family history

For Black History Month I want to add two stories from that little girl you see. Stories are to show you how times have changed. Whew.

As you may know, I am from a 7th generation Black-Canadian family, so my first story is Canadian history.
My father wasn’t Canadian. He was an American. The second story(poem) gives you a glimpse of the other half of my family’s history.

The last Black History month selection is in honour of Miss Rosa Parks.
Thank you to my Mom, my dad, and all the people who helped make the changes that allow us the freedoms, rights, and equalities we enjoy today. “One Love”

TIMES THEY ARE CHANGIN’: THE ISLAND STORY

You’d think I’d remember precisely how I got these scars on my knees, but I’m not sure whether they came from fallin’ down, or whether they came from kneeling on the ‘gravely-ground playing marbles and stick-games, when I was a kid. Either way, both activities would result in tiny gravely stones that covered the ground, imbedding their way deep into your flesh. And for years after, those tiny sharp stones would work their way to the surface of your skin and you had to get tweezers and pluck them out. They left scars crazy zigzag scars. This was “Truro before pavement”, I call it now. And this was the Truro, Nova Scotia that I remember (as a kid) on: “The Island”, where I got lots of my scars from.

Every year our family would use Dad’s, Porter’s- Family-Pass, and take the train from Winnipeg to visit Mom’s family on The Island in Nova Scotia, for the whole summer.

The Island. Sounds romantic and tropical doesn’t it? Well, it was actually swamp–land, right down there next to the town’s dump. Nothing romantic, tropical, or colourful, about it. Unless you count all the people.

That’s where all the ‘Black folks’ lived. And that’s where all the White folks kept them. They kept them down there for years!

The Island.

All our lives, while we grew up in Winnipeg, my mother told us kids stories about “The Island”, and stories about ‘Nova-Scotia-all-over’ down by where she grew up. She used to always start out by empathizing how prejudiced and hateful the White people acted toward the Black people. And say how glad she was she was not from there anymore.

Whenever anyone talked about the racism and prejudice down South in “The States”, she’d say:

“Don’t you tell me about prejudice … ‘Cause I know! I’m from Nova Scotia. Nova Scotia is ‘more prejudice’ than Alabama!

I’ll bet Nova Scotia is the only province in Canada to ever have race riots. And I know!
Cause I lived through them in Truro. “Hr-umph”.

One of them times, in 1922, I think it was, ‘all of them’ White people got up in a big mob , and they were comin’ down to The Island to kill all of us Black people! Why, we were all hiding in the swamps, to save ourselves. And hiding in the Slews … for days.
And all the men from The Island got together and moved away alla’ the ‘Out-Houses’,
And they hid us kids there. In the SHIT… up to our necks.

Don’t you tell me about those Englishmen and Scotsmen!

I was the first Black person to sit down and eat inside a restaurant in Truro, Nova Scotia in 1950. That’s when me and the kids went there for the whole summer.. during the ‘Big Flood’ here in Winnipeg.

Remember that dad?

She yelled to my dad, who was sitting a few feet away from her on the front porch.

Sumter …. Walter! Are you listening to me!

… I said do you remember 1950?

My father, was sitting there staring into space and she “talked his (and us kids) ears off” telling her story.

We had a big flood here in Winnipeg in 1950, so I took all of you kids home with me to Truro .. (and I left dad here to clean up the house)
One day down there, I had all you kids with me and I went inside the restaurant.
Two of my cousins saw me going in, and started ‘calling me out of there’, knocking on the window, sayin’: “Daisy, Daisy, come out of there! … “Daisy.” (My family nick-named me Daisy).

Daisy come out of there! Daisy … come! …

My mother sucked her teeth exaggeratedly at this point of her story before she continued:

I called the waitress over: “Miss! Miss!”

… Look, (I told her) I ain’t one of them ‘fools’ from here!
I’m from Winnipeg now. And ‘Honey’… you tell your manager, if you don’t serve me some food, this ‘crazy Nigger’ is going to redecorate this restaurant”!

