#370 Junius Dogman and the Mischief- David Dante Troutt

#370 Junius Dogman and the Mischief- David Dante Troutt

Junius once got locked up for four years for punching a white man that just severed his finger with a shovel. Image what would happen to him when he killed a white cop? He managed to avoid the death penalty by claiming an insanity plea, but he still got life in prison.

He was certain he was square with God, and was going to heaven--“I didn’t bother tryin to bring God into it, because I figure he knew about it already.”—but he still had the rest of his time of earth to worry about. You know life is bad when you have to think, before answering this question:

“What’s worse, life or death?”

Notable Passage: “Honor is tricky. That’s why so few men really have it. Honor brings imposters to make you think it’s honor, but maybe it’s just your pride. I’d take one man with honor over one proud-ass army any day.”

Rating: 7-6-7-7 Total= 27

#357 Never Was- David Dante Trout

#357 Never Was- David Dante Trout

Booby Hall had a gun, a pearl-handled automatic, that he carried around everywhere. “He had the gun because it was the thing that says, I am.” He was also patriotic, so when his brother went off to war, he also wanted to serve.

It was “A war so large it refitted every tool, swallowed all belief, threatened to change the tomorrow of a continent, or the yesterday of a country.”

“If you can bear arms against your enemy in Europe, you can protect yourself against your enemy anywhere.”

But black men weren’t wholly welcome to serve in combat, apparently not good enough to die for their country. But bobby got a job working for the military auxiliary services. It didn’t get him to Europe but let him do his part, and let him proudly walk around in a uniform.

Of course, the sight of black men in a uniform set many up in arms, and seeing one such as Bobby, strong willed, and carrying a gun just wasn’t going to be tolerated. So, they faked an ordinance and a warrant, and took Bobby’s gun away. The battle in Europe was far away, but there was a second battle at home, juts as important, that one was for freedom as well. Unfortunately for Bobby, the side with the biggest guns usually wins.

Rating: 8-7-8-8 Total= 31

#327 For Love of Trains- David Dante Troutt

#327 For Love of Trains- David Dante Troutt

The Patterson’s learned of a horrible event. Their 19 year old son, Haywood had been falsely arrested for murder and rape aboard a train. Him and 8 others were convicted and sentenced to death in an Alabama prison. The family became hardened to the hopeless reality that faced their family.

“[He] became like a hopeless kind of iron, just thickening and hardening under flames he couldn’t put out.”

After the ineptitude of the NAACP lawyer, they accepted the help of a white, Jewish, communist group from New York. They won a stay of execution and finally were able to see Haywood in person. He was beaten, and desperate, but he was their son:

“They’d beaten him across the left side of his face, and his eyes swole up. But when you looked deep into them there were the brown, tender eyes of the boy.”

They won a Supreme Court appeal, but didn’t win the re-trial. As the case continued to make its way back and forth, disaster strikes again. Even without hope, you can still have fight, what else is there?

Rating: 7-7-8-7 Total= 29

#306 The Bargain- David Dante Troutt

#306 The Bargain- David Dante Troutt

Sometimes the earth moves right under our feet. It might be imperceptible, but the change significant, profound, and irreversible. Louisville was a modern city at the beginning of the 20^th century, racially mixed and economically sound. By the start of WW-I, Jim crow laws had slowly but relectlessly taken over. What was up was down, what was legal was outlawed, what was the norm, became taboo.

“The races made a game of it, the one hopping over the other and taking a row of boxes according to the rules of an invisible grid.”

During this time. Tommy Lee a successful black bookkeeper developed a social relationship with a white entrepreneur George Byron. They would make small wagers and deals among each other, with one being on race. George thought he could come to know the mind of a black man.

“There’s a difference between true knowledge and other kinds of facts…I want that true knowledge at the heart of every colored man.”

While Tommy tried desperately to get George to hire him do to the books for his new hardware store, George exploited Tommy to gather information about the black consumer. Jim Crow hit hard, and both were thrown for a loop.

“It was all that remained. Fooled by progress.”

Notable Passage: “The turn of a century mean nothing to the earth; when you’ve been spinning in he millions, dividing by hundreds adds little to your task.”

Rating: 7-7-8-7 Total= 29

#285 The Tale of Almost- David Dante Troutt

#285 The Tale of Almost- David Dante Troutt

Will Kelly was born a black slave, but with a blemish, a white birth mark appeared under one arm. They called the affliction mulitis. As the civil war ended, and reconstruction was underway, Will’s “condition” spread. White marks were making rings were showing up all over his body.

This cause all sorts of scorn: “Will Kelly was no better than a mule, a beast with blood between the races who’d drown one day forever more.”

It not only effected the way the public viewed him, but cause himself alarm, although his self-identity never waivered: “His neck was half white, and he was pale behind the ears. The colony of cream had not yet reached his face, nor his loins, nor his heart.”

During this time, there were several black leaders looking to him for help, and using his skin color as a cause, but to most a black man was a black man no matter the tone: “So, black men hung from trees, and high yellow burned like the darker variety.”

Soon, his identity was questioned by all parts of society.

Rating: 7-8-6-8 Total=29