For this year’s rendition of Mattie Gilmore, I went to a costume shop in north Austin and tried on a stylish maid’s outfit. Much finer than the clothes that I had strolled in with! The cherry on top was the maid’s hat. The woman at the costume shop originally suggested that I bobby-pin the hat onto my hair. I tossed my dreaded head back as I laughed, assuring her that no bobby-pins were going through my hair. Ingeniously, I threaded a dreadlock through each loop, which secured the hat well.
One of the best things about playing Mattie Gilmore again was being already familiar with the 8-line narrative. A few people asked me follow up questions, but I politely told them I did not know more about her. I referred some to the four Juneteenth summary panels, conveniently located in the same room where I was stationed.
A few visitors laughed at the part of my narrative, which stated that “[negroes] ain’t never done no managin'”. Many thought too many blacks were still in that situation.
A few of the older visitors wished more young people learned this history and had been in attendance. One woman, who had picked cotton as a child, sent her grandkids with some food one day to do the same. They and their food didn’t last but a few hours. She teased them about how both were supposed to last from sunup to sundown. She wished all kids these days, especially those who don’t like to study, could get a taste of the same.
Another group of visitors were an older couple who were visiting their adult son from Algeria. They did not understand enough English to follow my narrative, but I looked them in the eyes as I emoted my lines singularly, allowing their son time to translate into French. His mother really enjoyed what few lines I uttered and broke into an interesting conversation about how similar slavery in the States was to slavery in Algeria. I gave the son a break by letting him know I could understand the gist of what she said since I’d studied French for 6 years. This allowed him a bit of a break on two-way translation. Once again, I wished more of my French remained in my brain. As much as I struggle with foreign languages, I know this is just a fantasy. I was pleased to hear that the word for slave, “esclavo,” was the same in both French and Spanish.
At the end of our interpretation time, we took a group picture, and dashed away. The other woman and I were more than happy to change into our regular, cooler clothes, then eat a delicious barbecue lunch provided for volunteers. While eating, I caught up with one of the movers and shakers in Austin, who actively works to keep the historical black areas renovated and well-known. And, for the second time this week, I got an offer to teach a creative-writing course, this time with an emphasis on genealogy narrative.
All in all, I had a fantastic time reenacting a newly freed slave, thanking God I didn’t have to live through the real thing.
A few days later, on the actual day of Juneteenth, I finally had the satisfaction of seeing “Infinity & Negativa Rejoice” on the wall for the “100% ” fundraiser at the Carver Museum. This fundraiser is so named because 100% of the silent auction proceeds goes to the Carver’s education program. The 12 x 12 canvases were donated by a local art store and all the artist participants worked on and submitted their completed canvases. The silent auction will last for a month.
After getting a thrill of seeing the twins on the wall, I went into the theatre for a screening of the documentary, “Freedom Summer” about how a thousand white northerners came down to Mississippi to help educate and encourage blacks to register to vote. This year is the 50th anniversary of that event. Although it was a hard thing to watch, I felt a renewed sense of purpose for the mission of writing bits of my narrative through spoken word and novels. I’ve got a theory that I’m going to explore further. People will read/listen to my works if it’s entertaining enough.