July 25, 1987
Hello my kin,
I’ve never heard Casey Kasem’s Top 40 on the radio, but I will give it a try if you say it’s good. I don’t listen to the radio much, except for my friend Tilly’s news programs. I make cassette tapes of my favorite songs so that I can have the music I want, when I want it. I love me some Earth Wind & Fire, the Gap Band, the Ohio Players. I tell Tilly I want “September” playing on a loop at my funeral. I was born on the 21st night of September which, if you know the lyrics, makes it like the song is just for me. I would very much enjoy hearing you sing. Could you send me one of your recordings?
How nice it must be to have a new friend. Shelly sounds fun, like a good distraction from all that mess going on with the death certificate. I’m happy to help with the letter you requested for the lawyer. I can certainly vouch for the fact that your daddy hasn’t called at Christmas or come to visit or asked to borrow money. I’m sure all of this is very confusing.
You are correct, they passed an actual law saying no “Negroes” were allowed to live in Swift River. That’s what they called Black people if they were being nice. I bet you that law is still in the books, even if no one talks about it.
That town of yours is something else. A whole community of Black folks up and left and nobody there talks about it? Thank goodness your mama and daddy at least told you they existed, lived a life. To be honest I never had the full story about that night myself. I guess we’re all guilty of looking the other way when something is too sad or shameful to speak on. When I first found out, I was same as you—didn’t know what to do with that anger. I can’t imagine what it must be like to live there, laying your head down at night on top of a graveyard built by the folks who did the killing. But I guess that’s everywhere, really.
This is what I know: It started because a group of our people with jobs at the textile mill were asking for better wages. Mill work was dangerous—there was a good chance you’d get lung disease or lose a limb in a machine or both. The owners paid the Black workers half what they paid the whites, even though there were twice as many of us. We were basically running the whole thing. They could get away with it because they were the only mill that would hire Black people to work the main floor, versus just sweeping in basements like the rest. This was a time when the newspapers were filled with stories of white laborers all over the country joining unions and organizing strikes. The Swift River mill bosses didn’t want our people thinking they had that kind of power. Got all the white folks in town riled up, too—Know your place, Negroes type of thing. First they cut pay and bumped up the rent on the mill houses. Soon after, they passed laws saying Black people couldn’t own property, found ways to take back whatever land belonged to us. Mama said they banned us from the shops in town. And our men were getting thrown in the county jail for made-up reasons, like a game for the Sheriff and his men.
In the weeks before The Leaving, they shot two Black men accused of stealing from the mill as they ran for their lives. There were no hangings in a town square, like you’d see in the South, but there might as well have been. There are many ways to take a person’s life, Diamond. Mama and them each had a different story about the final, dreadful thing that sparked the plan to go. The only real choice they had was how they would leave, not whether or not to stay. Some would go west, others further east, but most of our family headed for Woodville. Stories had been passed down about how to break that land for the most bountiful harvest, the taste of fried blue catfish from the Chattahoochee Lake, foggy mornings and green winters with no heavy coats. They still had family there. It was roots home.
All the Black people in Swift River decided to go on a night when they knew all the white people would be in town at a celebration. It was spring, and the days were longer, so that meant the mills didn’t have to use kerosene lamps to light half the workday. The party was called a “blow out,” to mark the extinguishing of the lamps, the arrival of more sun. Mama said there was always a lot of food and dancing, and folks came from all over.
The planning had started the week before, so on that day, Mama said it felt like they were about to have their own party, except everyone moved around with single-mindedness, cooking and cleaning and packing in total silence; you know, that kind of quiet with only a pulse in your ear like a ticking clock.
Somehow the white people got word and showed up with those oil lamps, smashing them and setting fire to the blacksmith’s place and the barbershop. It was one of our cousins who put out the garden fires before they could spread to the houses, where we waited. He was shot in front of his granny’s porch, in front of his granny.
By the time our people were on the road, there was a trail of angry white folks behind them, trying to snatch people off wagons, grab whatever animals they could. Like a foot to the butt kicking you out the door while clutching onto your arm, don’t go. And especially don’t go on your own terms. To have that kind of hatred for people you also can’t live without? Mind you, at the time, Southern Black folk were pouring into the North, running from the horrors of the South. Our people went in reverse, back to make an old home new.
Now that I know Aunt Clara a little better, I try and focus on the courage it took for her to watch them go that night. If you think about it, it’s a choice with just as much force and power as a migration. That kind of brave is in our blood, too.
XO Lena