FEBRUARY WRITING PROMPT | A-CULTURATED

The Rhythm of Duality

A Black girl’s life of country and soul

Photo by Rochelle Brown on Unsplash

I like country music. Long before Beyoncé and Darius Rucker made it popular — or at least acceptable — for African Americans to listen and dance to country music, I already knew it and felt it in my bones. It reminds me of the winds on the mountains that remind you that you are never alone. My very first album was Charlie Pride, one of my earliest Black heroes. I listened to Ray Charles croon country ballads and felt a rare connection. Sure, there were negative associations with it as well but I don’t focus on those. The location between mountains could receive only the strongest of signals and country music was the strongest, sometimes only, one.

I grew up in the only African American Family in a small, conservative and majority-white town surrounded by mesmerizing mountains. My mother was the town’s mayor, and my father taught music. My parents were pioneers who moved from the segregated south to build a life unknown in this small country town. The community was predominately hardworking, blue collar men and women, with a few poor and middle class. In my recollection, there were no other people of color of any race or ethnicity, except an occasional transient. In many ways, I lived a privileged life: quiet streets, breath-taking scenery, and the security of a middle-class home. That visibility came with respect — but also with a heavy dose of isolation.

Even as a child, I was aware of both privilege and disparity. I noticed classmates whose families struggled to put food on the table or afford dental care. I heard their struggles in the songs that I heard. Alongside gratitude, I felt survivor’s guilt. I also carried perpetual self-consciousness, loneliness, and confusion about where I fit in.

I learned what it meant to be Black in America by being the only person of color in the room. There were the awkward silences when slavery lessons came up in history class, fifteen pairs of eyes trained on me. My face growing hot, and my heart beating faster, I prayed for that lesson to pass. There was the sting of the word “nigger” tossed casually down a hallway. In those moments, I felt less a person and more an oddity. At night, I would return home to Charlie Pride’s voice for comfort. I believed that he understood me.

Well-meaning neighbors gave me my first Charlie Pride record, and my first Black doll, Julia. There were teachers and townspeople who encouraged me, and friends who loved me — but I was never fully included. I was thankful for what I had, yet I remained set apart: privileged, but lonely.

Two events in the mid-1970s shifted my perspective completely: Stevie Wonder’s Songs in the Key of Life and the TV series Roots. Both cracked something open in me. Suddenly, I hungered to understand Black culture. I devoured Baldwin, Wright, Angelou, and Parks. I flipped through Essence, Ebony, and Right On magazines. I marveled at the beauty and rhythm of Soul Train every Saturday morning. Marvin Gaye, James Brown, and Isaac Hayes became my teachers. Their soulful beats served as a translation between me and the people who looked like me. It gave me a language I hadn’t known I was missing.

Staying there was not a real option in terms of work or dating so I forged a new path. When I left for college at 17, McFadden & Whitehead’s “Ain’t No Stopping Us Now” became my anthem. I was determined to immerse myself in Black culture, though it meant leaving my country roots behind. In my new world, rural life and country music were not embraced so I stopped talking about where I came from, silencing part of myself.

I wanted to believe Paul and Stevie when they sang that Ebony and Ivory could live in harmony — but skepticism lingered. Many of my new peers dismissed Charlie Pride as irrelevant, not “really” Black. Once again, I was an outsider wondering why I was considered Black in skin color only.

At first, I hovered at the edges, observing Black culture with longing, like a child watching others play. In time, I stepped closer before jumping in completely. I attended an HBCU. I lived in predominantly Black neighborhoods. I immersed myself in the literature, music, and gatherings of Black people. I observed and fell in love with the rhythmic, melodious speech of many of my Black sisters and brothers that was like a song. Slowly, I became both participant and observer — never fully inside, never fully outside, but deeply connected. I felt most connected to African American culture when I sang along with a group singing “Lift Every Voice and Sing”. Once again I observed families struggling to eat and receive good health care. I’d seen this before in another time and another world.

By living at the extremes of all White and all Black I almost missed the Asian, Latin, Classical, and all of the beautiful sounds from around the world. Thankfully, music has provided a window into the minds, traditions, and beliefs of people all over the world. Songs with the same selection of notes creating different melodies and rhythms.

As Maya Angelou remarked “I wouldn’t give nothing for my journey now”. With age, I’ve learned to embrace duality — my own and that of America itself. I understand now that you can be visible and invisible at the same time. Simultaneously privileged and oppressed. A country girl who is deeply Black.

After traveling twice to Africa, attending an HBCU, and diving into the richness of Black art and culture, I’ve accepted all of my parts. I can love my African American heritage, Kendrick Lamar, Nina Simone, and Parliament, while still embracing my childhood with Charlie Pride, Willie Nelson, and Patsy Cline. I can love mountain towns and soulful beats.

More important than my comfort with all of my experiences and myself is the lessons I learned about honoring everyone. That knowledge informs my political decisions and where I direct my money. The experiences help me to appreciate every person’s story and to be compassionate to all. It directs my interactions with people of all backgrounds. My diverse experience has made me stronger and happier.

I am proud to be a country Black girl who knows, honors, and enjoys music, and people from everywhere. That is my harmony.

This story was inspired by A-Culturated’s monthly writing prompt (FEBRUARY PROMPT). Click here to explore the prompt and share a piece of your own!