She put her hand to her chest and patted her chest. As she gestured proudly, she stood up even taller it seemed, and said:

“I KNOW THEY SERVED ME!”

We went to Halifax after that, for a visit.

Honest to God, Sumter, .. I still remember all their faces at the hotel desk, when me and all these kids stood at the front desk of the hotel, and I said: … “I want rooms for four!”

They knew I wasn’t from Nova Scotia.

… Not no more!”
____________________________________________________________________________

In memory of my Dad: Walter Lever Sumter.

He Knew

What the hell are you saying
And I’m lucky I didn’t poke myself in the eye
Poke ….
What does that mean to you anyway?
‘Poke-out’ like Janet’s breast
Poke
Like Pokey-slow-poke.
Poke-Chops
Like my Daddy usta’ say

And we’d laugh!
And try to trick him into saying stuff
Like
Sho’ Nuff
G’wan now
And
‘Poke’.. Anything.

Heh, heh, heh, heh,
He’d say
When we’d say
Daddy say this ..
Daddy say that

He knew ya know,
He knew.

Knew stuff about stuff we’d only
Read about

Picket Lines
And Picket Signs
And fiery crosses
In their yard

And Uncle’s body
Thrown
On the porch

That’s why he kept us from knowing

Gwan’ now you kids
Heh, heh, heh, heh,
.. Gwan’ now.

© Addena Sumter- Freitag 2006

Miss Rosa

You were Dog-Tired
And Alabama-parched
Hero was ‘the furthest’ from your mind
When they ‘threw you into the light’

After you’d had so much darkness

Color it Lime.

How they held you up
So honored
And so cherished
On everyone’s lips
In everyone’s eyes
Immortally memorable
Eternally loved.

Strange, that the calendar was your enemy
The clock
Your Foe
It isn’t fair!

It is fair
That one of them ‘chillin’
Whose Rights
You ‘wore your feet out’ for

Took out his tragic rage on you.

He battered your face
Your arms
Your legs
Your heart

For Fifty-three bucks

Then he threw you down
And hurled you
toward
Your final darkness.

© 2007 Addena Sumter-Freitag

A Soldier’s Dreams (Part 1)

I sent my son to war

My baby

My child..

Grudgingly.

This country ‘ripped him’ from my womb

Like ‘a back-street abortionist.’

I watched him go

Eager
Talkative
Proud
Hopeful

Dressed in the murderous khaki

Both sides wore.

Tall
Proud
Hopeful

Believing that you’d finally embrace him.

He board the train,

Your ships,

Your planes,

And he was gone from me.

You sent back this …

Stranger

You claim is my son

Stooped

Defeated

Degraded

Finding his hope for chance and change

Shattered

Buried

Under those third-class decks

You relegated him to on his return

Drowned

Under all that liquor he drank

In order to face each day

Hiding

Blocking

Denying

The severed limbs

Spilled guts

Orphaned children

Raped women

Your war left as its legacy.

He fought

Those communists

Side by side

Up in front

Boldly

Bravely

Patriotically

Fought

For dreams of

Freedom

Democracy

And equality

And came home

(third class)

To the “same –o same-o”

Segregation

And degradation

His daddy

And daddy’s daddy faced.

And my

Hopeful

Proud

Tall

Beautiful

Black

Son

Stooped!

To shine shoes

And sit jobless on the curb

With his bottle of whiskey

Wrapped up in a brown bag

Along with his dreams.

THE STORY OF THE SOLDIERS:
My mother’s house was full of soldiers before and after the Korean War. We had them comin and goin my mother said.

In our SMALL two bedroom house, besides us, there would be as many as twelve extra people sleeping there at once sometimes. (Eatin’ too!) Soldiers were sleeping on the Hide-A-Bed couch, plus we had Roll-Away Cots pulled into the living room, the kitchen, and the back porch.

