MissouriGreen

I received a new comment today to my post, Confluence. The post was based on a trip I took last year to Cairo, Illinois, and the comment was from a man who signed himself JohnnyB:

I grew up in Illinois in the 1960s and remember the race riots in Cairo in 1967 and 1969 and the white flight that followed. The town went from a bustling community of 11,000, about 70% white, to a bombed-out, burned-out, shuttered, near ghost town of about 3,600, about 70 percent black. They have a great high school basketball team, despite the fact that the school is nearly bankrupt, they don’t have weight or training rooms and seldom hold home games because teams from other towns are afraid to enter Cairo. Amazing that such decline could take place in an incredible location at the confluence of two of America’s great waterways and along a major North-South Interstate highway.

Confluence is one of the few posts I have that I keep in moderation rather than closed to comments. There isn't anything in it to attract the spammers, and from time to time, someone drops in and writes something that just stops me. Like today.

JohnnyB came to my site when he searched on the term "race riots Cairo Illinois". My post is about half way down in the first page of the returned search results. Among the entries higher up was one for an NPR article related to a CD that released last year: Stace England's Greetings from Cairo, Illinois.

This album is a collection of songs that reflect a variety of genres: ranging from old blues to modern folk rock. In it, England seeks to re-tell the history and story of Cairo, Illinois–the town that the artist refers to as the most fascinating town in America. I can agree with England, having been through it on a hot summer day, with the hot, white light of the sun reflecting off of broken brick and cracked cement; with a hand lettered sign pointing to cat city–an old office building taken over by wild cats. There's something about Cairo. Something that both pulls you in, and then pushes you away when you get too close.

Having grown up in Cairo, NPR journalist Rachael Jones writes about her initial reluctance to listen to England's album.

The last thing I expected to feel listening to Greetings From Cairo, Illinois was pride. Before hearing the first song, I almost dismissed musician Stace England as a well-meaning but clueless interloper who thought he had figured out all of Cairo's problems over a few beers.

But England wasn't just some fly by night troubadour trying to profit from Cairo's woes. With the help of 50 other local musicians and singers, England had employed an impressive musical range to try and explain the puzzle that is Cairo.

Robert Baird of of the now defunct Harp Magazine, wrote of the CD:

It's best to run from CD booklets whose notes begin with declarations like, "Cairo, Illinois, is the most fascinating town in America." But here, Illinois native and former House Afire member Stace England takes Americana to its most literal extreme and paints a song-history of former full-throttle river town Cairo (pronounced Kay-Ro). It swings from massed-chorus gospel (the traditional "Goin' Down to Cairo") and blues (Henry Spaulding's "Cairo Blues") to originals like the guitar-scratching funk of "Jesse's Comin' to Town" (for Jesse Jackson) and finally the rocked-up alt-country of "Prosperity Train," which is definitely not stopping in Cairo anytime soon. The latter tune, the one best able to stand by itself outside the album's concept, is enlivened by the voice and attitude of Jason Ringenberg of Scorchers fame. Along the way we meet General U.S. Grant, an "equal opportunity lynch mob" and the Committee of Ten Million, a racist organization called "White Hats" thanks to the pale hard hats they wore. Fascinating.

After a visit to England's site and weblog, I checked and sure enough, the album was listed in both iTunes and eMusic. I downloaded it from eMusic and spent the last few hours listening to it; more than once with several songs, such as Grant Slept Here:

Ullyses S. Grant slept here.
He was a hard chargin', hard drinkin', smoking civil war stud.
Marching his troops in the Mississippi mud.

And White Hats, with a chorus of:

White hats and minds full of hate,
equality is going to have to wait.
We live by the gun, and that's the way you might die, boy.

White Hats is about the 1967 race riot that left the town gasping its dying breath. It's these riots that JohnnyB references in his comment. Hearing White Hats and the other music on the album was like listening to the song that ran through my head when I walked through Cairo that summer afternoon. It combines both a hope and a despair, because for all the surreal destruction of the town, there is something there. Something…fascinating.

From my comments, another traveler through the town, Dawn, wrote:

Thank you for sharing your visit of Cairo, Illinois. My boyfriend and I got off Interstate 57 late last night and ended up in Cairo, and have been so terribly haunted by it, and discussed it all the way home to Milwaukee. It was like a Twilight Zone episode, and we were truly frightened and disturbed by what we saw, but mostly saddened and wanting to learn more about the fate of this town. If you have any more photos, I’d love if you would share them with us. I’ve written a lengthy journal entry about Cairo, and would like to revisit it again soon… it has really captured my heart.

The photos I took were going to be the start of my Song of the South collection. I started these with enthusiasm that soon crumbled in the face of disinterest in both the photos and Cairo, and to be honest the lands that border the Mississippi. For a brief moment, the Sip and this part of the country was hip, but it took the devastation of New Orleans to create this interest. However, I don't think I can count on the destruction of a major city happening on a regular basis.

For the most part, the lands along the lower Mississippi destruct slowly–like an old man sinking under the waters of the Sip when it breaks through the levees; one work roughened old brown hand reaching out to grasp at the muddy bank; whether to pull himself out, or push himself further under, you just don't know.

