2
1935
Depression in the Black Belt
Shar Gracey, you better get yo’ little narrow behind back here.”
Her mother was doing it again, and Shar was about to have a natural fit. “Please go back inside. The wind is blowing somethin’ fierce out here this morning.”
Shar and her mother had stayed up half the night, then had gotten up at five that morning to finish the washing and ironing for Mrs. Jansen. Her mother had been hacking and coughing the whole way through. Now she was standing on the porch with nothing but her thin housecoat on, and that thing was so raggedy that Shar could see more of her mother’s flesh than she wanted to.
“Don’t forget this.” Marlene handed her daughter a sweet potato pie. “You give that pie to Pastor Landon, ya’ hear. Let that man see just how good he’d be getting it if he takes your hand in marriage.”
Protesting, Shar nevertheless took the pie. “Ma, Pastor Landon knows that I’m not the one making these pies. And this is the thirties. Colored women aren’t only in the kitchen cooking up somethin’ good for the menfolk. We’re writers, like that Zora Neale Hurston up in Harlem, and singers, like Mahalia Jackson.” Shar was more like her daddy than her mama and she knew it, for she was an unrepentant, head-in-the-clouds dreamer.
“Hush, chile, and get on from around here with that foolish talk. You just take that pie to Pastor Landon.”
“Okay, I’ve got the pie, now can you please go back in the house?”
“And don’t forget to smile real pretty for him,” Marlene said, right before the hacking started up again.
As Shar watched her mama walk back into the house, she lifted her face to heaven and prayed that God would help her find a way to make some money. She needed that money yesterday but would take it any day it showed up . . . just as long as she could get her mama to a doctor.
Shar’s shoulders slumped with the knowledge of just how poor and perplexed she was. She had nothing and no way to make anything better. She had dreams bigger than the stampede of Negroes who left the South for friendlier northern lands. Her daddy had promised that things would be better up north. But here they were on the South Side of Chicago, living in the Black Belt, where things didn’t seem no better.
Oh, they weren’t getting lynched like so many of her family members had in the South, but the white folks in Chicago acted like colored folks was trying to steal something from ’em. They put restrictions on everything, just like them Jim Crow southerners. The Restrictive Covenants in the North meant that her family was going to be living in the same old dilapidated shack that they thought they had left behind. Her daddy couldn’t even find work half the time, while she and her mama took in rich white ladies’ washing to help put food on the table.
If only she could have won that hundred dollars of gold from that Miss Bronze America pageant. But the judges weren’t too thrilled with the song she’d picked. The winner had been a girl who sang “Amazing Grace,” a song that twenty-five other contestants had chosen to sing. Shar had been down in the dumps after that contest. But Pastor Landon had come up to her after the competition and told her that she sounded like an angel singing praises to the Lord.
Pastor Landon had even said that she was the prettiest girl in the pageant and had walked her home. On the way home, Shar’s mama had nudged her and whispered, “Smile, girl, show the man those deep dimples.” As if that was going to cause him to ask for her hand in marriage right then and there. But nevertheless, Shar smiled like her mama told her. And she’d been smiling ever since. Because a year after they met, Landon had come to the house and asked her father if he could court her. Now she and Pastor Landon kept company at least one day a week. She loved when Landon walked her home or when he talked to her about his dreams of helping the people in their community. Her mama kept telling her that Landon would be asking for her hand soon and very soon. But then Landon would get so tied up with his work that Shar began wondering if she and her mama was just wishing in the wind.
As far as Shar was concerned, she was stuck where she was, with no change in sight. At nineteen, Shar Gracey had had her fill of living in poor and restrictive conditions. She wanted to be free. Josephine Baker was free. That woman was living the high life in France . . . with nobody telling her that she couldn’t go here or step foot there. Josephine Baker was singing and dancing where she pleased . . . and getting paid a good wage for it, too. Not that Shar wanted to be like Josephine Baker. The way she heard tell of it, Josephine Baker wore hardly any clothes at all when she performed. That was way too risqué for her taste. The good Lord didn’t give her the singing voice she had to prance all over Europe like a stripper. Shar wanted to use her voice to sing praises to the Lord.
