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LOOK HOMEWARD BABY

OLLIE HARRINGTON

A LARGE NUMBER of the brothers stayed on in Europe after the armistice.  I think the main reason was that they couldn't ever again accept being cooped up in ghettos.  The ghetto isn't only meant to restrict the movement and growth of bodies.  It's also been deliber-ately organized to stultify and even to deform black minds.  When Sam's draft boards began mailing out those "greetings" to the broth-ers they also unwittingly enclosed the jailhouse keys.  These escapees from the land of "freedom and justice for all" were particularly wel-comed by the French people, who seem never to have forgotten that during World War I the American commander General Pershing refused to have anything to do with allowing black Americans to shoot and bayonet white Germans.  But the French were up-tight and fighting for their lives.  General Foch very gratefully accepted the four black American infantry regiments.  These proved to be so effective that all of them received the highest French wartime dec-orations.
  Paris of course was the main attraction.  But there is something about picking up stakes and moving on that never really seems to work out.  The restlessness which compels so many humans to go see what's on the other side of the hill, or river, is self-defeating.  There are so many hills and so many rivers.  And in the end one sits on some cold stone under an improbable tree and sings the blues.  Naturally a Paris boulevard is just about the last place to ever think of singing the blues and so the Black exile does the next best thing.  He takes the Metro to the foothills of Montmartre where he will find Leroy Haynes, himself an exile, who will fix any brother or sister with generous helpings of chitlins with collard greens, red beans and rice, and even corn bread!  Haynes with his restaurant has struggled valiantly with this problem of nostalgia and in the process has come up with an assortment of chili-based condiments.  The most famous of these are called Big Brother and Little Sister.  For those who prefer a "mild" condiment Haynes recommends Little Sister.  What he evidently means is that a drop or two of little Sister on the hawg maws need not necessarily remind the diner of the recent film Is
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This is the second part of "Look Homeward Baby" by artist and author, Ollie Harrington.

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