This, though, is the true beauty, the true song of of the south. This is what Walker Evans saw with his camera. This is what I have always felt, luring me in to its history and stories and unforgiving waters and broken towns. This is what England captures in his music, and I want to capture in my own pictures. Someday.

Thanks for stopping by, JohnnyB. Thanks for the reminder.

Saturday was the Artica event downtown, which promised many photographic opportunities. I wasn't up for the crowds, though, and headed towards the Botanical Gardens to look at leaves turning color.

The leaves were still green except for a sugar maple here and there. The other colors of fall are soft and muted, but the sugar maple screams defiance at the winter. That and the poison ivy, of course, but catch me trying to capture its red color against the blue of the sky.

There's a fountain at the Gardens that the children play in. It's red brick, with water spigots spaced equal distanced in a curving line on either side of a cement sitting platform. The water rises up slowly into the air, and falls just as slowly back. No one was at the fountain on Saturday; I put my macro lens on and spent 45 minutes taking pictures of the water. My pants were soaked by the time I finished, none of the photographs came out, but it doesn't matter.

The Victorian waterlily came through, though, champ that it is. Thank goodness for the Victorian waterlily.

I delete more pictures than I save from each trip through the Gardens now. Too much of anything, no matter what, can lead to loss of interest over time. I decided not to renew my Garden subscription.

There was music in the air on Saturday, though, which I followed. A new section of the Garden had been opened; marked off by curly vined fences and centered by a lovely reflective pool. By coincidence, it was the grand opening of the George Washington Carver Garden. Several dignitaries were there for the unveiling of the statue. One such was an older, distinguished gentleman, sitting in a chair, cane handle between his hands. He wore glasses, and he looked oddly familiar, but it was hard to see his face–so many people kept coming over to greet him.

Various people spoke at the dedication, all excellent speakers with their own favorite story of Carver. He was born in Diamond Grove, Missouri, and is one of this state's favorite sons. At birth a slave and an orphan, through hard work he won through to an education. He wanted to study art, but was convinced by a teacher that his strengths were in Botany. His Garden will serve two purposes: be a fitting spot to introduce young people to botany; and hopefully open a door to the black community who have, for over a hundred years, refused to enter it's gates. As Shaudra McNeal said at one event held here last year, You know Shaw owned slaves. That's why some people won't come here.

Three of his slaves, a woman named Esther and her two children, tried to run away in 1855. They and several others boarded a small boat pulled up to the levy along the Mississippi to escape to Illinois, a free state. However, they were met by local police on the other side. The place where they attempted to cross has now been designated as part of the historical Underground Railroad.

Esther was returned to Shaw, who kept the children but paid a slave dealer to sell the woman down river to Vicksburg, Mississippi. I've always wondered what happened to Esther. I looked into the faces at the ceremony and wondered if any were her children's children's children In four years of going to Shaw, Saturday was the first time I'd seen black people in the Gardens.

Before the ceremonies, an older woman came to sit on the bench next to where I stood. After a few minutes, she spotted two women she knew who were sitting in reserved seating close to the reflective pool. She walked over and they greated her warmly, they black, she white. They had an empty seat near them and invited her to join them. She hesitated because it was marked 'reserved', but one lady patted her arm and said, "…that was alright, we can sit here. We're priviledged." She came and got her bag, and one of the ladies seated moved over to make a spot for her; she sat down between them, hand on the arm of one, while the other hugged her closely. And that's how they sat during the ceremony: three old women, two black, one white, arm and arm.

My ruminations were interrupted, though, when the master of ceremonies began, introducing the different speakers, including a local historian and expert on Carver, a local minister, the director of the Gardens, and finally introducing the older man I had noticed earlier: he was the actor and opera singer, Robert Guillaume. He had been invited to read a poem in honor of the occasion.

Guillaume made his way to the podium in slow, stiff steps, leaning on his cane. His voice was soft and his words halting at times, but still beautiful to hear. He mentioned growing up in St. Louis, and how happy he was to have been invited by the statue's sculpture to attend. Then that lovely, wonderful voice, unimpeded by stroke, came over the speakers; reading Carver's favorite poem, Equipment by Edgar Guest:

Figure it out for yourself, my lad,
You've all that the greatest of men have had,
Two arms, two hands, two legs, two eyes
And a brain to use if you would be wise.
With this equipment they all began,
So start for the top and say, "I can."

Look them over, the wise and great
They take their food from a common plate,
And similar knives and forks they use,
With similar laces they tie their shoes.
The world considers them brave and smart,
But you've all they had when they made their start.

You can triumph and come to skill,
You can be great if you only will.
You're well equipped for what fight you choose,
You have legs and arms and a brain to use,
And the man who has risen great deeds to do
Began his life with no more than you.

You are the handicap you must face,
You are the one who must choose your place,
You must say where you want to go,
How much you will study the truth to know.
God has equipped you for life, but He
Lets you decide what you want to be.

