抖阴ap

They don’t teach 1873 at the colored school. Wasn’t for my husband,
wouldn’t be no colored school for Colfax, Louisiana. That the
kind of man Sam Tademy was. Could carry a vision in his head and stick
to it no matter what the discouragement. Some men good providers, got
a way with the soil or a trade. Some men been given a singing voice take
you to glory, or magic in they bodies to move in dance and make you feel
alive. Some men so pretty you gaze on them with hunger, or so smooth
they get hold of words and make you believe any nonsense come out they
mouth. Some got the gift to make you laugh out loud, and others preach
strong and spread the word of God. My man, Sam, he quiet after his
own way, look after his family, not afraid of the tug of the plow. He done
some preaching, and some teaching, but always thinking about the rest
of the colored. Not wanting to get too far ahead without pulling forward
everyone else willing to work hard at the same time. Education mean
everything to that man. Once he set his head on a colored school in Colfax,
wasn’t nothing could crush the notion. He mortgage his own sons to
the plan, and it come to pass.

We been writ out the history of this town. They got a metal marker
down to the courthouse tell a crazy twisting of what really happen Easter
Sunday sixty year ago. The ones with the upper hand make a story fit
how they want, and tell it so loud people tricked to thinking it real, but
writing down don’t make it so. The littlest colored child in Colfax,
Louisiana, know better than to speak the truth of that time out loud, but
the real stories somehow carry forward, generation to generation. Those
of us what was there catch a retold whisper, and just the mention got the
power to stir up those old troubles in our minds again like they fresh, and
the remembering lay a clamp over our hearts. But we need to remember.
Truth matters. What our colored men try to do for the rest of us in Colfax
matter. They daren’t be forgot. We women keep the wheel spinning,
birthing the babies and holding together a decent home to raise them in.
We take care of them what too young or too old to take care of theyself,
while our menfolks does battle how they got to in a world want to see
them broke down and tame.

Was a time we thought we was free and moving up. When forty
acres and a mule seem not only possible but due. First we was slave, then
we was free, and the white call it Reconstruction. We had colored politicians.
Yes, we did. It was our men vote them in, before the voting right
get snatched away. We losing that sense of history, and it seem wrong to
me. Young ones today, they don’t carry memory of our colored men voting.
Like those ten years of fiery promise burn down and only leave a
small gray pile of ash under the fireplace grate, and don’t nobody remember
the flame. Not like the locals made it easy, but we had our rights
then, by law. We was gonna change the South, be a part of the rebuilding
after the War Between the States. We owned ourself and was finding
our voice to speak up. Some on both sides of the color line talked
about us going too fast. No matter how hard times got then, when wasn’t
food enough for the table and the debt growed too fast to pay off at
the general store, or a homegrown pack of the White League terrorize us
or string up one of our men to keep us in our place, still our hearts and
heads swole up with the possibilities of Reconstruction. Our men was citizens.
We had the prospect of owning a piece of land for ourself. Ten
years. Don’t seem so long when you reach over one hundred years in
your own life, but more hope and dreams in those ten years than the slave
years come before or the terror years after. Back then hope was a personal
friend, close to hand. Seem anything could happen. Seem we was
on a road to be a real part of America at last.

I think on those colored men in the courthouse every day. They was
brave, from my way of seeing, dog-bone set to fight for a idea, no matter
the risk. Not all the old ones see it the same. Lucy used to say by stepping
up, the colored courthouse men bring the white man down on us, but what
foolishness is that? Some white folks never change from thinking on us as they
own personal beasts of burden, even after freedom. Those ones down on us
already.

But we got the strength to outlast whatever trials is put
before us. We proved it. There a special way of seeing come with age and distance, a kind of knowing how things happen even without knowing why. Seeing
what show up one or two generations removed, from a father to a son or
grandson, like repeating threads weaving through the same bolt of cloth.
Repeating scraps at the foot and the head of a quilt. How two men never
set eyes on each other before, and, different as sun and moon, each journey
from Alabama to Louisiana and come to form a friendship so deep
they families twine together long after they dead. How one set of brothers
like hand and glove, but two others at each other throats like jealous pups
fighting for the last teat. How two brothers from the same house marry
two sisters, sets of bold and meek. How men come at a thing nothing like
what a woman do, under the names dignity, pride, survival. The words
alike, but the path not even close between man and woman, no matter
they both trying to get to the same place. Making a better way for the children.
In the end, making a better life for our children what we all want.

Eighteen seventy-three. Wasn’t no riot like they say. We was close
enough to see how it play out. It was a massacre. Back in 1873, if I was
a man, I’da lift my head up too and make the same choice as my Sam
and Israel Smith and the others, but there was children to feed and keep
healthy and fields to harvest and goats to milk. Those things don’t wait
for history or nothing else. But I saw. I cleaned up after. I watch how
1873 carry through in the children that was there, and then in they children
years later.