Lorenzo Thomas: Downtown Boom

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Los, with his partner and emanation Enitharmon; plate 100 of Jerusalem: William Blake, 1804-20, etching with pen, watercolour and gold, 146 x 222 mm (Yale Center for British Art, New Haven)  

There are no gospel singers
Anymore

On the corners
They held down for Jesus
Valets park cars
At restaurants for fancy people
On expense accts or dates

So many times
People come up to me
And say, Billy
Hey wait a minute
You not Billy! 

You can see the new ballpark
Just past the Courthouse

But which way is redemption?

Lorenzo Thomas (1944-2005): Downtown Boom, from Time Step (2004)

 

Valet Boy, Puduraya District, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: photo by L joo, 17 July 2007

 Valet Boy, Puduraya District, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia: photo by L joo, 17 July 2007

Gospel singers on the Pike Place Market, Seattle, Washington: photo by Marmaduke Percy, 5 June 2010

Minute Maid Park, Houston, Texas, interior view, with J,P. Morgan Chase and Wells Fargo buildings visible in background: photo by Amir Assadi, 15 May 2004

  Minute Maid Park Houston, exterior: photo by WhisperToMe, 20 July 2008
 

Gospel singer Yolanda Adams of Houston at New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, Fair Grounds, New Orleans, Louisiana: photo by Kim Welsh, 29 April 2012 

Gospel singer Shemekia Copeland at Chicago Folk and Roots Festival: photo by Thee Erin, 10 July 2010

Gospel singer Shemekia Copeland at Houston International Festival: photo by fossilmike, 26 April 2008

Harris County Courthouse (built 1910, semi-retired), Houston, Texas: photo by Mick Watson, 19 January 2009

Harris County Courthouses, Houston, Texas: photo by Mick Watson, 19 January 2009

One Nation, Invisible: Lorenzo Thomas: Back in the Day

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Man on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial holding a banner for the Revolutionary People's Constitutional Convention, at Black Panther Convention: photo by Thomas J. O'Halloran/Warren K. Leffler, 19 June 1970 (U.S. News & World Report Collection, Library of Congress)

When we were boys
We called each other "Man"
With a long n
Pronounced as if a promise
 

We wore felt hats
That took a month to buy
In small installments
Shiny Florsheim or Stacy Adams shoes
Carried our dancing gait
And flashed our challenge
 

Breathing our aspirations into words
We harmonized our yearnings to the night
And when old folks on porches dared complain
We cussed them out
....under our breaths
And walked away
....And once a block away
Held learned speculations
About the character of their relations
With their mothers
 

It's true
That every now and then
We killed each other
Borrowed a stranger's car
Burned down a house
But most boys went to jail
For knocking up a girl
He really............truly............deeply............loved
............really............truly............deeply
 

But was too young
Too stupid, poor, or scared
To marry

Since then I've learned
Some things don't never change:
 

The breakfast chatter of the newly met
Our disappointment 
 

With the world as given
 

Today,
 

News and amusements
Filled with automatic fire
Misspelled alarms
Sullen posturings and bellowed anthems
Our scholars say
Young people doubt tomorrow
 

This afternoon I watched
A group of young men
Or tall boys
Handsome and shining with the strength of futures
Africa's stubborn present
To a declining white man's land
Lamenting
As boys always did and do
Time be moving on
Some things don't never change
And how
 

......back in the day

Well

......things were somehow better

They laughed and jived
Slapped hands
And called each other "Dog"

Lorenzo Thomas (1944-2005): Back in the Day, from Time Step (2004)

Negro going in colored entrance of movie house on Saturday afternoon, Belzoni, Mississippi Delta, Mississippi: photo by Marion Post Wolcott, October 1939 

 

Railroad station, Manchester, Georgia: photo by John Vachon, May 1938

Secondhand clothing stores and pawn shops on Beale Street, Memphis, Tennessee: photo by Marion Post Wolcott, October 1939



Beale Street, Memphis, Tennessee : photo by Marion Post Wolcott, October 1939

Sign above moving picture theatre, Waco, Texas: photo by Russell Lee, November 1939

 

"Rex Theater for Colored people." Leland, Mississippi, in the Delta area: photo by Dorothea Lange, June 1937.

