SOUNDTRACK: NINA SIMONE-“Mississippi Goddamn” (Live in Antibes, July 24-25, 1965).
This song is amazing for so many reasons.
Nina Simone wrote this song in less than an hour as a response to the murders of Emmett Till and Medgar Evers in Mississippi, and the 16th Street Baptist Church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama (see the posts from John Lewis’ March).
It is simple and straightforward. She pulls no punches, from the title to the explicitness of the lyrics.
The intro (and chorus) get right to the point
Alabama’s gotten me so upset
Tennessee made me lose my rest
And everybody knows about Mississippi, goddamn
She doesn’t stop there.
Don’t tell me, I’ll tell you
Me and my people just about due
I’ve been there so I know
They keep on saying
“Go slow!”But that’s just the trouble “too slow”
Washing the windows “Too slow”
Picking the cotton “Too slow”
You’re just plain rotten “Too slow”
You’re too damn lazy “Too slow”
The thinking’s crazy “Too slow”
Where am I going What am I doing I don’t know
Having the band chant back “too slow” during the bridge is a nice call for support.
What’s most scary about this song is how little has changed since she wrote it fifty years ago,
Picket lines, school boycotts
They try to say it’s a communist plot [substitute Antifa or BLM now]
All I want is equality
For my sister, my brother, my people, and me
In the Antibes version, she substitutes Governor Wallace in one of the lines–and you can tell how intensely she feels these words.
Then there’s the music–a sort of bouncy jazzy number that could easily be about anything. The lyrics are straightforward, but the music almost softens the bite, or at least. In the Carnegie Hall recording she even jokes “This is a show tune, but the show hasn’t been written for it, yet.”
The middle section, which is a little quieter, definitely sounds a bit more sinister. And justifiably
Hound dogs on my trail
School children sitting in jailBlack cat cross my path
I think every day’s gonna be my last
Watching this video is really intense. I wonder how impactful this was in France. And I can’t imagine what the impact was like at Carnegie Hall.
[READ: March 8, 2021] Kindred [the fight]
This week’s read is one long, painful chapter.
After the first few sections have established the scenario, the more you think about it, the more you realize how many things can (and likely will) go wrong for Dana.
Each time Dana is sent back in time, the gap between instances grows. Time doesn’t pass in the present the same way it does when she goes back. She had been gone for nearly two months but when she returned home she had been “gone” for less than a day.
Now that Kevin has remained, she fears for him as well and those fears are completely reasonable–he was treated well in that world because he was white. He looked forward to watching the expansion of our country West. Could he become a hardened white person if he was there for too long? Kevin seems like a pretty decent fellow and doesn’t seem like he would become an owner of anyone, but you could see him getting caught up in everything that’s happening.
First though, there’s some time back in the present. Dana tells us about her relationship with Kevin and how neither his sister nor her aunt and uncle approved of their marriage. Kevin’s sister had married a racist doctor and she refused to allow her brother and his new wife into her house. Meanwhile, her aunt and uncle were offended because they assumed she’d marry a man like her uncle–proud and black.
Then she woke up and realized that every part of her body hurt. She could barely move. She had been whipped. Brutally (although we find out later that he went “easy” on her). Her clothes had bled and stuck to her body–this detail really got me. She managed to clean herself off and made sure she would not get infected (from a whip that had been tempered by oil and blood).
Kevin had not returned with her. She was by herself so she prepared for her next inevitable return. She grabbed a denim bag and filled it with necessities–medicine, a knife, pens and paper, clothes. Eight days later, she was whisked back to Rufus’ side as he was once again in danger of being killed. This time, a black man–Isaac, all grown up–was beating him to within an inch of his life.
Turns out hat in the decade or so since she was last there, Isaac had married Alice, (even if it was not legally binding for slaves to marry). But Rufus still wanted her. He was willing to do anything to have her. He had tried to take Alice but Isaac was having none it. It was Dana who spared Rufus’ life by calming Isaac down. She also spared Isaac’s life. If Isaac had killed Rufus, he would have no hope of survival (although I do wonder who would know it was Isaac who did it). She encouraged Isaac and Alice to flee and promised that Rufus would not say anything.
Rufus was as good as his word, but Isaac and Alice were found anyway. Alice was sent back. After being beaten so badly she forgot a lot (including how she felt about rufus). Although her memory did come back slowly. But Isaac (and therefore Alice) wasn’t so lucky. They sent him down south. And they had cut off his ears(!). What the fuck.
Dana went to Rufus’ house. Things were different. His mother had left. She had given birth tow two girls who both died. She had a nervous breakdown). Rufus’s father was still there but seemed to be tempered somewhat. Rufus even said that he was a fair man–not kind, but fair–after all, he beat and whipped people but only what the deserved.
Rufus father recognized Dana immediately. He seemed to have a strange kind of grunding respect for her. He had seen her disappear, which clearly made him think she was a witch or something.
Dana heloped nurse Rufus back to health. She gave him some of her aspirin. She had also brought a history book with a map of the area. But when he saw the history books she had brought, he grew angry at what they said (it sucks finding out you’re on the wrong side of history). He didn’t believe the things he was reading. Then Dana realized people like Harriet Tubman could be in trouble if a white man heard about what she was doing. He insisted that she burn the book–including the map of Maryland that she had torn out of the book.
If she did all that he would allow her to send a letter to Kevin.
Kevin had left Maryland for the north and had been there for a few years. He was in Boston or possibly Maine at this point. Dana wrote him a letter and imagined he’d be there to take her away within a few weeks.
But Rufus had no intention of sending her letter. He told dan that she was home now and he meant it. He “loved” Dana and didn’t want her to leave him. So he did to her what he had done to Alice–whom he also “loved.” He used threats and duress to keep them near him. He wanted to have sex with Alice– luckily not with Dana. But he held Alice’s safety over Dana’s head–she should talk Alice into sleeping with him or he would take Alice by force.
Dana was there for a long time. She became a part of the family–and was more or less a slave even if she wasn’t “owned.” She had no proof of her freedom and, as people pointed out, any papers she carried could be torn up and ignored, anyhow.
But once she realizes that Rufus had not sent the letters–that Kevin had no idea she was even back, she decided to make a run for it
She plans out everything but doesn’t consider that one of the servants doesn’t like her. And tells on her. Dana is very quickly found by Rufus and his father. They bring her back and she is whipped to within an inch of her life. A pain so fierce it seems like it should send her back home. But she must have known that this wasn’t going to kill her, so instead she had to stay there and bear it.
She was laid up for days. Rufus did tend to her. And explained that his father only whipped her because he couldn’t allow other slaves to think a runway would go unpunished–that whole “fair” thing.
When she was able to walk, she saw a white man–old and bearded riding a horse on the property. She couldn’t believe it was Kevin. And he barely recognized her. When he saw what had happened, he was (understandably) furious. But Dana knew she might arrive back here again and told him to be cool. She planned on riding off with him without saying a word. Until Rufus sees them walking out of town. He stops them with a gun.
This is the second time a gun sends her back home.
We don’t know if Kevin is with her this time or how long she’ll be home. But since there’s 70 pages left its safe to assume she’ll be heading back to Maryland at least one more time.
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