The Minstrel's Melody (16 page)

“The man in the Dixie Palace—yes, that was the Stone Shed—actually grabbed up a handful of ashes from the fireplace and tried to rub it on your mother's face,” said Poppa, shaking his head. “He was drunk, of course. And naturally, Winston and I tried to protect her. The fella lost his balance and hit his head on the edge of a table. But times being what they were, with so many lynchings going on around the South and Midwest, why, it didn't take much for mob mentality to take over.”

“I still can't believe that happened in our own Lewis County.” Orphelia shuddered. “I always thought it was a good place to live.”

“It is, Orphelia. That drunk who started the trouble and his devilish buddies were not even from Lewis County,” Poppa said, putting a hand on Orphelia's shoulder. “Lewis County is a good place to live.”

“But, Poppa,” Pearl piped up, “there's something I still don't understand. How did Uncle Winston's composition book end up in the piano bench in the Stone Shed, with the newspaper article in it?”

“Yes, Thelton, that's a good question,” said Momma, propping herself up on her elbows. “You were supposed to destroy it, remember? I didn't want any reminders left of that horrible night.”

“I know,” said Poppa. “But I thought there might come a day when you'd change your mind and regret not having held on to your brother's music. Those compositions were one-of-a-kind. So I stuck the newspaper article in the back of the composition book and hid them both in the piano bench.”

“Good thing you did, too, or Orphelia would never have found Uncle Winston!” said Pearl.

“Yes, I suppose that's true,” Momma admitted. “Thank you, Thelton. I realize now that I should have kept that songbook anyway and learned to play all those songs myself, in his memory But instead, I haven't touched a piano since.”

“Maybe now you'll start playing again,” Orphelia said. “Is that old piano in the Stone Shed yours?”

“Oh, no. After that awful night, I gave my piano to the church. You've been playing on it all this time, Orphelia.”

Orphelia smiled so hard she thought her lips would split. “Maybe that's why I love it so much.”

  1904  

G
OING
B
ACK
IN
T
IME

L
OOKING
B
ACK
: 1904

In 1904, small-town life in Missouri had changed little since the end of the Civil War nearly 40 years before. People still traveled mostly by foot or on wagons drawn by mules or horses. Few buildings had indoor plumbing or electricity A girl Orphelia's age would probably never have traveled beyond her hometown or seen big-city sights like an automobile or a theater.

In black communities like Calico Creek, people's lives centered around the church. For a musically inclined girl like Orphelia, the church offered a chance to get training in piano and voice—and to perform before the congregation every Sunday.

A visit by a traveling minstrel show would have been a rare and thrilling event, and most of the town would have turned out to see it. A traditional minstrel show always began with the whole troupe singing onstage as the curtain rose. Next came singing, dancing, and comedy acts. Each act was introduced by the
interlocutor,
or announcer.

In Orphelia's day, both white and black audiences enjoyed minstrel songs, which portrayed the lives of southern black people, often in a humorous or romantic way Audiences also loved dances like the cakewalk, which featured jaunty strutting and fancy footwork.

Before the Civil War, minstrel shows featured white performers who mimicked the speech and music of black slaves to entertain white audiences. The performers dressed in tattered clothes and smeared their faces with burnt cork,
or blackface
makeup. After slavery was outlawed, many white Southerners felt bitter toward the former slaves, and their imitation of blacks in minstrel shows became even more insulting. White minstrel show managers began to hire black singers and dancers but made them wear the exaggerated blackface makeup too, because that was what white audiences expected to see.

Black performers found putting on blackface disturbing, but they had little choice if they wanted to keep their jobs and perform onstage. Over time, black performers were able to tone down the racism in the songs, jokes, and routines.

By the time of Orphelia's story, a few African Americans were even running their own all-black musical troupes, much like the fictional Madame Meritta. These performers did not wear blackface or tattered clothing—they dressed like stars and became very popular with black audiences.

As Orphelia discovers, however, life on the road was far from glamorous. Troupes like Madame Meritta's performed in a different town each night, which meant many miles of hard travel. Although the performers wore elegant clothes and presented an image of luxury, few became rich. Most struggled to keep a band together and make a living, just as Madame Meritta and Mr. Othello do.

