Joe turner's Come and Gone - Center Stage

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American South. As Sarah Belk states, “eggs fried in bacon drippings, escorted by country ham, hot biscuits, grits with butter and red-eye gravy, and a cup of coffee so hot that the less acquainted might term it ‘scalding’— aren’t merely the makings of a Southern breakfast, they’re the substance of a Southern lifeblood.” 2 We learn little, if anything, about Bertha’s origins. But years of operating a rooming house have made her aware of the ways in which certain foods help to bring comfort and a touch of the familiar to weary migrants. Regardless of the assimilation processes that migrants were forced to undergo, and the changes that they were encouraged to make, they also needed something solidly Southern to remain in place. Bertha offers this refuge in her food and in her home. For a family like the Hollys, taking in boarders provided a way to augment their income. With that extra income, though, came extra effort, largely at Bertha’s expense; for what was not produced at home still had to be prepared. Chickens from the market had to be killed or plucked, fish had to be scaled, and hams—for those who could afford them—had to be soaked to remove the salt. Despite the availability of mass-produced items, coffee still had to be ground and roasted, sugar pounded, and flour sifted to remove particles. Whether from the garden or the market, the labor-intensive nature of food preparation cannot be underestimated. No wonder Bertha is glad of the help young Zonia Loomis can offer. Hidden in the folds of Bertha’s culinary talents, recipes, and social graces are the stories of those who used their domestic skills in an informal market economy to provide goods and services—legal and illegal—to make a life for their families, buy their freedom, or simply provide enough to eat. Faced with difficult economic circumstances and seeing a niche in the market, many Blacks turned to the underground economy for security. With industrial expansion came a need for living spaces for more mobile populations. For African Americans, the search for housing was made more difficult by race and gender considerations. So African American women and men opened makeshift motels and boarding houses, whose tenants would otherwise have nowhere to live in the Jim Crow North. Some found their way to these houses through advertisements in such Black-owned newspapers as the Pittsburgh Courier or by using The Negro Motorist Green Book; 3 but most would have arrived by word-of-mouth. In exchange for cash and the latest news from the wider world, they would receive food, bed, and perhaps a touch of home; providing entertainment and liquor along with a plate of chicken and collard greens was as much a part of the exchange as the overnight fee. These Black boarding houses became part of the network that humanized the African American travel experience throughout the Great Migration. While the meals and domestic skills provided by Bertha might seem incidental to the larger workings of Joe Turner’s Come and Gone, they deserve better and closer attention. The work of Black women like Bertha helped to maintain Southern traditions and establish continuity for new migrants in a strange land. Through her biscuits and her hospitality, Bertha becomes a reminder of the left-behind Southern culture, a binding agent against the fractures of the Black diaspora. She affirms her position not only as a cultural worker, but also as a cultural transmitter.• 1 Bernice Johnson Reagon, “African Diaspora Women: The Making of Cultural Workers,” in Women in Africa and the African Diaspora, ed. Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, et. al., pp. 168-69. 2 Sarah Belk, Around the Southern Table, p. 335. 3 The Negro Motorist Green Book was a guide or pamphlet issued by the United States Travel Bureau that contained a list of designations (bars, service stations, lodgings) which were amenable to African American patrons. Above: Romare Bearden’s schematic drawing of three floors of his maternal grandmother’s boarding house in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania. Right: Evening Meal of the Prophet Peterson, 1964. Next Stage: Joe Turner’s Come and Gone | 12
The Blues Story of “Joe Turner” by Faedra Chatard Carpenter, Production Dramaturg Known by many as “The Father of the Blues,” W. C. Handy (1873–1958) composed some of the first Blues songs ever recorded. Among his most popular and commercially successful was “Joe Turner Blues,” inspired by the inequitable actions of the legendary lawman, Joe Turney, brother of Tennessee governor Pete Turney. Protected by his brother’s position and aided by the institutionalized racism of the South, Joe Turney was among those who participated in the practice of imprisoning Black men in order to profit from their unpaid labor. As W. C. Handy explained, the ominous figure of Joe Turney was woven into the tapestry of Black folklore under the name of “Joe Turner”: When you speak of the story of the Blues, we can’t tell it without the story of Joe Turner…Joe Turney was the brother of Pete Turney, governor of the state of Tennessee, who pressed Negroes into peonage and took them down the Mississippi River to the farms. To do this, they had decoys that lured Negroes in Memphis to crap games where they were arrested and put into prison. Women looking for their husbands who were late coming home would ask, “I wonder where my husband is” Then they would be told, “Haven’t you heard about Joe Turner He’s been here and gone. He had a long chain with 50 links to it where he could press Negroes in handcuffs and take them away.” So the Negroes around Memphis made up a song... They tell me Joe Turner’s come and gone. Oh, Lordy, Tell me Joe Turner’s come and gone. Oh, Lordy Got my man and gone. Informed by the words and music of Handy as well as the collage-work of Romare Bearden, August Wilson brilliantly brings together pieces of African American history, folklore, and music to create the story behind Herald Loomis’ long absence. In so doing, Wilson created what he considered to be his best play: the Blues-induced, “breathing collage” known as Joe Turner’s Come and Gone. • By Negro Chain Gangs. That is How Atlanta is Preparing for Her Cotton Exposition—Men Thrown Into Prison and Given Long Sentences Only to Get Their Labor for Nothing. An astonishing story of Negro oppression and injustice was told on Friday to a Tribune reporter by a man who recently returned from Atlanta. Negroes to the number of 500 or more were taken from the jail at Brunswick to Atlanta in shackles and put to work. It was common talk in the city that a large number of them had been thrown into prison for chicken stealing, disorderly conduct, drunkenness and various trumped-up charges and were made to serve out long terms, working on the exposition grounds. A big The Cleveland Gazette, September 17, 1902.
Page 1 and 2: Next Stage Resource Guide Joe turne
Page 3 and 4: Set ting the STage Joe Turner’s C
Page 5 and 6: Call and Response: Q&A with Product
Page 7 and 8: “[T]hat’s my workshed. I go out
Page 9 and 10: LOOMIS When they sink down they mad
Page 11: detached transients just up from th
Page 15 and 16: strategically lured into gambling t

Joe turner's Come and Gone - Center Stage

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