Rookie Mistakes...
This Saturday's tour was certainly an eye-opener into corners of Tallahassee I had admittedly turned a blind eye to. As I looked at the map for the Riley House location, I had to do a bit of a double-take. Here, located literally in the center of downtown Tallahassee is this historic trinket standing as a testament to one man's victory over slavery and adversity in deep south Florida. Maybe if I had done more research on Riley before the tour, I would not have been as dumbfounded by the fact that this slave-turned-millionaire had the epitome of humble beginnings.
As we rode around what is and what used to be Frenchtown, it was increasingly interesting to hear various trivia about the town I'd called home for so many years. Where a large Civic Center now stands was once a free trade market for blacks. When Gus began his tour with the statement that many blacks found desegregation to do more harm than good, I was taken aback slightly. But as we drove through the rundown areas of what used to be a booming and vibrant district, it was easier to understand how this might be so. Still, attempts are clearly being made to "revitalize" the area and with great success. Certainly, some of the housing being constructed is far out of the price range of those currently residing there, but there are also affordable and attractive apartments standing in the same place of what used to be projects. Still, the message derived from Gus' claim on desegregation became clear. It is easy to look down one's nose and blame individuals for their plight, but to stop and think on how the downward spiral may have started presents a much different opinion. Another stop at the Old City cemetery and as Gus said, it was again a classic example of just how segregated whites and blacks were as it was literally taken to the grave. It seemed a bit poetic that two dozen black Civil War Union soldiers are buried there.
If the Riley house was a modest introduction, the Goodwood Museum was its grandiose conclusion, standing in stark contrast to the humble house of the successful ex-slave nestled among a maze of one-way streets, law offices and condominiums still under construction. At first, including the Goodwood Museum in this tour seemed out of place after a journey of Tallahassee History that spanned everywhere from Frenchtown slumps to the once-prominant Lincoln Academy. Upon reflection, though, what revealed itself to me was a duel of stories that shined light on the life of two very different ethnic backgrounds in the same city and era. In one corner, there is the freed African-American who owns the majority of downtown Tallahassee and has the ability to build a home that would make Goodwood look like a shack, but whose humble origins perhaps kept him modest. In the other corner, you have a legacy of families laden with backstabbing, avarice and widows on a plantation so large, its staff of servants would not even fit into the Riley House. From mirrors to paintings, fine China to cocktail dresses, the Goodwood plantation was anything but modest with etiquette that borderlines pretentiousness with a series of bathrooms, hallways and staircases that could only be entered into if a certain level of clothing was being donned. A hierarchy for underwear and other unmentionables? Why not, you don't have anything else to worry about.
As Valerie quoted, I admit a tour of this magnitude would be nothing short of spectacular in, say, Washington. But I had to reflect a bit on the deep and rich history laden in our own backyard which up to this point I had not even truly appreciated. I suppose my nose was so deep in my own books admiring and studying monuments and museums that I missed the area's history that is literally all around me. Granted, I cannot just go see the Lincoln Memorial or the White House whenever I wish. But we have our own monuments just yards away from where we study those which are hundreds of miles away. Indeed, statues of three black individuals who overcame similar adversity as Riley stand in the middle of our own campus. They aren't Civil War generals or former Presidents who led our nation in times of war, but they faced their own challenges all the same. Personally, some kid making a stand and carrying his books into a campus dominated by those who had oppressed people like him for so long makes him much more human than a man who crossed the Delaware.
Now if you'll excuse me, I have to finish wiping this egg off my face.
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3 comments:
Isn't it a little ironic how we tend to miss the history of our own city, and would rather let our mind be impressed by all the history they have somewhere else? In my hometown, it took me a very long while to realize that our main library used to be a very important Academy in Europe during the sixteenth century and that later some important figures from the Reformation actually taught there. Actually, I keep forgetting about it, because I've wandered in that building so many times that it is just part of the landscape for me now. I guess it is easier to be impressed by what they have in Washington or in Rome, than by what we have here or there. But it is maybe more special the day you realize the riches surrounding you.
My second thought on your writing was about Goodwood. I really did enjoy your thoughts and inputs on that part of our visit. I kept wondering what use Goodwood had for our tour, how to incorporate it in the rest of our visit, how to make it blend in with the African-American heritage. I think I was looking at it the wrong way. I should not have wondered how to make it fit in with the rest, but should have wondered about its deeper meaning, and what it meant. It would have helped me see what you eventually understood, distinguishing between Goodwood and Riley, the use of personal wealth.
You make some really powerful statements about race relations in Tallahassee, and how that issue has always been present in the city. I am glad that this experience was as moving to you as it was to me. It really opened my eyes and made me realize the rich history that surrounds us on a daily basis, and all of the important lessons that can be learned from it. As you mention, while racism may still be a problem it is easy to see why that is so from this tour. It would be wonderful if everyone in Tallahassee knew about our history and could learn from it by uniting our community.
I think you bring up an interesting poing including Valerie's observation on how different this tour would be outside of Tallahassee. I know that we were throwing round other possible cities like Boston, Washington, Charleston, or even Savannah. However, the more I have been thinking about it I think in comparing this tour to other cities where the obvious ties to black heritage are blatant we are doing ourselves and the history of Tallahassee a dis-service. For a community that for almost two hundred years has been rich in African American history, we perhaps just need to dig a little deeper than many other cities within the United States. With such a prolific history of plantation societies and Bourbon Democrats, Tallahassee has a wealth of history and important events that influences and affected the black community. With a city whose current population of African Americans exceeds one third and has had a large black population for much of it history I think that instead of implying the amazing tour that would be available in other cities we should, instead, look for the missing pieces of Tallahassee's black history puzzle, many of which were not evident or highlighted on Saturday's tour.
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