Some people, both black and white, disapproved of minstrel shows because they believed that nonreligious music—or, as Momma calls it, “sassy music”—was sinful. And most parents, even those who enjoyed minstrel music, didn't want their children becoming part of the rough life of show business.

As Orphelia's parents knew, black entertainers faced special dangers because of racism, particularly in the South. When a minstrel show came to town, white citizens sometimes posted threatening signs warning the black performers to leave town as soon as the show was over.

Occasionally, racial hatred led to murder. A mob of whites might go after a black man and kill him, often by hanging. In some cases, these lynch mobs dragged black men right out of jail while white guards looked the other way, as happened to Uncle Winston. Unlike Uncle Winston, however, most victims of lynch mobs did not survive. Sadly, such crimes still occur. Today they are often called hate crimes.

By the turn of the century, America's industries were growing rapidly and needed workers. Thousands of black Southerners headed up the Mississippi River Valley to big cities such as Memphis, St. Louis, and Chicago. They brought with them the songs they had grown up with. Some of these songs were lively, toe-tapping folk songs. Others were slave songs or spirituals, also called
sorrow songs
because they expressed the suffering of slave life. As these musicians traveled, they traded songs and musical styles—and developed new ones.

Two new styles becoming especially popular at the time of Orphelia's story were blues and ragtime. Blues music tended to be slow and heartfelt, much like the religious slave spirituals, except that blues songs told of lost love and the troubles of everyday life. Great blues singers of the time, like Ma Rainey and Bessie Smith, could move their audiences to tears or make them jump with joy.

Ragtime had a very different feeling. It grew out of the lively folk music of southern blacks. Its strong, catchy rhythms had a slightly uneven, or
ragged,
beat. Orphelia would likely have heard the “Maple Leaf Rag,” a piano song written in Missouri by African American composer Scott Joplin. It became the first ragtime hit and remains a favorite today.

Both ragtime and blues became popular across the country and were soon adopted by white musicians. Later these styles gave rise to other forms of American music that have become popular around the world—jazz, rock and roll, and more recently, rap.

In 1904, another new attraction that gained worldwide popularity was the St. Louis World's Fair. Seven times as big as Disneyland, the fair drew 20 million visitors in the eight months it was open. Its grounds were filled with vast gardens and buildings the size of palaces, where visitors could view America's latest inventions as well as objects, animals, and even people from around the world. Fair-goers could watch a reenactment of a naval battle or stroll through a Japanese tea garden, an Irish castle, or a thatched Philippine village complete with native families—while enjoying brand-new treats such as the ice cream cone and Dr. Pepper. In the days before movies and television, the fair provided awestruck visitors with an astounding look at life around the globe. To a girl like Orphelia, the thrilling spectacle was beyond anything she could imagine.

A
UTHOR'S
N
OTE

In
The Minstrel's Melody,
my character Winston Taylor is nearly lynched after an incident in the Dixie Palace in 1892. My book is set in a real county—in fact, the county where I grew up—Lewis County in northeast Missouri. To my knowledge, and from what I've researched, I have not found any evidence that an actual lynching was reported in 1892 in Lewis County.

About the Author

Eleanora E. Tate was born in Missouri, where
The Minstrel's Melody
takes place. Of her ten books, her newest is
Celeste's Harlem Renaissance
, a recipient of the AAUW North Carolina Book Award for Juvenile Literature and the IRA Teacher's Choice award.
The Minstrel's Melody
is a Notable Children's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies. Tate's other books include
The Secret of Gumbo Grove
(a Parents' Choice Award winner);
Thank You, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.!
; and
Front Porch Stories at the One-Room School
.

Ms. Tate is a former president of the National Association of Black Storytellers and a winner of the 1999 Zora Neale Hurston Award. Her short stories and essays have appeared in numerous magazines, including
American Girl
and
Scholastic Storyworks
. She teaches at Hamline University and at the Institute of Children's Literature. Visit her website at
www.eleanoraetate.com
.

All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

Text Copyright © 2001, 2009 by Eleanora E. Tate

Map Illustration by Glenn Harrington

Line Art by Greg Dearth

Cover design by Amanda DeRosa

ISBN: 978-1-4976-4661-2

This edition published in 2014 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.

345 Hudson Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com

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