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11. Solo - Life Narrative: "That's a soul that you're stepping on"
- University of Illinois Press
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11 Solo k Life Narrative “That’s a soul that you’re stepping on” I was born in Mississippi. My maternal grandparents raised me until I was six. And then they boarded me on a train. So at the age of six, I was on a train by myself. That’s a very vivid memory. It’s a good memory. And I arrived in Chicago, Illinois, with my great maternal aunt, whose name is [Solo]. I’m named after her. I stayed there one year, so at the age of seven, I was boarded on the train again by myself to go to Cleveland, where I remained ever since. My two brothers were with my mother in Cleveland. I had saw them whenever they would visit Mississippi, so I did know when they were born and different things like that. But I hadn’t actually lived with them until I was seven years old, close to eight. [Then I] stayed with my mother until she passed away. When I was in Mississippi, I remember vaguely getting on a big yellow bus, going to school. School, of course, was segregated. I remember the bus picking me up and all the dust that would come up with the tires, and my grandmother would have me with these pretty little dresses. She had been a domestic for the same family until she passed, so I had grew up with a little girl and her hand-me-downs were my clothes. Of course, I had really nice clothes. And I remember I didn’t want my dresses—which my grandmother used to starch and iron like she did the family’s daughter’s dresses, and I had a lot of petticoats—I didn’t want the dust getting under my petticoats. And I used to cry that they were going to get me dirty. And I had little parasols with the ruffles. . . . And I was teased because I had nice clothes. I don’t remember too much about school other than that there were no white kids. I only saw them when I went to the family where my grandmother worked. The girl and I, we played together. I remember her father had built this playhouse in the back, and we could go in and out of this playhouse. . . . When I got to Cleveland, it was in the winter, and my grandmother who was sending me boxes of clothes didn’t have any coats for me ’cause it wasn’t snowing in Mississippi, and I remember she had ordered me something out of a catalogue and that was my first time getting a Sears and Roebuck catalogue ’cause she sent it to me for me to see the pictures. And she had sent me a little red coat with a red muffler that hung around and you could put your hands in. I thought it was the cutest thing. And I remember thinking, if I wear these clothes to this new school in this new city, will I get picked on like I did on the big yellow bus? Well, there was no yellow bus. I had to walk to school, and I was living on [X and Y] streets, which was a very really poor area. And all up and down [X] street at that time, all the businesses were owned by Jewish people. And I remember going to school having to go past these stores. And it seemed like everybody knew everybody’s kids. So whenever I would stop and linger around—because I really was afraid to go ’cause I was going to get picked on—this Jewish lady named Ms. [X] would always call me by my name and tell me, “You better get to school, [Solo], or I’m going to tell your mother.” So there was a stark reality of white and black in my childhood, but I didn’t feel it in the sense of racism because they all helped me. They were all sort of supporting me. And my only issue really was that I was being called “country” because I was from the South. Maybe I talked different. I’m not sure what I did different , but I quickly knew that I wanted to fit in, really bad. . . . I was picked on. I’d be happy to get the clothes because they came from my grandmother and they were nice. But then when I would go outside, the kids who didn’t have, they resented...