Once the house was full, we lost the only sitting space we had left, cause mom would bed down soldiers in the front sun porch. She put them chesterfield, and pull a Roll-Away in. If ‘push came to shove’, (and it did,) one extra soldier wound up sleeping in the big Arm Chair out there.

They arrived in Winnipeg and found their way to The Colored Baptist Church, like their people back home had told them to. They asked Colored Folks to put them up till they got their “Orders” as to where, when, and how the Military was going to transport them to overseas to Korea. They came here from all over the Eastern parts of Canada. Lots of them were “down-homers” my mom called them. That meant they were from Nova Scotia, where mom’s originally from. Some of them, turned out to be relatives of ours, distant, close, and we even found one “second-double cousin”.

I know they wished they could have spent their last ‘shore days’ sprawled out in some nice fancy place, but they couldn’t. In those days, they couldn’t get rooms in hotels. Hotels in Winnipeg didn’t rent rooms to Coloreds, or Indians.

The fact that some of them were five and sixth generation Canadians, and the fact that they were all going to fight a war for their country, didn’t mean nothing much to hotel owners.

I don’t remember lots of the stuff that went on during those days when the soldiers stayed with us, I was way too young , but I do remember some things ……

A Soldier’s Dreams: Part II

I remember how handsome
My cousin Alvin was in his uniform
He just ‘beamed’.
That’s the only word for it.
It wasn’t just his gleaming smile,
His face glowed.
I swear!

Like an angel’s.
His hair was cut,
And he was ‘stylin’.
He was real young
I think he lied about his age to get in the army
’Cause
Rudy and Delacy
(those were my cousins)
And Paul (his brother),
They were goin’.
And Alvin always wanted to be
Just like Paul.
So they were all goin’
Together.

They were comin’ thru Winnipeg on the trains
On their way to…
Wherever they would ship off to Korea from.
God,
We were all so proud of them.
They came to the Baptist Church and got fussed over, ‘big-time’.
Then they had a dance and a party
And “got much pussy” (they said).
I didn’t know what it meant then,
But I do now.
And they got it cause “they were soldiers”
And they were fightin’ a war for us
And this war
Would make things different,
They said.
… Something happened to them over there
It musta been awful
Cause
It didn’t seem that long
Since we saw them
But
Oh, wow!
It was too amazing!
Rudy was a zombie
And Delacy was a ghost
And Alvin had rotten teeth!
Paul was an old, old man
And crazy!
Like, scary crazy.
They said he was ‘shell shocked’.
I wasn’t sure what that meant
But it made him mean.
Real mean.
He went home and married Elise
She was just a real young girl
She had no parents.
Elise was smitten by that old, worn out uniform
And a few word of love
And they got married.
He beat her all the time
And dragged her around by the hair
And burned her with cigarettes.
Then he’d pass out
And have those terrible nightmares
‘Bout the war
And wake up screamin’ and sweatin’
And they’d cry together.
He’d bring over old drunks sleep with her
And beat her if she didn’t
Cause he owed them money
And they kept him in booze
Cause he didn’t work.
Couldn’t get a job.
Nothing changed
Since the war
‘Cept them.

Yeah

They say Paul was crazy since the war

And they say Alvin
Was
Just like Paul.

Pte. Horace Mentis No. 2 Construction Battalion. Photo courtesy of the Byard Family Collection

The First Soldier

Momma told me about the soldiers in our family:

The first soldier was my brother Horace. We called him” Horrie”.

Mom said her mom, Ma, cried as she watched Horrie leave for the Army.

She told us our Grandma (Ma) said,

Look at him go! My baby boy.
Tall, and proud
(I hope that pride don’t get him killed).
The light in his eyes
is as brilliant as the brass buttons on his uniform.

Mom told us her brother Horrie lied about his age and joined the army ’cause he was afraid of our grandpa, “Pa”.

You see (Mom said), he’d taken Pa’s money and was supposta go buy some stuff for the
house, and instead he went and brought a chicken, and some whiskey, and went down to
Johnny’s house and they had a “Flicky.”