After crossing over State Street, Shar ran down an alley and across another street. Along the way she passed more dilapidated houses and down-on-their-luck brothers than her eyes cared to see. Lord, when will times get better for us?
“Hey, sister, won’t you let me have a taste of that pie?” a grungy-looking man asked as he approached her at the end of the alley.
“Can’t . . . sorry.” The church was across the street, so Shar picked up the pace, hoping that the man wouldn’t follow her. Actually, she would have loved to give him the whole pie, but her mother would kill her if Pastor Landon didn’t get his sweet potato pie. As if Landon was going to take one bite, then get down on his knee and pull out an engagement ring. Shar had done a whole bunch of daydreaming about marrying Pastor Landon. After all she’d been courting the man for a year now. But not one of her dreams ever had him on bended knee because of the taste of a sweet potato pie.
“Slow down, Sister Shar, you’re on time,” Pastor Landon said. He was standing outside, greeting parishioners as they made their way through the church doors.
Shar stopped in front of him. He was wearing his snowy white preacher’s robe, which looked so good up against his chocolate skin. Landon was always cleanly shaven and smelling like Old Spice. Most men she knew smelled like earth and sweat. She took a step toward him as she breathed in his clean, cologne scent, then jumped back and shoved the pie in his direction, all the while reminding herself that Landon was a preacher and they were standing in front of a church, so she needed to get her mind on the things of the Lord. She had no business drooling over a preacherman on a Sunday morning. “Mama sent you another pie for your anniversary dinner.”
Smiling, he took the pie out of Shar’s hand. “Sister Shar, you are going to spoil me rotten.”
He always called her Sister Shar when they were at the church, and she called him pastor. But when he was walking her home or they were sitting on her porch, she simply called him Landon. “Not me, Pastor. I can’t cook a lick,” Shar said. “Ma just likes fattening you up with her sweet potato pies.”
“Well, tell Mrs. Marlene that I appreciate her kindness, even if it is adding extra pounds to me.”
“I’ll do that as soon as I get back home.” Shar gave him a deep dimpled smile.
“Your smile just lights up the day, Sister Shar.”
When he said things like that, the wedding march played in Shar’s head. She prayed that the next thing out of his mouth would be something like, “Shar Gracey, I sure would like to marry you.” But he never said it, so Shar had started to wonder if maybe Landon was waiting on something better to come along.
Landon put his hand on Shar’s arm and leaned a bit closer. “I have a surprise for you,” he told her and then bent down and picked something off the ground.
When he straigtened back up, Shar saw that he was still holding the pie in one hand, but now his other hand held a bright colorful flower. He handed the flower to her.
“I was walking through this field yesterday that had so many beautiful flowers as far as the eye could see. I told myself, ‘Shar needs flowers as beautiful as these.’ So, I picked a bundle of them.”
Giddy over the flower in her hand and Landon’s words, Shar’s eyes sparkled as she said, “Thank you so much. I’ve never seen a flower as wonderful as this one.”
“I’m glad you like it. I’ll bring the rest of them to your house this evening when I come to see you.”
“So are you walking me home today?”
Landon shook his head. “Not today. I have to head out right after the anniversary dinner. So, I won’t be able to walk you home, but your dad is allowing me to keep company with you today. So, I’ll see you at your house later.”
“Oh, Landon, I wondered if you would be coming by today. Mama hinted at it, but she wouldn’t come right out and fess up.” She smelled her flower, eyes still sparkling. “Thanks again for my flower.”
“Like I said, there’s plenty more where that one came from.” Landon was grinning at her as if he had something else to say but was holding it in.
“What?”
“That’s for me to know and you to find out.”
“When am I going to find out?”
“When I come visiting this evening,” he said, then ushered her into the church before she could ask anymore questions. “Now Sister Shar, you go on and get yourself prepared to sing to God’s glory today.”
Shar scuttled into the sanctuary, greeting friends as she passed by them. But in her heart she wondered if today would be the day that Landon would finally ask for her hand in marriage.