"Rex Theater for Colored people." Leland, Mississippi, in the Delta area: photo by Marion Post Wolcott, November 1939



Highway sign advertising tourist cabins for Negroes, South Carolina: photo by Marion Post Wolcott, June 1939

Lunch room, Belle Glade (vicinity), Florida: photo by Marion Post Wolcott, January 1939



Cafe in the warehouse district during tobacco auction season, Durham, North Carolina: photo by Marion Post Wolcott, November 1939



Cafe near the tobacco market, Durham, North Carolina: photo by Jack Delano, May 1940

Street near the bus station, Durham, North Carolina: photo by Jack Delano, May 1940



At the bus station, Durham, North Carolina: photo by Jack Delano, May 1940

People waiting for a bus at the Greyhound bus terminal, Memphis, Tennessee: photo by Esther Bubley, September 1943

 

Rest stop for Greyhound bus passengers on the way from Louisville, Kentucky to Nashville, Tennessee, with separate accommodations for colored passengers: photo by Esther Bubley, September 1943

  
  
Sign at bus station, Rome, Georgia: photo by Esther Bubley, September 1943



Fish restaurant for Negroes in the section of the city where cotton hoers are recruited, Memphis, Tennessee: photo by Dorothea Lange, June 1937



Negro drinking at "Colored" water cooler in streetcar terminal, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma: photo by Russell Lee, July 1939

Photos beneath the poem from Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress

William Carlos Williams: Sketch for a Portrait of Henry Ford

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Scrap and salvage depot, Butte, Montana (detail): photo by Russell Lee, October 1942 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

A tin bucket
full of small used parts
nuts and short bolts
slowly draining onto
the dented bottom --
forming a heavy sludge
of oil -- depositing
in its turn steel grit

Hangs on an arm
that whirls it at increasing
velocity around
a central pivot --
suddenly the handle gives
way and the bucket
is propelled through
space  . . . . .




William Carlos Williams: Sketch for a Portrait of Henry Ford, 1939, from Matrix (November-December 1940), in Poems 1939-1944

 Automobile parts at junkyard, near Abbeville, Louisiana: photo by Russell Lee, November 1938 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Nuts and bolts, junkyard, near Abbeville, Louisiana: photo by Russell Lee, November 1938 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Workman at an automobile graveyard on Ridge Avenue, Manayunk, Pennsylvania: photo by Paul Vanderbilt, Spring 1938 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

 

Auto dump near Easton, Pennsylvania: photo by Walker Evans, November 1935 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

  

Auto junkyard along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railroad, Hereford (vicinity), Texas: photo by Jack Delano, March 1943 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Auto junkyard in Salisbury, Maryland: photo by Jack Delano, March 1943 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Junkyard near Sulphur Springs, Maryland, along U.S. Highway No. 1: photo by Jack Delano, June 1940 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Junkyard near Abbeville, Louisiana: photo by Russell Lee, November 1938 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Junkyard owner near Abbeville, Louisiana: photo by Russell Lee, November 1938 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Farmer watching junkyard owner examining condition of spark coils in model-T Ford, Abbeville, Louisiana: photo by Russell Lee, November 1938 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Wheels, tires and general junk at junkyard near Abbeville, Louisiana: photo by Russell Lee, November 1938 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Automobile parts in junkyard, near Abbeville, Louisiana: photo by Russell Lee, November 1938 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Flywheels and speedometer cables in junkyard, near Abbeville, Louisiana: photo by Russell Lee, November 1938 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Group of automobile crankshafts in junkyard, near Abbeville, Louisiana: photo by Russell Lee, November 1938  (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Display of headlights in junkyard, near Abbeville, Louisiana: photo by Russell Lee, November 1938 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Discarded automobile motors in junkyard, near Abbeville, Louisiana: photo by Russell Lee, November 1938 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

 Tire rims at junkyard, near Abbeville, Louisiana: photo by Russell Lee, November 1938 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Group of automobile springs, junkyard near Abbeville, Louisiana: photo by Russell Lee, November 1938 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Junkyard, Duluth, Minnesota: photo by Russell Lee, May 1937  (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Men sitting on parts of truck in junkyard, South Side of Chicago, Illinois: photo by Russell Lee, April 1941 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Men sitting on parts of truck in junkyard, South Side of Chicago, Illinois: photo by Russell Lee, April 1941 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)

Junkyard, Washington, D.C.: photo by John Vachon, August 1938

Automobiles parked on a rainy night on 52nd Street, New York City: photo by William P. Gottlieb, c. July 1948 (William P. Gottlieb Collection, Library of Congress)

Scrap and salvage depot, Butte, Montana: photo by Russell Lee, October 1942 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)



Image from Fiction Illustrated, c. 1953 (via fulltable)

Scrap and salvage depot, Butte, Montana (detail): photo by Russell Lee, October 1942 (Farm Security Administration/Office of War Information Collection, Library of Congress)