant changes in the neighborhood. My white playmates had moved away. The white families whose homes flanked ours were gone. I heard that the property owner who refused to sell to African Americans had passed away. The neighborhood became more African American and Latinx. Recent immigrants moved in. A dramatic level of white flight occurred not just in my neighborhood but throughout the city. The white families most likely moved to the suburb where my parents went house hunting all those years earlier or to another Fairfield County suburb.
In 1958, political scientist Morton Grodzins identified that "once the proportion of non-whites exceeds the limits of the neighborhood’s tolerance for interracial living, whites move out." Grodzins termed this phenomenon the tipping point in the study of white flight, the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Economists attribute white flight both to racism and economics.
In the 1960s and '70s, "There goes the neighborhood," became a popular catchphrase, most likely originating as an expression of concern by a homeowner that a newcomer would lower property values and in many instances an expression of fear among white homeowners when the first minority family moved in.
Undoubtedly, thoughts of property values deteriorating was on the minds of the silent activists when we visited their neighborhood. Some of those residents may have lived in a Bridgeport neighborhood at one time and escaped to the suburbs when the racial ratio reached the tipping point. Our presence may have symbolized a nipping at their heels when they thought they had outrun us.
Black flight is a term applied to the migration of African Americans from predominantly black or mixed inner-city areas to suburbs and newly constructed homes on the outer edges of cities. In some ways their goals have been similar to those of the white middle class heading to the suburbs: newer housing, better schools for their children, and attractive environments, what my parents had in mind in their house hunting.
I couldn’t help but think back to that “front lawn moment” in the mid-1990s when I had a realtor helping me look for an apartment in the coal region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. I had accepted a news reporter position at a television station there and had driven to the area ahead of my start date for a weekend hoping to secure an apartment. Toward the end of the Saturday, after not finding anything I liked, the realtor suggested that I look at an apartment that was in her building. It was a charming corner unit in the heart of the downtown and had large, old-fashioned windows that let in plenty of light, decorative moldings along the doorways and ceilings, and walls of mirrors that had me reminiscing about visiting the hall of mirrors at the Palace of Versailles when I was a high school exchange student. The apartment was less than a block from the TV station. I’d be able to walk to work, the bank, the library, church, and just about everywhere else. I knew the moment I walked in the door that I wanted to rent it.
The realtor got on the phone with the owner to let him know that she had a renter. I noticed her jaw tighten in reaction to whatever he was saying on the other end. She glanced at me and said a series of “no’s.” into the receiver. I knew what was going on and was incensed. He was asking her about race. She next responded to him with a “yes.” Then after a pause, she said, “If you won’t rent to her, she’ll do an investigative report on you.” When she hung up, her tone was apologetic. She stated that some people in the community were narrow minded. She added that the owner wanted to meet with me before deciding whether or not to rent the apartment.
I looked forward to it. I wanted to meet this man who decided that because of race I shouldn’t be rented the apartment and only reconsidered under threat. After my meeting with him, the realtor handed me a rental agreement. I had mixed feelings as I signed and dated the document, but the window of time for me to find another apartment was limited.
Sociologists are finding that now that more minorities are moving into the suburbs, white flight is happening all over again. Samuel Kye at Indiana University has documented an exodus of white residents as more minorities have entered the middle class and established themselves in healthy suburban neighborhoods. Kye discovered that white flight was particularly pronounced in areas with fewer high school dropouts, strong home values, median income levels and large numbers of professionals. Low-income whites didn’t have the means to leave. His conclusions are in line with those of other academics who’ve done similar research.
The expression, “There goes the neighborhood,” may have gone out of fashion decades ago, but the mindset persists, in spite of all of the conversations this nation has had in recent years about race through town hall meetings, academic forums, college classes, debates, discussions, special reports in the media, speeches by politicians, lawsuits, and informal talks among friends and colleagues.
Memory works selectively. We hold onto certain memories and others we disregard. What I experienced all those years ago during that house hunt was a moment I didn’t fully understand at the time but never forgot. I held the memory deep inside and developed an understanding of the incident as I matured. It echoes through experiences I continue to have of biased treatment and outright racism and reminds me that this country still has so much work to be done in terms of racial justice.
