Growing up in Jim Crow.

TUSKEGEE Tuskegee divine mirror of to-do attitudes black folk, hard work, rewards of success diamond of a small southern town mined from dark slavery, sharecropping, miscegenation, and born in dreams. Students walked miles to arrive with one change of clothes and determination to labor, to learn, to progress themselves and the race to seek an education, help to build a school, a campus Students made the bricks one by one, cultivated the grounds and built the Tuskegee Institute Chapel in 1898 renowned towering stained-glass windows precious colors, royal gems. A whole community witnessed the great midnight fire destruction of the bellisimo cathedral chapel in 1957 flames seen from my house 2-1/2 miles away knew fear, understood endings listened to rumors of KKK violence remembered burning crosses, vulnerable churches. Tuskegee people watched the recurring tragedies of race so connected yet disconnected by color and class and unknown quilted histories whispered in closets, behind doors, in bedrooms Where the brotherly love? Trepidations of whites dominated the unspoken discourse fears of educated articulate uppity niggahs who sang Jubilee songs and spirituals, traveled, and got degrees. Blacks thrived, got jobs, created jobs, researched and learned black history understood the value of black pride and self help. Chief Anderson, light-skinned and confident taught the Tuskegee Air Men at Moton Field took up Eleanor Roosevelt in his plane—she dared fly with a black man! My Dad, Bill Waddell, walnut brown and handsome came to Tuskegee to work on peanut-oil therapy with George Washington Carver to research a liniment for those paralyzed by polio like President Roosevelt who reluctantly visited the campus with his wife. My Mom, Lottie, proud, smart as a whip, fabulously stylish from a well-to-do family who owned land and had servants descended from generations of teachers, she taught languages even after marriage, when women were expected to stay home she kept her job. I see so many mind pictures family resemblances, processes evolving. Tuskegee, prototype of hard work and determination so much history, open and hidden.