Chapters (31)
- Cover
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Contents
- Room in the Dark I
- Fawns of the Diaspora Court Liliane in Paris, While Tabou Combo Whispers “Coq Qualité” in Her Ears
- Room in the Dark II
- “I Usedta Drink, Smoke and Do the Hoochie-Koo,” or What’s a Girl to Do When Her Mother Looks Like Ruth Brown
- Room in the Dark III
- “El Bochinche” es que only Fe Cortijo Knows or All the LeBron Brothers Know If Victor-Jésus María Sang Lili to Her Freedom
- Room in the Dark IV
- And Where Is Garnett Mimms?
- Room in the Dark V
- I Know Where Kansas City Is, But Did Wilbert Harrison Ever Get There?
- Room in the Dark VI
- Zoom Went the Strings of Liliane’s Heart, But Arsenio Rodriguez Could Have Told Her the Music Sounds Just as Sweet When We’re Blind and Still We See
- Room in the Dark VII
- I Know Where the E Train Stops But I’m “Sendin’ Out an S.O.S.” and I’m Not Edwin Starr Either
- Room in the Dark VIII
- “Happy, Happy Birthday, Baby” or Wouldn’t It Be Great If the Lead Singer of The Crests Wasn’t a White Boy and I Could Be My Mother?
- Room in the Dark IX
- Every Time My Lil World Seems Blue, I Just Haveta Look at You and Learn Eye-Hand Coordination
- Room in the Dark X
- “That’s Why I Love Her So and Yeah, Yeah, Yeah, I Want to Know” or Why Jackie Wilson Died in Silence
- Room in the Dark XI
- There’s No Use Cryin’ “Forever” or Hyacinthe Returns from a Very Blue Holiday for Real B(l)ack at Ya
- Room in the Dark XII
- Lollie Struts Her Stuff Thru “The Sea of Love” or the Brides of Frankenstein Catch the Bouquet
- By Ntozake Shange
- Acknowledgments
- Copyright
“Roxie. The Civil War was before our time. There are Negroes dying and fighting right now. We were dying and fighting before Communists had a name for themselves, my dear.”
“Don’t you think I know that. I do believe my parents are descendants of bona-fide free. How could I not know the War was over.” With that I was sure I’d sent Liliane’s words clear to the Yucatán, or Cuba, maybe. Liliane’s mama had been to Cuba. She’d been to the Tropicana where girls just like me and Liliane appeared from cypress and magnolia trees with macaw and peacock feathers framing their faces. Oh yes, maybe my words could be swept all the way to Havana and Fidel’s lips. I wanted my syllables to change shape and sound, become some revolutionary kiss by the cheeks of Castro, but I couldn’t tell Liliane, since her mama had shown us movies of her trip to Cuba last summer. Surely, a girl whose mama booed the McCarthy hearings, who wrote letters protesting the treatment of Paul Robeson, and went to Havana for vacation would understand how much I needed to win. I needed to see Negroes or mulattoes, bona-fide free, or somebody who looked like me win for a change.
I was too young to be so tired. I thought the Northerners were down here to help us cause they weren’t worn down by white folks yet. Maybe that wasn’t the truth, though. Where Liliane lived the crackers was just as evil as they could be. I’d a mind to ask Missus Lincoln if Liliane couldn’t come on down and live with me, but my mama was so close to old, I knew better. But what I wanted Liliane to help me with was overwhelming me. I wanted to be, plain as that, just be, without all the planning, preening, fixing, and carrying on. You don’t know what I am talking about, do you? All the polishing of Negro girls about to be grown is as clear as I can get. I was getting the brunt of it, myself. How to serve bouillon as opposed to gumbo. What fork goes where and why. When to take gloves off and when to put them on. I was weary, weary.
Liliane’s mama didn’t cotton to any of that. No, sir. Liliane had a mama who went her own way. I thought it was her name that freed her, Sunday Bliss. Liliane hooted like a low white to my mind, when I told her this. I wasn’t allowed to hoot like that.
“S. Bliss Lincoln, Roxie, is hardly a woman who’s thrown reason to the winds,” Liliane explained casually. “Besides, she only tells special people like me and you what the ‘S’ stands for, says her name is what lets folks know she’s a colored woman.”