*For ages, Millard Stith and his
family have held an annual fish fry during labor day weekend.
That tradition continues: hosted awhile by his brother
Lawrence Stith but he too passed. Someone, however, decided that
tradition was still important and against the reserve of some,
the fish-fry was held again in 2002.
**At the writing of this letter, I was already in Monroe,
Louisiana, which is about thirty miles west of Vicksbury,
Mississippi. I had my fears about going South. But still I had a
fascination for New Orleans and I wanted to see it for myself,
close up and over an extended period of time, at least a year.
Moreover, I wanted to challenge my own fears. The reward, of
course, was to be near that romantic city where all things are
possible in dreams and love.
I would stay only a year in Monroe at Northeast Louisiana
University (NLU), teaching composition and literature. I believe
I was paid about $14,000 a year, which was more money than I had
earned at one time in my life.NLU was a white school in need of
faculty integration. I was the token Negro in the department. In
that there was not much to enjoy on campus, I soaked up Negro
Monroe. I enjoyed Monroe’s night life. Nightclubs stayed open
until three and four o’clock in the morning.
Months before I left Washington, D.C. I bought an orange
Volkswagon bug. In the mid 1970s, I traveled by bus to New
Orleans, but this was my first drive through the South alone. I
was somewhat wary about driving through Mississippi. On this
first trip, I, however, stayed overnight in Meridian at a motel.
Hearing classical music on a public radio station, I was a bit
reassured that Mississippi had entered the modern world.
At the end of my year in Monroe, I returned to Virginia on
Route 61, through Memphis and Nashville, and then through the
mountains into southwestern Virginia onto Route 56, which ends
in Norfolk. In driving through the Mississippi Delta, I
understood why it was the birth place of the blues. There were
all these cotton fields -- as far as one could see on all of the
cardinal points and the land was low and flat and there was not
a tree underwhich to catch some shade from a white-hot burning
sun. I would have left that life too and begin to roam here and
there --anywhere but a Mississippi cotton field.
I drove back again down through the deep South. This time
taking the long way. I went south on 95, stopping in Charleston
and Savannah and then crossing west on a secondary road through
Alabama. I wanted to see the great Tuskegee. I was surprised by
its small town isolation. I did not drive onto the campus. It
was late evening and I was anxious to get out of Alabama. I am
sure I would have been awed by the legacy of the Great Booker T.
Nevertheless, I was indeed impressed by the redness of the
soil, which reminded me of Bukavu, Zaire.
