Clint is one of the many women of my generation who manned the ramparts in the 1970’s while we fought for feminism, particularly for the right to choose to have an abortion. We thought, Clint and I and many others, that we had after many battles won that war only to find with horror that the Supreme Court in its arrogance and ignorance has succeeded in overturning Roe V. Wade. Now, older and with less hope and less energy, Clint and I talked about the vital role of young women in supporting our Democratic colleagues and ensuring that the man whose name begins with T does not win the next national election and that the states that are further restricting or banning abortion are stopped in their tracks. The January 15th issue of the New Yorker carries the story of a Texas woman named Yeniifer Alvarez-Estrada Glick who died in July, 2020 after her doctors felt unable to discuss with her the life-threatening complications of her pregnancy.
Then, as so often happens during these conversations, Clint told me about her many times great grandmother who was living in Arkansas in 1859 with her mother. Confederate sympathizers, they found themselves harassed by Union sympathizers in the lead up to the Civil War. Finally they loaded all they had on a wagon and fled to Texas, throwing apples at the Natives they encountered on the way. Apples, even hard ones thrown with determination, would seem to be inadequate weapons, but if what I’ve learned about the Shawnee holds for other tribes, their would be assailants might have admired the women’s courage and decided to leave them alone. At any rate, they made it to Texas.
The humanity of these individual women, probably racists looking for their kind, is what leads me to write about the Georgia family that is the subject of my next research. Atrocious political sensibilities must not blind us to the fact that even abhorrent racism is only one aspect of complex human beings. My next book will certainly not provide excuses for slavery—such as one early eighteenth-century woman in this family writing letters home to “the two families”—but to shed light on the complexity of character and the only too recognizable ways we make excuses for our lack of humanity.
I’m tentatively calling this book, Etowah Cliffs: Death and Redemption of a Southern Family.
Keep writing Sallie! Your thoughts are uplifting.
Thank you, Sallie! So many, if not all, of your writings give me hope. This one falls squarely into that category.
I love thinking about you on a train! Happy birthday, Beautiful Dancer! 💝
Love the train poster you showed here. Is it one of yours or are posters available on some website and any of us can find them? I’ve loved posters since I saw the ones created for cafes, art exhibitions, fashion, and so on, in France in the 1800’s and on. I saw one I especially loved. It’s of Susan Sontag, seated at a big, thick wood table in a room in France, with a poster on the wall behind her showing a typewriter curving along a railroad track like a locomotive. A treat, seeing the one you used today.
As so often, Sallie, your way of weaving ideas and paradoxes together in your comments is wonderful. I really appreciate this one.
I, too, love trains. Or used to, back when they were beautiful and maintained, and commercial loads were not given priority over passenger trains. Money over all. For goodness sakes. The last times I took x-country train trips was in the 1990’s, and it was a hardship, not a pleasure so, sadly, that wonderful way of travelling is kaput for me. Enjoy riding them for me. Sweet to see your Rebecca’s comment. Oh, if only we still had both halves of a Congress with any sense who would give attention and money to our “domestic” needs and, among other things like women’s rights, adopt AMTRAK and other small passenger lines which might still exist, and bring them back to a safe and wonderful condition. It would be so good.