Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
had seen nothing even faintly praiseworthy of blacks in Mississippi. Moreover, blacks and
whites here seemed to be on far better terms. I could see them chatting at bus stops, and I
saw a black nurse and white nurse traveling together in a car, looking like old friends. Al-
together, it seemed a much more relaxed atmosphere than in Mississippi.
I drove on, through rolling, open countryside. There were some cotton fields still, but
mostly this was dairy country, with green fields and bright sunshine. In the late afternoon,
almost the early evening, I reached Tuskegee, home of the Tuskegee Institute. Founded
by Booker T. Washington and developed by George Washington Carver, it is America's
premier college for blacks. It is also the seat of one of the poorest counties in America.
Eighty-two percent of the county population is black. More than half the county residents
live below the poverty level. Almost a third of them still don't have indoor plumbing. That
is really poor. Where I come from you are poor if you cant afford a refrigerator that makes
its own ice cubes and your car doesn't have automatic windows. Not having running water
in the house is something beyond the realms of the imaginable to most Americans.
The most startling thing about Tuskegee was that it was completely black. It was in every
respect a typical small American city, except that it was poor, with lots of boarded shop-
fronts and general dereliction, and that every person in every car, every pedestrian, every
storekeeper, every fireman, every postman, every last soul was black. Except me. I had
neverfeltsoselfconscious,sovisible.Isuddenlyappreciatedwhatablackpersonmustfeel
like in North Dakota. I stopped at a Burger King for a cup of coffee. There must have been
fifty people in there. I was the only person who wasn't black, but no one seemed to notice
or care. It was an odd sensation-and rather a relief, I must say, to get back out on the high-
way.
I drove on to Auburn, twenty miles to the northeast. Auburn is also a college town and
roughly the same size as Tuskegee, but the contrast could hardly have been more striking.
Auburn stu dents were white and rich. One of the first sights I saw was a blonde sweep-
ing past in a replica Duesenberg that must have cost her daddy $25,000. It was obviously
a high-school graduation present. If I could have run fast enough to keep up, I would hap-
pily have urinated all down the side of it. Coming so soon after the poverty of Tuskegee, it
made me feel strangely ashamed.
However, I must say that Auburn appeared to be a pleasant town. I've always liked college
towns anyway. They are about the only places in America that manage to combine the be-
nefits of a small-town pace of life with a dash of big-city sophistication. They usually have
nicebarsandrestaurants,moreinterestingshops,analtogethermoreworldlyair.Andthere
