THE STORY OF SLAVERY: THE WHITNEY PLANTATION

...And a little child shall lead them.
                                              -Isaiah 11.6


     It's something most Americans don't want to think about, 300 years of slavery in our country.
You'll think about it a lot when visiting the Whitney Plantation. Like many other former southern slave farms, it's on the Mississippi River, 35 miles west of New Orleans. Go there and little children will lead you. They will show you what it was like to be a slave.
     
      The children are remarkable statues  created by artist, Woodrow Nash. They're set all over the Whitney. Their hollow eyes bear witness to the horrible atrocities inflicted upon them. 
    
 

 The South has hundreds of restored plantations, huge farms once worked by slaves. From  Jefferson's Monticello to some in North Florida, they're now residences, parks, and tourist attractions. 


    I've been to a few and have marveled their architecture, gardens, and craftsmanship. Most of what I was admiring was created by indentured servants. Rarely have I seen African Americans visiting these places. Why would they? 
There is usually little mention or evidence of slavery at these plantations. 

    The 200-year old plantations focus on "the good life" enjoyed by the former slave owners. Those days may be gone with the wind but they come back briefly in plantation weddings, reunions, and other genteel affairs. 

   These places rarely mention  "the bad life", the history of horrors experienced by most of the people who lived on the slave farms, the ones who were whipped, brutalized, and sold like cattle.

     But now we have the Whitney, a plantation that does just that.  It is our country's first slavery museum. Visiting is not unlike touring Washington, DC's Holocaust Museum. You experience what it was like to be a slave.

     Your visit begins in a new, museum-like building.  Visitors are given slave identities (worn around the neck). Mine was Francis Doby, a former slave who was interviewed many years ago.  Reading her oral history I learned how she had spent her life working the fields and making babies. When she was too old she minded children while their mothers worked the fields. 


   An exhibit traces the history of slavery in America.  I learned that Columbus himself brought the first African slaves to our side of the Atlantic.

      Visitors are taken on a 90-minute tour of the sugar cane plantation.  My group was led by a native who knew this area well.   

                             Names are etched on dark marble in the "Field of Honor". Most are first names, the only ones known for the 107,000 slaves brought to the Louisiana Territory. 
   Fragments of their oral histories were there as well. Said former slave John McDonnell, "We were not allowed to read or write. If the boss man  caught me with pencil and paper I'd get 25 lashes."


    Below my group visits one of the slave quarters. We imagined what it was like for the twelve or more people who once lived there.
    Our country was built on the backs of slaves and Miami has it own history. In downtown's Lummus Park we have former slaves quarters as well.
    
      The cabin above, like most plantation buildings, was built by slaves. After the Civil War, former slave craftsmen were able to create their own buildings. One example is the Antioch Baptist Church built nearby in 1885.  It was moved to the Whitney several years ago.  
 

    
  The Whitney Plantation was founded by New Orleans native John Cummings. I had the pleasure of meeting the trial attorney on my visit. When I told him that I was a recovering lawyer, he laughed and said, "You're a recovering racist too. We all are".
      I suppose that's why he created this country's first slavery museum, to help us "recover" some of our lost ideals and better understand our past.

     I learned about the Whitney while watching TV. CBS This Morning did an excellent segment on the plantation when it opened in December, 2014. John told me 16 million people have seen it. The link is, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfC8X2Os2z4 .

       All of us can learn from the museum that John built. Of the 35,000 people visiting the first year, forty percent were African-Americans. As a plaque at the entrance says, we're all in this boat together. Let's hope we learn to resolve the problems that Christopher Columbus started.
                    ______________________





        
                                 
 
References:

The Whitney Plantation's website is www.whitneyplantation.com .

John Cummings' interview is at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NToQ3iwz7LQ . 

A New York Times article is athttp://www.nytimes.com/2015/03/01/magazine/building-the-first-slave-museum-in-america.html

Isaiah 11.6, "The wolf shall live with the lamb..." biblical prophecy about a future kingdom of peace.

                   _______________________

SEE THE MAGIC !

    Scratch that one off my list, I saw my first real magic show last night. 
"The Illusionists-Live From Broadway" is playing at the Arsht Center this week. It'll run through Sunday, October 16th.
     It showcases seven of the world's best in a non-stop, spectacular procession. 
The magicians range from the
 
jovial

                                     
                                           and goth,


to hilarious.
                                             
              There was also a smooth operator


 
and Colin Cloud, the Scotsman who did not
blow your mind but, he certainly could read it. 



  Often people from the audience were brought up on stage to join the fun. Thank God I wasn't chosen but the guy in front of me wasn't so lucky.
   
                 
     Francesca and I saw manikins turn into people, people created from nothing, and twisted paper transformed into long stemmed roses. It was terrific, something the whole family will enjoy. Tickets start at $37 and if you can't afford front row seats,

 there's a large overhead screen to bring the fun up close.
      You've got four more days to see the The Illusionists.  Go. It's magic!
                  ________________________
    

NATCHITOCHES AFTERNOON

Note:  I cut my cross-country trip short to return home for the hurricane. In the next week I'll be writing about a few of the unique places I visited after leaving Texas.     

