Georgia Sketches
1998; Johns Hopkins University Press; Volume: 21; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1353/cal.1998.0213
ISSN1080-6512
Autores Tópico(s)American Environmental and Regional History
ResumoGeorgia Sketches * Sterling A. Brown I. I Visit Wren’s Nest For a gentler reminiscence of Atlanta’s past, I went out to see “Wren’s Nest,” along with Griff Davis, a young photographer. This modest old home in West End, with many gables and gingerbread curlycues, is a Mecca for American school children and their teachers, who want to see where the kindly Joel Chandler Harris created Uncle Remus, Brer Tortoise and Sister Cow. Well, so did I: so I rang the front door bell. A little flaxenhaired girl answered. In response to my request to go through the house, she stood there with her blue eyes wide and, like Uncle Remus’ Tar Baby, “she kept on sayin’ nothin’.” Then she skittered off. In a few minutes, her father, the caretaker, came to the door, hurriedly putting on a shirt. I told him that we would like to visit the shrine. He started to open the screen door, and then noticed Griff. I had my hat on and he hadn’t looked closely at me, but Griff is brown. “Who’s this boy?” he asked, staccato. “He is Mr. Davis, of Atlanta University,” I answered slowly. “No,” the man said. “Sorry, but I can’t let you all come in. The Association has told me not to let in the colored.” I told him that I was writing a book, that at Harvard University in Massachusetts I had written research papers on Joel Chandler Harris, that I had a scholar’s interest in Harris and his contribution to American literature, that Griff, Mr. Davis, was a serious student of photography, attempting to make camera studies of authentic Americans. I knew I wasn’t going to get in, but I poured it on. I was thinking how the lonely lad Joel had hung around Negro cabins, none of them shut to him, listening to [e]very wisp of talk, storing in his memory all the anecdotes and tricks of speech and song, piling up a rich compost as it were to produce those fine flowers that made his fame and fortune. So I poured it on. The caretaker’s mouth was hanging open when I stopped, and Griff was grinning. [End Page 779] “I didn’t make the rule,” the caretaker complained. “Far as I’m concerned, it wouldn’t make no difference. But the Association won’t stand for it. They’d have my job.” He added that it would be all right to walk around the house, even to the gardens in the backyard. We declined the honor, but stopped at the pink-marble walk leading to the side. Upon each paving stone is printed the name of a Georgia author: Augustus Longstreet, Frank Stanton, Sidney Lanier, Thomas Holly Chivers. “Now, take Chivers,” I said pompously to Griff. The caretaker was on our heels, listening. “He was an unknown poet, of rare eccentric genius, much like, and quite influential upon Edgar Allen Poe. People in Georgia called him crazy, but I do not know that he was any crazier than the rest of them.” Griff turned to the caretaker, and asked, “I suppose it would be all right for me to take pictures?” The man thought it over, then, “I reckon so,” he grunted, and left. As rapidly as Griff focused the camera and worked those plates, he still could get only the front of Wren’s Nest and the capacious rear of the caretaker, scrambling up the steps. II. Jitterbugs’ Joy Before the war ban on bus travelling, Atlanta was a good city for one-night stands. Several Negro businessmen formed an Entertainment Company to sponsor Negro name-bands at the municipal auditorium. Under all-Negro management the affairs had only a comparative sprinkling of whites. But they weren’t missed; the Negroes came in droves. As Al Moron, the manager of the housing project, complained to me, “Atlanta Negroes will turn out in crowds for only two things: a free revival in church and a pay dance at the auditorium.” The crowds that I saw at those dances were composed largely of high school youngsters, of teen-age, or in the early twenties: the boys in...
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