Train Rides
Many years ago, two little girls used to ride a
train from Cincinnati to Knoxville to visit their
grandparents. On the train, they ate ham sandwiches
made with butter instead of mayonnaise;
drank ice cold Coke from little cans and felt very
grown up because their mother wasn’t traveling
with them.
They weren’t feeling unsafe or threatened, as
much of the world was at that time. They weren’t
thinking about how unwelcoming the outside could
be. They were simply enjoying their ride, protected
from harm or harassment by the African-American porters on the train. The porters kept an eye on the girls and occasionally walking by and asking how they were doing in loud voices, meant as a warning to other passengers: Leave those girls alone.
One of those girls was Nikki Giovanni, today a popular poet and inspirational speaker.
http://www.emich.edu/focus_emu/pdf/focusemu111902.pdf
train from Cincinnati to Knoxville to visit their
grandparents. On the train, they ate ham sandwiches
made with butter instead of mayonnaise;
drank ice cold Coke from little cans and felt very
grown up because their mother wasn’t traveling
with them.
They weren’t feeling unsafe or threatened, as
much of the world was at that time. They weren’t
thinking about how unwelcoming the outside could
be. They were simply enjoying their ride, protected
from harm or harassment by the African-American porters on the train. The porters kept an eye on the girls and occasionally walking by and asking how they were doing in loud voices, meant as a warning to other passengers: Leave those girls alone.
One of those girls was Nikki Giovanni, today a popular poet and inspirational speaker.
http://www.emich.edu/focus_emu/pdf/focusemu111902.pdf