Note: This story includes sensitive content related to racism and lynchings.
I was eight the first time I saw a man lynched. He was strung up from a branch of a short, stout tree. A dangling, lifeless body with a face caked in dry crusts of blood, and skin torn from being dragged down the long, thin gravel road, the one that separated the white part of town from the black one. His plain white shirt, the one sewn for him by his grandmother, a former slave and my neighbor, was drenched with sweat stains. And all around him on the ground were empty liquor bottles, sandwich crumbs, and wrappers from chocolate bars. Remnants of a party, which in these parts of town is what a lynching was.
I walked past him looking up at the face of a young man not even twenty years old, and smelled the rotten stench of death by hate. Then I ran home along the disheveled roads of our Mississippi country town, up the rickety steps of our home made from mismatched wooden beams, walked inside and jumped into the arms of my father. I wrapped my arms tight around his neck and buried my face on his shoulder and let tears stream out like the rich waters of the Mississippi river.
In broken words I told him what happened. Then I asked, “pa, why?”
He bit his upper lip, let out a sigh. Words were not quick to come, but I could already see the answer in his eyes. The prolonged desolate gaze of soulful longing for a different life. I don’t doubt he thought about this day. And I’m sure he rehearsed and tried to be ready with his words. But I reckon one cannot prepare for the moment he has to explain to his daughter why men who look like her are being hung up from trees by mobs.
I sat there nestled on the banks of his upper thigh staring up and waiting for his response. There was none of course. How could he explain to me that I was born into a society in which rules were little more than blots of black ink on stale sheets of white paper. Empty words of broken promises. Or that the governor of our state was not the man we heard on the radio, but an intangible institution by the name of Jim Crow. One that had been put in place to solace segregation, to appease and placate the hate filled hearts and corrupted minds of men and women for whom racial prejudices were still life’s norm. How could he explain to me that I was born into a society in which a mob was the jury and a noose was the verdict.
He couldn’t of course. 1910’s southern life didn’t lend kindly to people of darker skin. We were slaves in a slave time passed.
My father rested my head on his chest and let me fall asleep.
Not long after that day, my father sat me down on his sturdy right leg and told me I would have to pack my belongings.
“Ella, we’re movin’,” he said.
“Where to?” I asked.
“To a place called Harlem, in New York.”
I had never heard of Harlem in New York nor did I care to learn. I didn't want to move.
But on a sunny winter morning in December of 1915, my parents and I stepped out of our home one final time. Under the shadows of grand old oak trees that towered over our homes, friends and family came over to say goodbye. There were hugs, some tears, but for the most part there were many splendid smiles. For in our parts moving was becoming normal. Family after family was heading north. All chasing after dreams of a better life.
Note: “Harlem Bound” is a historical fiction snapshot. The story, characters, and incidents are fictitious.