Mississippi was still burning at the beginning of the 90s

Elliott Erwitt - Caroline du Nord, 1950

My cousin Geneva? Said she heard some white man talkin ’bout that they dumped Uncle Lou’s body in the Mississippi and watched the gators feedin on it, and they was jus a-laughing, taking bets or some shit. And white folks say niggers is animals, that we next door to a ape. I tell you I’d rather be next door to a ape than next door to a goddamn cracker. At least a ape be my friend from Africa, wouldn’t sell his damn house on Tuesdy if I move next door on Mondy. See, to these folks, a animal is even more of a nigger than a nigger is. And you know animals is some beautiful creatures of God. What they think so bad ’bout being a ape?

For a long time, Eddie thought only about adjusting to the loss of his father, and the loss of the grocery store, not about seeking the cause of those losses, and no one pointed him in that direction—in fact, his relatives diverted his attention away from it. He would ask a direct question of a random cousin or of Bethella during her sporadic visits—How did my father die? They’d stare into a corner of the room and feed him a noble abstraction—He died fighting for your rights. The follow-up question seemed ridiculous, unaskable—I mean, what killed his body?—and would linger in the air.
You need to find out, press charges, and sue, everybody would say to Darlene, sometimes even to him, at six years old. Eddie, your mother needs to bring these people to justice. What’s she scared of? She has a thousand percent of our support.
But he watched his mother during these days, and he sensed, without actually knowing, that something unnameable had curled itself, snakelike, around her leg, then bound her torso; her breathing got more strained, her eyes bloodshot and sunken. He’d overhear the things she’d mutter to photographs of his father—I never should have asked. I shouldn’t have worn those shoes. Forgive me. How can you forgive me?

James Hannaham - Delicious Foods (Little, Brown and Company-2015)