The Bessie Smith Strut is on life-support in a vegetative
state of existence. And that’s referring
to the clone that exists now; the original Strut has been dead for decades. It’s poetic irony that Mark Making finished
removing the Bessie Smith mural from the side of Champy’s Chicken just in time
for the Bessie Smith Strut. Of course,
there is another on the historic street, a head portrait equal in size to
another of Martin Luther King, Jr.
The mural that is going to replace the one removed
commemorates an event very worthy of commemoration (the 1960 Howard student-led
lunch counter sit-ins), but still, couldn’t the removal have waited a week or
two? I see this hasty removal as a
foreshadowing of what’s going to eventually happen to the Bessie Smith Strut. And happen fairly soon, I expect.
Riverbend started as a moderately-priced (dirt cheap
compared to now) ten-day festival for the whole community. One of its initial goals was to draw people
downtown to make them aware of the venues available for dining and
entertainment, or at least to get them focused on the long-ignored
possibilities of the city’s riverfront.
Monday nights were dedicated as a people’s festival, free of
charge, to draw people to the shrinking but still thriving business district
along Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard, née East 9th Street. Back then the name change wasn’t even a year
old and many still called it by its old name; I helped in the campaign for the name
change and I still do.
Part of the people’s festival idea was to bring together
folks from across all socioeconomic and racial spectrums, which it did, from
upper to lower class, including middle and working class, both black and white,
many of the former either neighborhood residents or frequent patrons of the
still numerous entertainment venues on the street. I couldn’t help noticing when I saw the photo
in this Tuesday’s edition of Times-Free
Press that the crowd seemed more than a little monochromatic and
homostratous.
In the beginning of the Bessie Smith Strut, Ninth Street
(MLK Boulevard) was lined with places such as the Whole Note bar and dance hall
(which also had superb lunch buffets very cheap) and Shirley’s Jazz Den, a
frequent haunt of mine (and my parents, as well, both of them—she still is—jazz
aficionados) in addition to numerous other bars and restaurants, like Memo’s
Chopped Weiners. Let and Let Live barber
shop had been operating for decades, and still is, along with several other
barber shops and beauty salons. There
were also gas stations, liquor stores, and mom & pop convenience
stores. And, of course, the
history-filled Martin Hotel above it all.
Live and Let Live and the other hair places remain, but all
the entertainment spots vanished in the face of the crack cocaine tidal wave
that hit in the late 1980’s. Between my
last visit in late 1987 before leaving for the Philippines and my first visit
after my return in January 1990, Ninth Street had become a ghost town. The Martin Hotel had closed its doors shortly
before I left for boot camp and was demolished a year later.
But the Bessie Smith Strut continued.
After returning from the Philippines again in late December
1991, this time from working with the U.S. Refugee Program, this time with a
wife and son, I looked forward to visiting Ninth Street again for the Strut,
always my favorite part of Riverbend. I
quickly learned, however, that the character of what used to be the people’s
festival had very much changed, along with the greater festival surrounding it.
The entertainment at the Strut has always been superb, but
since all the entertainment businesses on MLK Blvd. have closed, having the
festival there has been like administering medicine to the dead, to twist the
use of Paine’s axiom. It no longer bears
any resemblance to the Bessie Smith Strut as it was intended. Charging a fee and having fences only add
insult to mortal injury.
The Bessie Smith Strut, if it is to continue, should be
separated completely from Riverbend and made free and unfenced once again. Maybe then it could get back to its original
purpose and assist in bringing back an area finally showing signs of returning
life (Champy’s, Chattanooga Smokehouse, for examples). After all, if UTC doesn’t ingest the
remainder of MLK Blvd. the way The Blob of the 1950’s ate people, the
neighborhood may survive.
Otherwise, end the charade and put it out of our misery.
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