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1、. . . .THE FOURTH OF JULYAudre Lorde1The first time I went to Washington D.C. was on the edge of the summer when I was supposed to stop being a child. At least thats what they said to us all at graduation from the eighth grade. My sister Phyllis graduated at the same time from high school. I dont kn
2、ow what she was supposed to stop being. But as graduation presents for us both, the whole family took a Fourth of July trip to Washington D.C., the fabled and famous capital of our country. Detailed Reading2It was the first time Id ever been on a railroad train during the day. When I was little, and
3、 we used to go to the Connecticut shore, we always went at night on the milk train, because it was cheaper.3. Preparations were in the air around our house before school was even over. We packed for a week. There were two very large suitcases that my father carried, and a box filled with food. In fa
4、ct, my first trip to Washington was a mobile feast; I started eating as soon as we were comfortably ensconced in our seats, and did not stop until somewhere after Philadelphia. I remember it was Philadelphia because I was disappointed not to have passed by the Liberty Bell. 4.My mother had roasted t
5、wo chickens and cut them up into dainty bite-size pieces. She packed slices of brown bread and butter, and green pepper and carrot sticks. There were little violently yellow iced cakes with scalloped edges called marigolds, that came from Cushmans Bakery. There was a spice bun and rock-cakes from Ne
6、wtons, the West Indian bakery across Lenox Avenue from St. Marks school, and iced tea in a wrapped mayonnaise jar. There were sweet pickles for us and dill pickles for my father, and peaches with the fuzz still on them, individually wrapped to keep them from bruising. And, for neatness, there were p
7、iles of napkins and a little tin box with a washcloth dampened with rosewater and glycerine for wiping sticky mouths.5.I wanted to eat in the dining car because I had read all about them, but my mother reminded me for the umpteenth time that dining car food always cost too much money and besides, yo
8、u never could tell whose hands had been playing all over that food, nor where those same hands had been just before. My mother never mentioned that Black people were not allowed into railroad dining cars headed south in 1947. As usual, whatever my mother did not like and could not change, she ignore
9、d. Perhaps it would go away, deprived of her attention. 6.I learned later that Phylliss high school senior class trip had been to Washington, but the nuns had given her back her deposit in private, explaining to her that the class, all of whom were white, except Phyllis, would be staying in a hotel
10、where Phyllis would not be happy, meaning, Daddy explained to her, also in private, that they did not rent rooms to Negroes. We still take among-you to Washington, ourselves, my father had avowed, and not just for an overnight in some measly fleabag hotel. 7.In Washington D.C., we had one large room
11、 with two double beds and an extra cot for me. It was a back-street hotel that belonged to a friend of my fathers who was in real estate, and I spent the whole next day after Mass squinting up at the Lincoln Memorial where Marian Anderson had sung after the D.A.R. refused to allow her to sing in the
12、ir auditorium because she was Black. Or because she was Colored, my father said as he told us the story. Except that what he probably said was Negro, because for his times, my father was quite progressive. 8.I was squinting because I was in that silent agony that characterized all of my childhood su
13、mmers, from the time school let out in June to the end of July, brought about by my dilated and vulnerable eyes exposed to the summer brightness.9.I viewed Julys through an agonizing corolla of dazzling whiteness and I always hated the Fourth of July, even before I came to realize the travesty such
14、a celebration was for Black people in this country.10.My parents did not approve of sunglasses, nor of their expense.11.I spent the afternoon squinting up at monuments to freedom and past presidencies and democracy, and wondering why the light and heat were both so much stronger in Washington D.C.,
15、than back home in New York City. Even the pavement on the streets was a shade lighter in color than back home.12.Late that Washington afternoon my family and I walked back down Pennsylvania Avenue. We were a proper caravan, mother bright and father brown, the three of us girls step-standards in-betw
16、een. Moved by our historical surroundings and the heat of early evening, my father decreed yet another treat. He had a great sense of history, a flair for the quietly dramatic and the sense of specialness of an occasion and a trip.13.Shall we stop and have a little something to cool off, Lin? 14.Two blocks away from our hotel, the fa
