“No one
remembers whose idea it was, but sometime the night before the Fourth of July,
from one house to the next, Walker Homes decided to celebrate their babies.
Perhaps it was the simple passage of time, but the movement from one season
into the next made their babies appear permanent. The entire year had been a
reminder that even after the surrender of husbands and sons to Vietnam, even
after that Civil Rights Act, even after the sacrifice of a King, none of that was
enough to convince all the world of their humanity. But with their babies as
proof, Walker Homes was happy to at least pretend to be free” – Jamey Hatley
The
quote above is an excerpt from the short story, Dream Season, by Jamey Hatley. On September 28, 2016, Hatley joined
our Civil Rights in Memphis class to discuss her story and what she wanted to
convey about African American lives within black communities and culture. Hatley, who was born in Memphis TN, won
a 2016 Rona Jaffe Foundation Writer’s Award for her excellent and promising
career as a female author. During class, she addressed the simultaneous
“legitimacy” and “illegitimacy” occurring within African American communities. Dream Season contained a mixture of both
historical records and fictional characters. For all authors, there is a risk
when telling a story, and for Hatley, the fictional elements within her work
allowed her to evoke empathy and imagination in the readers. The Walker Homes
community, along with many other black communities in Memphis, stayed silent
and did not talk about Martin Luther King’s assassination. Instead, Hatley
noted that people would talk around the assassination, like talking around a
wound, because when there is silence there is shame. Gossip and conversations
pertaining to the lives of members within the communities were intimate and
kept the people together. By focusing on the small things happening – like the
birth of the King twins – the community of Walker Homes got a feeling of
control and power. The celebration of the King babies distracted the community
from the horrors of the Civil Rights Movement occurring throughout Memphis. It allowed
them the chance to feel like human beings in the oppressive American society, and
it gave them greater sense of freedom. When I came across that passage while reading
the story I truthfully got the chills. Hatley explained that the use of juxtaposition
throughout the story – the intertwined images of beauty and trauma – was to
prove that joy unfortunately gets undercut in real life and that during movements
people are still have to live their personal lives because more than just one
moment is occurring.
Alexa, I really enjoyed several of the things that Jamey Hatley said in class, many of which you touched on above. One thing that especially resonated with me was her comments on fiction being a vehicle to address emotion. In my Senior Seminar class last week, we read a book that was based heavily on an 18th century midwife's diary. In our class, some people criticized the book's author for acting as if she could speak for the long-deceased midwife. The author wrote as if she knew the thoughts and feelings of her subject. Knowing these things are impossible -- unless the midwife wrote it in her diary, it would be dangerous to speculate on what she was feeling or thinking. Historians must largely stick to the facts, which means that it can be hard to address things like emotion (unless the source comments specifically on what a person was feeling. This is part of the beauty of oral history.). Fiction, according to Hatley, allows a writer to highlight emotions. And when uplifting emotions and personal things, readers are sometimes more directly and intimately affected. I think this shows the power of fiction (and poetry) in gripping people, and I believe that this medium of communication definitely helps push the Movement forward.
ReplyDeleteAlexa,
ReplyDeleteI love your comment “it allowed them the chance to feel like human beings in the oppressive American society.” This is something that I also got from Hatley’s conversation with our class. I feel that so often it is easy for us to become detached and cold to the topics that we are learning about. It is easy for us to keep them at a distance and view the people and events that we learn about as something untouchable in the past. However, in reality, they are more relatable to current culture than we can possibly realize. What I loved about Hatley’s discussion was emphasis of the importance of the people and their humanity. By remembering that people we are discussing and learning about had families, thoughts, feelings, etc. we can gain a greater understanding of the topics in this class. In my opinion, it is important to keep in mind the emotions and humanity that is coupled with the people and events we are studying. It creates a connection between people of the past and present through not only similar experiences, but also by common emotions associated with said experiences. Through these connections, I believe, will come a greater understanding of life, culture, and the Civil Rights Movement.
Thanks for your thoughts, Alexa. I enjoyed our class discussion with Hatley as well. As Brooks and Caroline both commented fiction and creative writing can illustrate the emotion that history cannot. I completely agree with this sentiment. I think the emotional piece is especially important in telling the stories of the black freedom struggle. So often we see the caricature of the strong black individual confronting social issues head on, not needing time to grieve losses, neglecting self care, etc. It is important that Hatley complicated this caricature through the Walker Homes community.
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