    Natchitoches, Louisiana, is one of the nicest little towns you never heard of.  The state's oldest settlement (1714), it is nestled along the Cane River in plantation country. It's a tiny New Orleans echoing the old south with its restaurants, jazz bars, and
 
 riverfront slave farms (plantations). I has stopped by for a quick meal but ended up staying much longer (party invitations can do that).



    




NOTE:  SOMETHING'S MESSED UP ON THE BLOG PROGRAM THAT I USE.  TRY WHAT I MAY, I CAN NOT ENLARGE THE TYPE BELOW.

YOU MAY NEED A MICROSCOPE OR, AT LEAST,
READING GLASSES.

SORRY...




The Louisiana
Sports Hall of Fame was having its grand opening.
      I was invited to tour this new, modern building, to learn about the state's history of sports worship, and to enjoy conversing over endless glasses of dark stout.

    The locals and I talked about LSU's "Pistol Pete" Maravitch, Billy Cannon, and popular Shreveport native, Terry Bradshaw. There is an entire exhibit devoted to the NFL's Steve Gleason. The former Saints player is now fighting Lou Gehrig's Disease. It includes the special wheelchair that two teammates used to push him up the trail to Machu Pichu.
   And there was this fantastic car, "Hell on Wheels". A local mechanic built it out of a '56 Thunderbird and set a world speed record. He is a Louisiana sports hero too.    



    If you go there, bend you mind into pronouncing "Natchetoches" as "Nack-a-tish". It's how the locals say it and if you don't, they'll never stop correcting you.  Like the town or its southern belles, it's unusual and kind of cute, a southern thing.  
     The following day I headed southeast again.  My next stop would be something novel that also opened recently, our country's first slavery museum. 
                   _______________________

ROCKIN' THE BARNACLE LAST NIGHT

     One of the Grove's great annual events took place last night at the Barnacle State Park. It was   Iko-Iko's Love- In, a star-lit concert on the bay.  

Graham Drout and Joe Donato
     
 There are few things in the Grove that bring our community together.  How often are you drawn to any intimate public affair featuring friends and neighbors? Most Grove events are designed to bring thousands of people here to spend money on beer, food, (or next week) pumpkins.  You're usually standing in dirt, lost in a crowd of strangers, wondering why you're not having fun.

    
   But not last night! Graham Drout's Iko-Iko band (and their guest musicians) were hot.  They had us dancing like we were revelers at a '69 love-fest. Artists were selling tie-dye, hippie jewelry, and masseuses were easing tired muscles for $1 a minute.
                                                                     Jellyfish was feelin' it
    
  A Big Thanks to the the musicians and the Barnacle Society for giving the Grove so many reasons to smile last night. We need more of them.
                  ____________________
   

GETTIN' MY KICKS ON ROUTE 66

    As you head east across the country you cross high-desert and amazing mountains, so foreign to us flatlanders. Fall comes early at 7000 feet on the north rim of the Grand Canyon. In mid-September the aspen leaves were turning for this Florida boy who rarely sees such things. 
   After winding down 3000 feet the evergreens around me were replaced by an everbrown desert.  I had reached the The Great Plains. Can you make out that that thin line at the roof line of my van? Ten minutes later I was on that asphalt ribbon leading to the fabled transcontinental highway, Route 66.

      66 was once the popular, south central, east-west route with teepee motels, neon-lit diners, and other kitschy stops. All that ended in the 1980's when Interstate 40 barrelled over it with super-highway efficiency. 

   There are still pieces of 66 left that  parallel I-40. Many signs tempt you to slow down, veer off and "Enjoy Historic Route 66". I did this many times
heading back to Florida.
    Here are a few photos from those excursions,

      
    You can buy lotaburgers as you enter Gallop, NM.


 


Holbrook, Arizona, is the middle of a "petrified forest", chucks of wood-turned-rock that lay hidden in the desert scrub. Locals gather it and sell it to tourists. While I-40 soars over the town, Route 66 weaves around and through it.

I was tempted to bunk at the Buckaroo Motel.

   

Gallop, New Mexico had my kind of doughnut shop.



While I passed on the doughnuts and caramel macchiatos, the scrambled eggs were delicious. 








 

 I've owned six VW's. When I saw Kester's Volkswagenwerks in Gallop, New Mexico,  I had to take a closer look.



 

 

 It was sweltering as I passed through Santo Rosa, New Mexico. Taking refuge in the town's library, I saw this screen saver. When he librarian told me it was the town's "Blue Hole", a magnificent spring just a mile away, I wanted to be that guy jumping in. 

     By the time I had packed up and headed for the door, a driving rainstorm was pounding outside. A half-hour later it had lightened up and I made my way to what had seemed to be the perfect end to a hot afternoon.
It was cooler now, still raining, and the blue hole had turned shades of grey.
The once inviting water matched the gloomy sky. I moved on. 

   If you want a taste of Route 66 in South Florida, head north on Highway 27 (it starts, appropriately, in Hialeah).  You'll find diners, funky motels, and "Gatorama" along the way.



     The next day I visiting relatives in Texas. Cousin Lori told me, "You've got to stop at "Buc-ee's!"  The next day I did and like Texas, it was big. 

There were sixty gas pumps outside

and twenty-eight urinals inside.

     

     All this and gas at $1.68 per gallon. Obviously, it was hard to leave this Texas-style filling station.  When my gas gauge ran low the next day in Louisiana, I was tempted to drive back 

for a fill up.

______