Stories Seen Through Screen Doors

Book excerpt: Stories Seen Through Screen Doors The Roots and Branches of Black Southern Experience A truth seldom recognized is that there are almost as many African American southern experiences as there are states and cities in the South. Our lives as southern black people intersect, but they also diverge into unique patterns of learning, growth, and discovery. The stories contained in this collection illustrate some of those similarities as well as the differences. Wanda Macon shares with millions of African Americans a southern soil that is rich in family, church, and racial repression, but she also highlights the spiritedness of a tomboyish young girl, too smart for her preschool age, formed by a variety of occurrences in her small southern community. "The Courts," a horseshoe shaped neighborhood and home to twenty-three families located in fictional Friarsdale, Mississippi, is the site for experience, memory, reflection, and locating one's self in the history of the geography as well as the history of family and community. By Trudier Harris, University Distinguished Research Professor Department of English, The University of Alabama Tuscaloosa, Alabama