“And, if you don’t mind, what about your mother? What do you remember about her?”
“I loved her very much. Very much. She was very affectionate with my sister and me, which helped with our situation. Before my mother died, when she took Pearl and me out, white people stared at us like we were animals in a zoo. Negroes, they pretended there wasn’t any difference, except my mother didn’t have any friends outside of her brothers and their wives and children, and sometimes I had to fight in the schoolyard when the other Negro children would call me names. My mother and Pearl had warned me not to tattle on those children to the teacher, because their parents were sharecroppers on Big Thom’s land. I didn’t want to get their families in trouble. But whites? Every time they saw my mother with my sister and me, they acted like they’d heard the news for the first time. There was a lot of shame. I remember that. So much shame. I was very sad all the time. Until I met Olivia, I used to wish I’d never been born.”
He cleared his throat several times. I didn’t want to interject. I’d heard so many of the old man’s stories, but I’d never heard this one. Nor had I ever witnessed this unabashed pain. Uncle Root needed to tell me everything. He was six months away from being a century old. If not now, when?
“Maybe my mother loved my father. I don’t know, but it took me a while to consider that she might have taken up with Big Thom so her family would be taken care of. So they could stay on the land. What she went through, the humiliation in the community, so that her children and her family could be safe in this backwoods town. But as far as I know, she was never with another man. Big Thom and she doted on Pearl and me. She told us not to be embarrassed about the way we looked. My one regret is that my mother couldn’t read or write, but she did love when I read to her. I was a really early reader. I’m not sure who taught me, but I could read very big books. A Tale of Two Cities was her favorite. She didn’t care much for Shakespeare, but the way Dickens turned a phrase for her, she absolutely loved it! When I was little, I tried to teach her to read, many times. It never worked, but she could memorize long passages of Dickens or the Bible—anything—simply by hearing them out loud. She was a very brilliant woman. My sister was like that, too, and she never learned to read and write, either. I know now that Mama and Pearl probably suffered from what we call dyslexia, but back then, nobody knew what that was. The teachers at Red Mound didn’t even know how to address the situation. Mostly, they thought Pearl was incorrigibly stupid. Who knows how many other children never lived up to their potential because of something we hadn’t even discovered? As a Negro man, I am very aware of my blessings. I’m lucky. So are you, Ailey. Do you know that?”
“Yes, sir, I do. Is there anything else you’d like to tell me?”
“Well, you can tell by looking at me that I could have passed. I could have gone to a school up north, a college with whites, and none of them would have known. I’ve found that only Negroes seem to recognize the little signs that give our race away. But I needed to be with my own and work among them. I’ve never regretted my decision to make my life here, among my people. I’ve been very happy. Very blessed. And I hope I may be allowed a bit of sentimentality when I say, Ailey Pearl, you make me so proud. You make our family proud. And my mother is smiling down at you from Heaven. I feel it.”
“Dr. Hargrace, thank you so much for your time.”
“Sugarfoot, it was my absolute pleasure.”
Mama’s Bible
I’d planned to conduct my interview with Miss Rose on the same day I spoke with Uncle Root, but I found myself exhausted after talking to the old man. He told me that was to be expected. When we speak about history, we speak about somebody’s life. This wasn’t a television show or a play on a stage. So I called out to the farm and rescheduled my sit-down with Miss Rose for the next day.
When I drove up, she was sitting on the porch, peeling tomatoes. I leaned in for my kiss. She forgot her hands were wet with tomato juice and put a hand up to my face.
“I’m going to record you, if that’s all right, Miss Rose. This will be a little formal. I’m going to ask you a bunch of questions. If you get uncomfortable, you just tell me.”
“All right, baby.”
There was a little table on the porch where Miss Rose had placed glasses of sweet tea. I moved one of the glasses aside and set up the tape recorder.
“This is Ailey Pearl Garfield. I’m interviewing Mrs. Miss Rose Collins Driskell, a resident of Chicasetta, Georgia. Today’s date is July 24, 2007. Mrs. Driskell, do you give me permission to record our conversation?”