ellison visits greenwood, 1921

POETRY ellison visits greenwood, 1921 by Quraysh Ali Lansana oklahoma sun an oppressive neighbor in august 1920. churchgoers settle after-dinner stomachs. deep deuce a murmuring disquiet: raid at the chandler’s. moonshine & melanin news on street. daddy chandler one officer dead young claude jailed with alleged murder his shirt. christian sabbath buzzing lynching bee three white men freed from cage thousand armed black 2nd street mayor police allow of cars now unarmed to find return next sweltering midday without him, body rotting meat ten miles okc beaten shot. miss ida had enough. her lewis gone years now, she frets when ralph delivers dispatch herbert still too spell KKK. maybe indiana. gary, where brother works steel. stop greenwood visit family way north. hundreds shops businesses, elegant houses, hospitals. vibrant life face jim crow, so unlike deuce. closer harlem would know. gary was not negro paradise. jobless, boys eating garbage trash cans. hateful but least familiar. dry heat stings skin irritable somehow bearable family. highway leads them back tulsa before gone. wall invisible. The author twenty books poetry, nonfiction, and children’s literature, is currently Tulsa Artist Fellow as well writer residence, adjunct professor, acting director Center for Truth, Racial Healing Transformation Oklahoma State University– Tulsa. He executive producer KOSU radio’s Focus: Black Oklahoma, forthcoming titles include Those Who Stayed: Life after Massacre. member TriCity Collective. GORDON PARKS, UNTITLED, HARLEM, NEW YORK, 1952, COURTESY OF AND © THE PARKS FOUNDATION WORLDLIT.ORG 51 ...