Recently I wrote about the history of Sundown Towns and the restrictions placed on people of color in over 10,000 towns or cities in the U.S. Was that a typo? No — 10,000 places have been identified that were not safe for colored people to be in after the sunset!
Today I want to tell the tale of a person who lived and worked in the time of The Great Migration dated from around 1910 to 1970. I am not certain that this person was one of the approximately six million African-Americans who moved out of the deep South into the Northeast, the Midwest, and the West. I think it may be true.
The oppressive Jim Crow laws and culture in the South, and the possible economic and educational opportunities in the North drove the Migration. Out of the context of the migration the civil rights movement was born. The Migration ended in the early 1970s because the South had become more open to African-Americans.
Very likely the person I have in mind came up from the South in the late 1930s or 40s. I was a grade schooler in Wawaka, Indiana. You may remember my sharing about “Mud Hole”, a wide spot on U.S. Highway 6. On Halloween a Trick-or-Treater could knock on every door in the town of about 350-400 people.
The main drag off U.S. 6 through Wawaka was several blocks long with two grocery stores, a feed mill, a post office, a Methodist Church, and the New York Central railroad, parallel to Route 6, cut through town. I lived on the main drag a few minutes walk from Route 6. A couple of houses from the highway, across from the Methodist Church, was a nice small house.
There was no need for me to walk by this house very often because the post office and grocery stores were between my place and this house. I probably went to the door of that house only on Halloween. Even so, the house was unusual, no, not the house, but the occupant. Curiosity took me by it sometimes to try to spot the occupant. A Black woman was in there. That’s true! Wawaka was not a destination for The Great Migration folks! There were no Black people in town and Mexicans would only come for tomato picking season. But, in this nice small house a Black woman was living with a white family. Occasionally I would spot her. I learned that she was a housekeeper, with lodging provided.
My young white eyes and whirling mind found this unusual resident of Wawaka very intriguing. After moving from Wawaka, I heard about a death of a “Negro” person in Wawaka! The newspaper article revealed that at the morgue the housekeeper was discovered to be a man! Yes, think about it? As I pondered this tale last night I tried to get into her/his shoes. Of course, in projection, I could only imagine the extreme loneliness, alienation and displacement. Desperation to survive may have driven the decision to cross-dress for years. Sure, he may have been trans, but I doubt it. I can only think that it was a survival decision. And who made the job referral?
In researching The Great Migration and the long, long history of cross-dressing, I have been unable to find much, if any, evidence for male-to-female cross-dressing for employment. Female-to-male has been common. What do you think? What do you know? Your comments are welcome.