Patricia: This book, Goin’ Someplace Special, which was illustrated by Jerry Pinkney, is autobiographical. It’s about when I was growing up in Nashville, and my grandmother and I used to go to a very special place once a week. And to get there we had to go through town and we rode the bus and came back around.
Now this is the South, the Nashville of the segregated South. That was the time when Nashville was segregated based on racial lines. There was so many places that blacks could not go and they had to ride the back of the bus. So when I started out begging my grandmother to let me go downtown by myself, she always said, “No, you have to go with me,” because they didn’t want us to be hurt by those circumstances.
They kind of buffered it with us and so I was not allowed to go, but then one time I asked if I could go and she said, “Okay. I’m going to let you go this one time, but you walk and hold your head up and act like you belong to somebody.” Well, that meant that, you know, I was to behave and that I was to hold my head up and be on my proper behavior.
So when I got on the bus, I had to get on the back of the bus. When I got to Peace Fountain, I couldn’t sit on the park bench there. I was so disappointed when I went past and looked at the hotel and I would have loved to have gone in, but I couldn’t. I couldn’t go to the restaurant.
So I was just, you know, discouraged, and so I met a woman there who used to take care of the gardens. She didn’t do it by permission or for money; she just did it because she was there. We used to call her Blooming Mary. And she kind of encouraged me to keep going no matter what. She kind of repeated what my grandmother said. So I’ll pick up the story at that point.
Two blocks later, ‘Tricia Ann came to the Grand Music Palace where a group had gathered for the matinee performance. As the girl approached, a little boy spoke to her, “Howdy! I’m Hickey and I’m six years old today. You coming in?”
Before ‘Tricia Ann could answer, an older girl grabbed his hand. “Hush boy,” she said through clenched teeth. “Colored people can’t come in the front door. They got to go round back and sit up in the buzzard’s roost, don’t you know nothing?” his sister whispered harshly.
Hickey looked at ‘Tricia Ann with wide wondering eyes. “Are you going to sit up there… in the last three rows of the balcony? Well, I wouldn’t sit up there even if watermelons bloomed in January. Besides, I’m going to someplace very, very special,” she answered. And then ‘Tricia Ann asked him to wait.
“I want to go where she’s going,” she heard Hickey say, as his sister pulled him through the door. At the corner, ‘Tricia Ann saw a building rising above all that surrounded it, looking proud in the summer sun. It was much more then bricks and stone; it was an idea.
Mama Frances called it a doorway to freedom. When she looked at it she didn’t feel angry or hurt or embarrassed. At last, ‘Tricia Ann whispered, “I’ve made it to someplace special.” Before bounding up the steps and through the front door, she stopped to look up at the message chiseled in stone across the front face — public library, all are welcome. Someplace special. And I’ve always said those who would have objected to the library being de-segregated didn’t use it that much anyway.
This is a very special book for me. I didn’t want any anger in it. I didn’t want anything to show in it that would be negative. This can be anybody’s special place. I get letters from people who say the library is a safe place for them or that the library was a cool or a warm place for them, that the library was a place where they went and experienced the magic and wonder of going to other lands and seeing other places and experiencing things that were different.
So…for me, it was the doorway to freedom, to free thought when you’re being told, “You can’t, you can’t, you can’t, you can’t.” The library said, “You can, you can, you can, you can,” and I did!
