Master storyteller shares experiences

Master storyteller, playwright and scholar Dr. Njoki McElroy shared some personal experiences regarding the Great Migration and history at the Emeritus 2012 Back-to-School Kickoff  last month.  McElroy based the lecture on excerpts from her book "1012 Natchez: A Memoir of Grace, Hardship and Love," which she describes as "a celebration to the miracle of survival of the human spirit."

The significance of the address, 1012 Natchez, reflects McElroy's life experiences with her grandparents in Sherman, where she spent much of her childhood. Growing up in the 1930s and 1940s with the oppression in Texas, McElroy overcame the odds to rise to the top academically, spiritually and emotionally. 

McElroy taught Performance Studies of Black Literature for 35 years at Northwestern University and currently teaches a performance class in the graduate program at Southern Methodist University. A number of her short stories have been published in anthologies and her plays have been produced on college campuses and on the professional stage.

Her story begins two weeks before Christmas in 1950 when McElroy was living in Chicago with her husband and three sons under 4 in a basement apartment. A fire broke out when she and her sons were alone.

While they all escaped injury, they were forced to live with a Good Samaritan. Eventually, McElroy realized that she had to take refuge in Sherman.

In the 1940s in Chicago, McElroy said, there was a "restrictive covenant" that kept blacks enclosed in a particular area. They were restricted to the South Side of Chicago near Lake Michigan. An area about eight miles long and two miles wide was given such names as "Black Ghetto" or "Black Metropolis."

"The area was so crowded because it was that era of the Great Migration, where black people were leaving the South in huge numbers," McElroy said. "They were looking for the promised land. Many came from Mississippi. They thought Chicago would be the promised land."

McElroy said her book is titled "1012 Natchez" because it was a refuge not only for her family, but a refuge for others as well.

"As you go north on Highway 75 and you enter Sherman, before you leave Sherman on 75, to the left is where 1012 Natchez was found," McElroy said. Her grandfather purchased the property in the early part of the 20th century. It was a white Victorian house with carved posts and beautifully jewel-toned doors in different colors.

McElroy said her grandparents always kept plenty of food there to feed the multitudes, and she has included some of her grandmother's recipes in "1012 Natchez." Her grandmother was a great cook and she recalls that there was always plenty of butter, milk and peach ice cream in the summer. The gardens always provided fresh vegetables.

"There were two things that people always remembered from 1012 Natchez – and that was a gun and clocks," McElroy said.  "Clocks ticked and they would cuckoo. None of them cuckooed at the same time."

McElroy's grandfather, she said, had Winchester rifles in every corner and a Colt .45 on every dresser or table. He was prepared and had been preparing for an event that she deemed the "worst riot in America." It happened on May 9, 1930 in Sherman. The courthouse was bombed to free a black man who had been accused of raping a white woman, The court procedures couldn't continue and a mob took over. They dragged the black man's body up and down the black area of town and set two blocks of the town's businesses on fire.

"1012 Natchez was not included in the fire," McElroy said. " On May 9, they burned the whole black business section." 

McElroy attended high school in Oak Cliff and then went on to Xavier University in New Orleans, which she said seemed like another country to her because most of her classmates had a Creole background. She and a girlfriend had the chance to meet future American baseball icon, Jackie Robinson, who was then playing in Pelican Stadium in New Orleans. Shortly after meeting him, Robinson was signed for the minor league and played two years in Canada.

McElroy said that her grandmother taught her one life-lasting message, which she has never forgotten:  "A woman should always have her own money. Never be without your own funds because you never know what may happen. I learned that you can live well, but you have to know how to manage your money."

In concluding, McElroy re-affirmed that it "took hope, and it still takes hope to survive." She said, "That's what we all have to maintain. We must keep hope alive. We must not let hope die. That's what I want to end this with – Keep hope alive."

To read more about McElroy's memoirs go to www.njokimcelroy.com or contact her daughter, who attended the event, at marianfmcelroy@yahoo.com. McElroy resides in Dallas and the Chicago area.