However, one day it began to change for me.
You see, I was driving the plantation owner’s tractor one day, and suddenly the
tailpipe backfired, and fell off. Well, you can imagine my consternation! You
have to understand, the trouble with the tractor was like cutting a slice out
of your mother’s newly baked chocolate cake, only to have it fall on the floor,
and finding yourself in the dreadful position to try to explain it to her.
Well, I wasn’t all that keen about
explaining the broken tailpipe to my parent’s benefactor, so I cut outta there.
Headed off to Memphis. It was a 'whole nother country.' A different place. I
ran into my cousin in the big city, and he told me I needed to go back to
Indianola, and explain myself to Mr. __________; that I’d never be able to go
forward ‘til I took care of the past. So I went back home, and 'paid the
piper.'
As stern as I had remembered the man, he
was actually very decent about it all; actually very kind, and all that was
soon put behind us.”
BB King lived an interesting, and rather
amorous life, it seems, since he admits having fathered 15 children by 15
women! His unsavory morals aside, he was an icon of the Blues music industry,
and no one would ever deny it.
My father was an amateur genealogist, and a
few decades before his death he decided to visit what remained of his great
Grandfather William’s goldmine in Dahlonega, Georgia. The defunct mine is on
the present site of a carpet mill. The manager of the mill agreed to walk my
dad back to what was left of it.
While my father was in the area, he met
some black men who happened to possess the “McDonald” surname. Comparing notes,
my dad discovered that they were descendants of the slaves once “owned” by
William, and who worked in the very gold mine my dad visited earlier that day.
(Freed slaves often took the last name of their former owners as their own.)
And so it comes “full circle,” for you see,
these present day African-American men are, without doubt, the grandchildren of
that shy little black sharecropper in that old black & white picture;
standing by himself under a tree.
Yes, and now it’s plain why I’m a bit keen
on the topic of sharecropping. It’s more than a random radio interview
featuring BB King.
Much more than that.
By William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from "(Mc)Donald's Daily Diary" Vol. 15. Copyright Volumes 1-15.
**Under penalty of law, do not share, copy or "save" this blog without including the credit line, above.
No comments:
Post a Comment