Wisconsin Cargo

Early last Tuesday morning, a group of college students were causally strolling down Water Street in Selma when they were greeted by a slave catcher. The black woman, clad in West African attire, strode angrily towards the group and yelled, "You niggers need to fall in line. Move!"

It took a few minutes for the group to realize what was happening. You see, these kids from the University of Wisconsin-Madison had only been in Selma for one day, but they were so accustomed to being yelled at by strange black women that they didn't suspect what was coming. Although this crazy chick in a head wrap called them names and made them face the wall with their legs spread, they thought it was just another day in Alabama. But, by the time the slave catcher had separated the women from the men and led us through a dark tunnel, everyone knew what was happening. The screams and the sound of crashing waves were unmistakable. We were on the Middle Passage.

Remember when I said that there's no such thing as an audience in Selma? I wasn't joking.

The "slave catcher" is named Afriye, and her tour of the Slavery and Civil War Museum isn't something a tourist can easily forget. Afriye enlisted Jerome and me to escort the unsuspecting group of UW students to the museum that morning and I knew that she planned to start the tour early; however, even I was a little rattled when she met us on the street and made us do embarrassing things in broad daylight. I actually felt relieved when she led us into the building (making us stoop because "filthy niggers" like ourselves could not look her in the eye), but once inside I immediately wanted to escape. "Uncomfortable" doesn't even begin to describe the experience. As one student said after the tour, "I felt about one hundred different emotions in twenty minutes."

Now, I don't want to tell you too much about Afriye's tour because I hope that some of y'all will make the journey to Selma and try it for yourselves. What I can tell you is that, like the Voting Rights Museum, what the SCWM lacks in funds it makes up for in pure emotion. Ten minutes into the tour, I could hear sniffles coming from other group members. By the time Afriye turned on the lights and returned to her normal, peaceful self, several people were sobbing loudly.

One student seemed particularly affected by the tour. A Nigerian who grew up in Madison, she cried throughout the de-briefing. I kept glancing at this young woman -who would look at home in any one of my family pictures - because her reaction to the tour seemed familiar. The first time I ever visited a plantation, I couldn't control the tears that seemed to burn a trail down my face. This student, and a few others, looked like I had felt on that day in Louisiana when I stood in the rain and cried for my enslaved ancestors. Afriye’s tour was especially touching because it hadn’t ended with her telling us about African Americans' eventual freedom; she stopped it while we were still "slaves." No bright bows wrapped around pretty little packages here. So we carried the weight of that morning for awhile, and not even the fried chicken we ate for lunch would cheer us up. In fact, the entire group would remain somber for the rest of the day. We couldn’t wash the stink of that morning from our bodies, and maybe we weren’t supposed to.

Ashe.