Courage must come from the soul within,
The man must furnish the will to win.
So figure it out for yourself, my lad.
You were born with all that the great have had,
With your equipment they all began,
Get hold of yourself and say: "I can."

There wasn't a large group of people attending the ceremony and after the statue was unveiled, we were invited up to see it and meet the speakers. On the platform, I turned around from trying to get close to the statue and Guillaume was, for the moment, not surrounded by people. I hesitantly approached him, and gibbered something along the lines of, "Sir babble babble honor gibber gibber Phantom babble gibber wonderful." Luckily he spoke Fan and could decipher what I was saying. My favorite picture of him was when he signed an autograph for the television cameraman.

You are the handicap you must face,
You are the one who must choose your place,
You must say where you want to go,
How much you will study the truth to know.

I don't care much for Guest as a poet — too manly man for me. But such complex truth in so many simple words. If I had gone to Artica, I never would have heard Guillaume say these words. I guess the luck was with me, though I've not been a believer in luck. Loren Webster wrote something on luck recently when he discussed the Elizabeth Bishop poem, One Art, which starts with:

The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

It's a wonderful poem; resigned but not defeated. Loren speaks of loss and luck, writing, I still remember that period in my life when I repeatedly played Ray Charles’ version of “If It Wasn’t For Bad Luck,” I wouldn’t have any luck at all, and ironically referred to it as my theme song.

I sometimes think we see bad or good luck, when what we're given in both cases is opportunity. Being invited to a special event with many movers and shakers is opportunity, but so is not being invited. Spending the rest of our lives with the perfect love is opportunity, but so is being alone. In the end, as George Washington Carver would most likely say, it's not what we have, or what we've given but what we choose to do that matters. Some people prefer to hack life; others prefer to just live it.

Loren also wrote:

Things often have a way of righting themselves, though it certainly doesn’t seem that way when you’re in the middle of a losing streak. Unfortunately, for some people things never do quite right themselves, and who can blame them if they’re left feeling lost and alienated?

Feeling lost and alienated can also be an opportunity.

There is more to the South than Mardi Gras, Blues, Cajun cooking, and white guys with confederate flags in the back of their trucks. Photos from Cairo, Illinois.

Tenth Street

Eighth Street

Cairo had two strongly distinctive faces. On the one hand, there's been an attempt to restore much of the history of the town, including its many unusual buildings: some dating from the Civil War when General Grant was stationed in the community. On the other hand, the poverty of the people manifests in the many boarded up and abandoned buildings, some used as wild cat havens; or destroyed by tornado and just left, fallen in the streets. There is no yellow tape around the remains, no warnings of danger. You could walk in the middle of the street, and no one would care. In addition, a racial divide is strong in the town: walk along 8th street, and the people are white; a block over, they're entirely black.

Historical society mansion

Glory days gone

Imagine, also, a finger of land about a mile wide, bordered by two of the biggest, fiercest rivers in the country; accessible by one bridge going to Missouri, the other, a 1/4 mile away, to Kentucky. What land there is, is the richest in the world; top soil a hundred feet deep, as one would expect from the northernmost point of the Mississippi Delta. To this geography, add a Civil War history, turn of the century opulence giving away to extreme poverty and race riots. This is Cairo, Illinois–named after the city in Egypt, with all the same hopes of grandeur. This is the South.

Barge heading from the Ohio to the Sip

There is more to the South than Mardi Gras, Blues, Cajun cooking, and white guys with confederate flags in the back of their trucks. Photos from Cairo, Illinois.

Tenth Street

Eighth Street

Cairo had two strongly distinctive faces. On the one hand, there's been an attempt to restore much of the history of the town, including its many unusual buildings: some dating from the Civil War when General Grant was stationed in the community. On the other hand, the poverty of the people manifests in the many boarded up and abandoned buildings, some used as wild cat havens; or destroyed by tornado and just left, fallen in the streets. There is no yellow tape around the remains, no warnings of danger. You could walk in the middle of the street, and no one would care. In addition, a racial divide is strong in the town: walk along 8th street, and the people are white; a block over, they're entirely black.

Historical society mansion

Glory days gone

Imagine, also, a finger of land about a mile wide, bordered by two of the biggest, fiercest rivers in the country; accessible by one bridge going to Missouri, the other, a 1/4 mile away, to Kentucky. What land there is, is the richest in the world; top soil a hundred feet deep, as one would expect from the northernmost point of the Mississippi Delta. To this geography, add a Civil War history, turn of the century opulence giving away to extreme poverty and race riots. This is Cairo, Illinois–named after the city in Egypt, with all the same hopes of grandeur. This is the South.

Barge heading from the Ohio to the Sip

I've known rivers:
I've known rivers ancient as the world and older than the
flow of human blood in human veins.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

I bathed in the Euphrates when dawns were young.
I built my hut near the Congo and it lulled me to sleep.
I looked upon the Nile and raised the pyramids above it.
I heard the singing of the Mississippi when Abe Lincoln
went down to New Orleans, and I've seen its muddy
bosom turn all golden in the sunset.

I've known rivers:
Ancient, dusky rivers.

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

Langston Hughes "The Negro speaks of Rivers"