White Boy's View of Da Ford

I grew up in Charlotte,  and Da Ford was once home to one of my great grandfathers around 3 centuries ago. There's a park that bears his name and some tall tale about hornets that no one appreciates much any more.

Sadly rather than a "hornet's nest of rebellion" in more recent times we learned to refer to Da Ford as, well "that place", like Grier Heights, West Charlotte, Hidden Valley or Cherry you didn't go there unless you needed to. 

In high school I knew Cherry well. You see Miss Ida lived in Cherry. Her home was a nice little house well taken care of, built around 1930 and nestled among White Oak Trees. It was just around the corner from a great uncle's Myers Park home that once stood at the corner of Queens and Providence. 

The home most people knew as the Wilson-Shelton House was vacant during my childhood, but before that both Ida's parents and grandparents all worked at Uncle Thomas' home at one time or another. 

During my high school years we'd often stop by the house and "explore" or whatever. I had a key, my mother and a few others tried to save the old house. 

Ida by then worked for my mother and sometimes after a day of housekeeping, I'd end up with the task of taking Miss Ida home. 

She was a fine black woman of southern upbringing. To us kids she was housekeeper and babysitter to my younger siblings but she was more that just that she was part of our family. Sweet as honeydew melon and a joy to be around. If I close eyes I can see her smile and hear her voice "you take that young lady home right now we will never speak of this again". 

Yeah she was like that.

When she passed we all went to her funeral and we stood, us white folks in the back of the church. You could say that we were not hard to miss but folks knew who we were and why we were there, because she was everything good in the world to us.

My father in the weeks after her funeral we learned gave a check to her church in her name. Today the preschool building at the church is still wearing her name.

Funny thing about southern black funerals back in the day, when the congregation starts singing they sing and sing and keep singing until they keep singing some more and they will change hymns and keep singing in fact they sing until the spirit tells them they have sung enough. 

Before the Wilson - Shelton house was demolished I took Miss Ida there and walked the empty halls and large rooms and she cried.  Not sobbing cry, rather just tears, one and then another. I have photos I should post them but then again.

You see that house, that job was her pride, her life and  it made her proud to care for such a wonderful home, and sad that it was going away.

Years after her passing I went to see what had become of her small house, of course it too was gone.  As I drove past where the house once stood, two young black boys glared at me and one of them raised his hand as a two finger gun and pulled his imaginary trigger and recoiled his hand. 

I imagine they are both in prison or dead by now.

So now the present day.

A few weeks ago Tina Quizon posted a video of men standing around open fires along Catherine Simmons Avenue at Beatties Ford. I couldn't help but think that Charlotte has let not only those people down but all of us. 

Her post of this scene on "X" is located here.

But it made me ask, this is Charlotte North Carolina isn't it? This is not Patterson New Jersey this is not Crenshaw in LA this isn’t Washington Park in Chicago this is Charlotte’s Beatties Ford and just 3 miles from council chambers! Right?

How out of touch is Charlotte's mayor? How ignorant are Charlotte City Council members?   

Homeless Men On The Bowery, 1972

A group of homeless men stand around a fire in an oil drum on the Bowery, New York, New York, January 8, 1972. (Photo by Fred W. McDarrah)

How did this happen? When did this happen? 

It wasn't always like this.

We once had a city where I felt safe taking Miss Ida home even well past dark.