Edna Spencer

What Color Is the Wind? Edna Spencer

"An idea has unfortunately gotten abroad that being a Negro is like being in solitary confinement - away from the rest of the world. It is thought, indeed, that there could be no place chosen so gloomy or so hopeless in which to be born as among this race composed to some extent of descendants of Ham. Yet the whole question depends - as all other things do in life - on the point of view and the state of mind. - Life's happiness lies in anticipation. It is a truism that perfectly fits the Negro's case. So much lies before him, the things he can hope to achieve are so much more numerous than those Aryans can look forward to, that his pleasures of hope are endless - why seek disillusion in attainment? It is but seldom that delights grow stale by being by being transform from the imaginary to the real. (E. E. Wilson, "The Joys of Being a Negro") In the nineteen thirties delights not dreamed of by Black farmers in Oakridge, Tennessee began to evolve through painful events. They accepted their fate, and that is where this journey began.