Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
were more shacks as well, a more or less continuous line of them along the highway. It
was like driving through the world's roomiest slum. And these were real shacks. Some of
themlookeddangerouslyuninhabitable, withsaggingroofsandwallsthatlookedasifthey
had been cannonballed. Yet as you passed you would see someone lurking in the doorway,
watchingyou.Thereweremanyroadsidestoresaswell,morethanyouwouldhavethought
such a poor and scattered populace could support, and they all had big signs announcing a
motleyofcommodities:GAS,FIREWORKS,FRIEDCHICKEN,LIVEBAIT.Iwondered
just how hungry I would have to be to eat fried chicken prepared by a man who also dealt
in live bait. All the stores had Coke machines and gas pumps out front,
and almost all of them had rusting cars and assorted scrap scattered around the yard. It was
impossible to tell if they were still solvent or not by their state of dereliction.
Every once in a while I would come to a town, small and dusty, with loads of black people
hanging around outside the stores and gas stations, doing nothing. That was the most arrest
ing difference about the South-the number of black people everywhere. I shouldn't really
have been surprised by it. Blacks make up 35 percent of the population in Mississippi and
not much less in Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina. In some counties in the South,
blacks outnumber whites by four to one. Yet until as recently as twenty-five years ago, in
many of those counties not a single black person was registered to vote.
With so much poverty everywhere, Columbus came as a welcome surprise. It was a splen-
did little city, hometown of Tennessee Williams, with a population of 30,000. During the
Civil War it was briefly the state capital, and it still had some large antebellum homes lin-
ing the well-shaded road in from the highway. But the real jewel was its downtown, which
seemed hardly to have changed since about 1955. Crenshaw's Barber Shop had a rotating
pole out front and across the street was a genuine five-and-dime called McCrory's and on
the corner was the Bank of Mississippi in an imposing building with a big clock hanging
over the sidewalk. The county courthouse, city hall and post office were all handsome and
imposing edifices but built to a small-town scale. The people looked prosperous. The first
person I saw was an obviously well-educated black man in a three-piece suit carrying a
Wall Street Journal. It was all deeply pleasing and encouraging. This was a first-rate town.
CombineitwithPella'shandsomesquareandyouwouldalmosthavemylong-soughtAm-
algam.IwasbeginningtorealizethatIwasnevergoingtofinditinoneplace.Iwouldhave
to collect it piecemeal-a courthouse here, a fire station there-and here I had found several
pieces.
