The Mee Street Chronicles:Straight Up Stories of a Black Woman's Life by the Author Frankie Lennon: "Tales of Jim Crow"

Monica Johnson

Professor Lennon

Freshman English/Introduction to Literature: African-American Storytelling

5 November 2010

The short story Tales of Jim Crow is taken from The Mee Street Chronicles: Straight Up Stories of a Black Woman´s Life, which is a collection of short stories, from the memoir of author Frankie Lennon. It is a narrative that reflects on the painful history of African Americans and the Jim Crow Separation laws in Knoxville Tennessee in 1950.  It is a story that teaches the young narrator about the Jim Crow laws, about her history and how valuable the past is.

 The story Tales of Jim Crow was interesting to me because I learned that African Americans taught one another how to survive and live through the Jim Crow era.  These teachings would help them  in their battle for every day existence. African Americans taught one another how to mask their emotions. And with this masking they educated one another on how to speak, act and walk when confront with White people who wanted and needed to know that they were afraid and intimidated.  With these actions African Americans learned how to stay alive and survive.  

 In the story Tales of Jim Crow there are many African American motifs. An African American literary motif is themes or ideas that are recurring pertaining to African American history. First, I will focus on four; there is the motif of Intimidation and through the Jim Crow laws that kept facilities such as restaurants, schools and public events separate   these Jim Crow laws were able to keep fear alive in the forms of threats and “intimidation, insulting, abusive forms of address.” (Lennon, Black Literature-Recurring Motifs)  Then, there is the motif of survival skills, which would include masking of emotions and being passive as a means of survival.  Next there is, the “interlocking systems of Oppression” (Lennon, Black Literature –Recurring Motifs) which are the systems of racism, sexism, classism, and Jim Crowism all systems that work through fear and all systems are designed to keep African Americans off balance and in control. Also, “oppression through economic exploitation” (Lennon, Black Literature-Recurring Motifs) which would bring about “denial of jobs above manual or menial level and insufficient level of pay.” (Lennon Black Literature-Recurring Motifs) Again, these tactics were designed to keep African American in a “cycle of debt” (Lennon, Black Literature-Recurring Motifs) afraid and without hope.

African American stories are important in the narrator’s personal history because she has personal stories to value, reflect upon, learn from, share and grow.  By the narrator revealing and sharing her personal history she helps and inspires the next person to share his stories. Stories are how we reveal ourselves, and how we learn from one another and how we teach one another. It is a brilliant form of communication; stories give us insight to the past and teach us of our valuable history.