By Lisa Braxton
They stepped out of front doors, proceeded down spacious brick pathways to the foot of their manicured lawns, and with the precision of a military unit, pivoted to face us. All of them were white—men and women—homeowners in a leafy enclave in Fairfield County, Connecticut suburbia anchored by raised ranches, Dutch Colonials, and split-level homes.
All eyes were on us—my mother, father, sister and me—as the realtor led us down the front steps of a well-appointed three-bedroom, three-bathroom house with a two-car garage that she’d just shown us.
It was around 1969. I was eight or nine-years-old at the time. My dad was carrying my sister, who was a toddler. I remember my parents’ stride toward our car slowed as they realized that we were under surveillance. The members of our “audience,” consisting of about a dozen people on both sides of the street, were expressionless, motionless, arms hanging at their sides. Their body language was unreadable, but their presence screamed volumes.
I don’t recall what the realtor said to my parents as she took in the scene, but I remember that she was flustered, apologetic, and tripped over her words. It was a moment that she had apparently not anticipated—the visceral reaction of white residents at a black family being shown a house in their affluent neighborhood. At my age, I didn’t think deeply about their demonstration, but I did find it odd that all of those adults were standing on their front lawns, their eyes on us. As my father put our car into gear, I scooted to the edge of my seat in the back to eavesdrop on my parents’ conversation as I often did when we were on car rides.
My mother leaned toward my father, and in a hushed tone said, “They don’t want us living here.” After a moment, he gave a slight nod and said just as quietly, “I know.” I slid back on my seat, my eavesdropping undetected.
At that age I knew a little bit about prejudice. I had a classmate who made a remark when we were in the third grade that stunned me. My class was lined up at the water fountain after coming back from chapel at the church next door that operated our parochial school. She blurted out angrily, “I wish all the black people would go back to Africa!” When I came home upset about the incident my parents sat me down for a talk and said that most likely she’d heard that remark from her parents and was repeating what they’d said.
A child in my neighborhood with whom I’d spent countless hours having pretend picnics and competing on who could swing the highest on my swing set made the statement one day as we played near the fence that divided our yards, “White people are better than black people.” With indignation I retorted, “No, they’re not!” My naïve childhood self didn’t understand why anyone would think something so ridiculous. I felt that the idea of white people being better than black people turned logic on its head. How could one group be better than another?
After we ping-ponged our positions on the matter for a while, I ran into the house to tell my mother about my friend’s unfathomable pronouncement. I still remember the pained look on my mother’s face
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At the time of the silent front lawn protest, I didn’t know that this was but the latest racial indignity my parents had had shoved in their faces. They came of age in the early 1950s in the western section of Virginia in the Shenandoah Valley region, known generally for its picturesque, bucolic nature, but also for an ugliness manifested in hostility for many African Americans.
Because of Jim Crow laws, my parents attended segregated schools. They told me that whenever they came close to approaching a white person on the sidewalk, they had to lower their heads and step into the street. Taking a bus involved going to the “black” section in the back and standing if there were no seats, even if there were empty seats up front. Dining out involved going to the back door of a restaurant for takeout. My mother recounts saying nothing for fear of reprisal when white individuals would cut in front of her at retail stores when she was in line to pay for a purchase. And when she did get to the front of the line, she’d count her change to make sure she wasn’t being cheated.
My parents shared these accounts with me, and later, with my sister when she was old enough to understand, because they wanted us to have the best life possible. They wanted us to advocate for ourselves and understand that people would not always have our best interests in mind. They didn’t want us to be held back by people who used race as a means of control and disrespect.
Both of my parents knew that because of the racial climate, growing up poor in the South with only high school educations and not having connections to anyone with any level of power or influence, their prospects would be limited if they stayed in Virginia. Like a massive number of African Americans from southern rural areas during the middle of the past century, they made their way North. For my parents, “The Promised Land” was Bridgeport, Connecticut, an industrial force at the time.
Once they’d arrived, they realized that they hadn’t escaped racism, but encountered a subtler form of it. My mother would respond over the phone to a classified ad for an employment opportunity, be encouraged to come to the location to fill out an application, and then be told once she walked in the door that the job had been filled.
