Parallel universes being lived out in wake of Floyd’s death

In Isabel Wilkerson’s “The Warmth of Other Suns” she tracks the story of the Great Migration — the years between 1914-1970 when millions of African Americans fled in desperation from Jim Crow laws of the South and resettled in western and northern cities, reaching for something better. They went where the trains could carry them.

This didn’t always work out the way they hoped.

For one thing, immigrants from other countries — also looking for new opportunity — saw them as threats to their jobs. And other prejudice bared its teeth. ”You want to live on our street, then the rest of us will move.”

An actor named Thomas Rice from New York traveled to the South — and from what he observed there introduced in about 1830 a black stage character — a “rural dancing fool” called “Jim Crow.”

Buffoonish mannerisms, song and dance skits, and poking fun at black speech patterns characterized these “blackface minstrel shows.”

Ten years or so after the Civil War, Jim Crow laws took disturbing root in the South.

If you were even suspected of black ancestry you had better practice extreme social distancing with any white person.

If not, your life was endangered. Wilkerson relates the story of a teen boy murdered for sending a Valentine card to a white girl he liked.

Jim Crow history is far beyond the scope of a newspaper discussion. “The Warmth of Other Suns” follows the detailed lives of three persons who left the South — while also giving the broader migration picture. An outstanding work.

George Floyd was a black man, raised in a housing project, who in more recent years left for the North. He’d done prison time in Texas and wanted a “fresh start.”

Did he get sidetracked? Did he knowingly try to pass a counterfeit bill and end up pinned to the ground beside a police car?

Was his life worth only a fake twenty?

I lived in Minneapolis 15 years. Our daughter resides in the metro area.

Her husband took their teen son to the site of the destruction there. School might be dismissed but he got learning that doesn’t come from print on a page.

There are parallel universes being lived out in the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder. One being the righteous outcry for him — and all the bitterness and sorrow of Jim Crow history before and since. For the longing in every human soul to be valued and respected.

To follow hopeful dreams and find opportunity to give dreams a chance.

The other universe is ashes to ashes.

What can a northern white girl really know about any of this? Maybe ten years ago not much.

Not until our son met someone on the internet. Not until my African American daughter-in-law from Texas. Not until three children with the kindest hearts were born. Ones who showed up this week each holding a present they’d wrapped themselves in shiny pink paper. Birthday gifts for grandma.

I wish they would never have to hear such an ugly name as Jim Crow. Be tainted by it in any way. I wish their lives would stay shiny like that birthday wrap. Because they are the finest gifts.