All of them young Niggers would party ‘at the drop of a hat’, ya know.

Buy some meat, or steal a few chickens, and cook up a pot of stew. Then
they’d bring out some guitars, mouth organs, and spoons, and put out the word: “we’re
havin’ a Flicky”, .. and they’d party all night long!

Ya… He joined the Army rather than to face Pa.
Just 16.
A baby.

Gone in the army’s construction company.
That’s what they had them Black guys do. (They built all the ditches and roads and
shovelled the shit in the latrines during the war.)

Yep, my brother Horrie,
he was the first soldier in our family in: The Great War.
World War One.

The Symposium on Manitoba Writing

A few things have me very excited and got ‘my creative juices flowing’ this summer. One of them was performing at Fringe Words with some of the writers in The London Writers Society.

Today, I’m excited about the news of a Call For Papers for a “Symposium on Manitoba Writing”, scheduled for spring 2012. The most exciting part of this news is that the Symposium will be held in my ol’ home town, Winnipeg.

The announcement extends a welcome to everyone – including “writers, critics, teachers, readers, historians, students, and creative artists in other genres”. Proposals on all aspects of Manitoba writing are sought.

In addition to the presentation of papers, the Symposium is set to include readings, discussion panels, social events, and celebrations. Participants are given the freedom to write on a wide range of topics that include:

• Explorations of genre, period, gender, ethnicity, region, mode, style
• Histories of taste, inter-arts collaboration, non-English writing
• Investigations of memoirs, theatre, romances, letters, fiction, radio and television productions, journalism, poetry, science.

I am hoping that the paper I present is accepted because (in my head) what I’m planning to write will be a combination of many of these topics.

To date, there has been an absence of writing/works by Black prairie writers so I am excited to present our stories, told from our voices. I want to tell about the isolation, the inclusion, the samenesses, the differences, and ‘the firsts’, that happened in my family, and in other Black Manitoban/Canadian families. To me, these stories are not only memoirs, they are history that reflect the social, political, and racial climate of Manitoba over the past eighty or more years.

Some of the stories I want to share are about our Black Canadian soldiers.

I want to save a collection of these stories and tell them (here) in November as part of my tribute to Canadian Soldiers on Remembrance Day … and, just to give you a teaser ..

Friday Night Meeting

Soft night
Soft light
Flickered
Flicked and jumped
And danced and shook
Until the circle opened
And bloomed,
And you disclosed
Your scorn
Your lies
Your cons
Your games
And how you blamed the world
And that masked invader
That stole
Your money
Your job
Your children
Your wife
Your very soul
Away

And still you chose it
Picked it up
Threw it down
Cast it out
Away

Only to snatch it up
Again
And again
Loving it
Hating it
Needing it
Craving it
Powerless to walk
away

Until that dark night
Bright day
Your heart
Mind
Soul
Feet
Took that
First step

To freedom.

I’m not going to try to start with greatness.  I’m just going to try to start.

I was getting a little discouraged that I was frozen at the Start Line.  Then I thought:  Ah what the hell … they can’t kill me.

I’ve kind of been in hibernation after the winter in wonderful.. Jamaica.   Our days of bliss there were interupted by Irv’s mom Nadia’s passing, and a trip back to Canada to join the family for her funeral.  After that we returned to Jamaica, (a good place to heal) only to have to leave again because our house here in London was broken into and robbed…. then back JA to finish out the winter.  Well, we thought winter would be over by the time we came home but we came home to lots more snow and cold.   Then our world fell in ….. we got news that our son Ari had passed away in Vancouver.

This was the worst winter of my life !  No more! Please!

Snow is finally gone.  I became a member  The CBW (Congress of Black Women London) and attended a Networking event they sponsored where I met some of the most talented people …ever!  I’m excited to see what adventures that leads to.   Also joined  The London Writers Society.  Thank heaven for that.  Spring is here and I’m coming to life.   I actually wrote a couple of poems, and I have three upcoming events I’m reading/performing at.   I’ll share them later.    Good start.