My parents discovered that there were only certain apartment buildings in the city that would rent to them and moved into one housing African American and Latinx renters. When they purchased their Cape Cod-style home in early 1961, they were the only non-white family on their block in the working-class neighborhood. A neighbor later told my mother that after she and my father bought the house, a man who lived around the corner from them went to every house on the block and “warned” them that a black family was moving in. She was told that one family put their house on the market in response and moved to the suburbs. It was common knowledge that at least one property owner, in possession of a large parcel of land in the neighborhood, would not sell homes to African Americans.
By the time my parents looked at that house in suburbia—one of many like it that they were shown during that period of time—my father had moved up from a machinist at the General Electric plant in Bridgeport to foreman. My parents were opening up a business, a high-end men’s clothing store. They had me enrolled at the parochial school and my mother was considering pursuing a bachelor’s degree and possibly law school. Mom and Dad were invited to join some of the African American professional charitable and civic clubs and organizations in Bridgeport. Moving out of their starter home to suburbia seemed like a logical step.
My parents chose not to pursue that house. Most likely they were concerned about hostility from the neighbors in light of the demonstration. They probably worried about my sister and me being subjected to racial taunts and remarks from neighborhood kids and classmates and also thought we’d feel isolated. Every so often on car rides near that neighborhood I’d overhear my mother, her voice catching in her throat, go back to that day and say to my father how terrible it was for, “those people to come out onto their front lawns like that.”
Mom and Dad stopped looking at houses and made improvements to the Cape Cod. They had the roof raised on the back and the attic upgraded so my sister and I could have separate bedrooms. By the time I reached my early teens, I noticed significant changes in the neighborhood. My white playmates had moved away. The white families whose homes flanked ours were gone. I heard that the property owner who refused to sell to African Americans had passed away. The neighborhood became more African American and Latinx. Recent immigrants moved in. A dramatic level of white flight occurred not just in my neighborhood but throughout the city. The white families most likely moved to the suburb where my parents went house hunting all those years earlier or to another Fairfield County suburb.
In 1958, political scientist Morton Grodzins identified that "once the proportion of non-whites exceeds the limits of the neighborhood’s tolerance for interracial living, whites move out." Grodzins termed this phenomenon the tipping point in the study of white flight, the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Economists attribute white flight both to racism and economics.
In the 1960s and '70s, "There goes the neighborhood," became a popular catchphrase, most likely originating as an expression of concern by a homeowner that a newcomer would lower property values and in many instances an expression of fear among white homeowners when the first minority family moved in.
Undoubtedly, thoughts of property values deteriorating was on the minds of the silent activists when we visited their neighborhood. Some of those residents may have lived in a Bridgeport neighborhood at one time and escaped to the suburbs when the racial ratio reached the tipping point. Our presence may have symbolized a nipping at their heels when they thought they had outrun us.
Black flight is a term applied to the migration of African Americans from predominantly black or mixed inner-city areas to suburbs and newly constructed homes on the outer edges of cities. In some ways their goals have been similar to those of the white middle class heading to the suburbs: newer housing, better schools for their children, and attractive environments, what my parents had in mind in their house hunting.
I couldn’t help but think back to that “front lawn moment” in the mid-1990s when I had a realtor helping me look for an apartment in the coal region of Northeastern Pennsylvania. I had accepted a news reporter position at a television station there and had driven to the area ahead of my start date for a weekend hoping to secure an apartment. Toward the end of the Saturday, after not finding anything I liked, the realtor suggested that I look at an apartment that was in her building. It was a charming corner unit in the heart of the downtown and had large, old-fashioned windows that let in plenty of light, decorative moldings along the doorways and ceilings, and walls of mirrors that had me reminiscing about visiting the hall of mirrors at the Palace of Versailles when I was a high school exchange student. The apartment was less than a block from the TV station. I’d be able to walk to work, the bank, the library, church, and just about everywhere else. I knew the moment I walked in the door that I wanted to rent it.
The realtor got on the phone with the owner to let him know that she had a renter. I noticed her jaw tighten in reaction to whatever he was saying on the other end. She glanced at me and said a series of “no’s.” into the receiver. I knew what was going on and was incensed. He was asking her about race. She next responded to him with a “yes.” Then after a pause, she said, “If you won’t rent to her, she’ll do an investigative report on you.” When she hung up, her tone was apologetic. She stated that some people in the community were narrow minded. She added that the owner wanted to meet with me before deciding whether or not to rent the apartment.
I looked forward to it. I wanted to meet this man who decided that because of race I shouldn’t be rented the apartment and only reconsidered under threat. After my meeting with him, the realtor handed me a rental agreement. I had mixed feelings as I signed and dated the document, but the window of time for me to find another apartment was limited.
Sociologists are finding that now that more minorities are moving into the suburbs, white flight is happening all over again. Samuel Kye at Indiana University has documented an exodus of white residents as more minorities have entered the middle class and established themselves in healthy suburban neighborhoods. Kye discovered that white flight was particularly pronounced in areas with fewer high school dropouts, strong home values, median income levels and large numbers of professionals. Low-income whites didn’t have the means to leave. His conclusions are in line with those of other academics who’ve done similar research.
The expression, “There goes the neighborhood,” may have gone out of fashion decades ago, but the mindset persists, in spite of all of the conversations this nation has had in recent years about race through town hall meetings, academic forums, college classes, debates, discussions, special reports in the media, speeches by politicians, lawsuits, and informal talks among friends and colleagues.
Memory works selectively. We hold onto certain memories and others we disregard. What I experienced all those years ago during that house hunt was a moment I didn’t fully understand at the time but never forgot. I held the memory deep inside and developed an understanding of the incident as I matured. It echoes through experiences I continue to have of biased treatment and outright racism and reminds me that this country still has so much work to be done in terms of racial justice.
Poetry
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MAKING A TEE SHIRT QUILT FOR MY BLACK SONS
By Cynthia Robinson Young 1. In step one you collect them one by one. Beware; they tend to pile up rapidly. You soon find out that one gives birth to many, a ruler measuring your child’s growth. Your memories are sweetly stored within them like faded photographs with rips and frays. Then one day you realize there are too many, the closets and the drawers have overflowed. The shirts, like years, have piled up way too quickly. Your children have outgrown the ones they loved Amassed like years your sons have quickly passed, unaware that you’ve always been present, not noticing the cotton of your touch. 2. In order to not let your sons go too soon, you must progress onto the second step: You gather shirts, and now with scissors sharp, then cutting off the excess, leave its heart. You must be careful not to cut too close, And when the squares are cut, square upon square, You lay them out to see what goes with what. You want to have a faultless fit together, though faded, shrunken, stained, some very used. None of the shirts can be considered perfect but they are paired now, like your sons will be. So sew the imperfections all together. Don’t mourn cut shirts and broken promises But know the “good ole days” are every day. New tee shirts will replace the ones you’ve cut. 3. The next step is the most important one. A backing must be chosen to enfold your sons with dreams of perfect parenthood, a maternal nest of softness you create, a womb where tags and stiff clothes don’t exist. 4. Now, sandwich cotton batting in-between, a buffer against the coarseness of this life, then sew with equal stitches time together, your fingers pock- marked from quilt needles pushing through layers of years of thick-headedness, and finish with a binding that you bless. 5. At last the time has come! Release the quilt. Release the days and hours that you’ve spent and pray the seams can hold their lives together And keep them from the harm the streets might bring, the dangers from their Blackness, hovering. |
5th Avenue Kings Fruit & Vegetables, Brooklyn
By Jamal Michel Is where I was conceived as an idea, maybe at first by the ripened tomatoes or in the spaces left between newly stocked yogurt cups-- one such cup picked up by a young stud from Port-au-Prince who thought to take it to the Indian girl at check out, until he checked out and never asked for her number the first time but thought better the next, only thing was he needed at least four more cups of yogurt to make it a full conversation. Did they pick my name at the register? Or did my being float about their innocuous phone calls? Or perhaps in the unkempt lawn of their first home in Sylmar, CA? Or it certainly must have happened upon them all at once, at Olive View hospital, a brown boy swaddled in a blanket caught in their branches. |
Art
"Living in a White World" by Chad Murray
