Dessi Blue
May 8, 1936
Mama,
I’m sorry it’s taken me so long to write, but a lot has happened and I haven’t had time. I can hear you saying I just didn’t make time! You right, but I do have a lot to tell you.
I’m not working at the Cotton Club anymore. I know you hoped one day they’d find me in the kitchen washing dishes and decide I should be on stage, but that never happened. I wasn’t “Tall, Tan and Terrific” enough for them! They want that high yellow. I would still be there washing dishes if it wasn’t for my new friend Matilda Hargrove. We met at the Lafayette Theatre. I know you and Daddy used to go see the bands down there. Well, they did a Shakespeare play with all Black folks. Macbeth! Can you believe that? I never seen so many people trying to get into one place. I went down there opening night to get me a ticket. They were selling them outside for near $4! Some of them even five. Too rich for my blood, so I gave up, but I met Tilda, who gave me one of her tickets. Her beau never showed. But we got to talking and she set me up with some work.
Now I already see your face, Mama. I ain’t got a pimp and I ain’t hustling. It’s honest work down at the Savoy Ballroom. Tilda works there, hostessing. We teach the men who come in there who don’t know how to dance. We just show them the steps and they pay us! Better than washing dishes, I tell you the truth. Pay is better, too.
I know you been worried about me up here by myself since you moved back home, but I couldn’t go back to Alabama, not after New York. It ain’t perfect here for Black folks, but they ain’t hanging us from trees. We had that riot last year in Harlem, but it’s not as bad as down South. I’m never living down there.
I know you miss Daddy. I do, too. I understand why you wanted to go back and be with family, but I can’t. And see? I found a new friend!
I left the boarding house, too. Me and Tilda put our money together and we’re in an apartment down off 139th Street, not too far from the Savoy. We in the middle of everything. Everybody comes through. I feel alive, Mama. I’ve been so sad, what with Daddy passing and you leaving, but working at the Savoy, this new place with Tilda, it feels like things are looking up.
Tilda’s cousin takes pictures for The Crisis. He took this one of us at the House Beautiful that night. Ain’t we pretty? I’m also including $20. I’ll send more when I can. I hope it helps. Kiss Granny and Aunt Ruth and Cousin Belle. All of them. Tell them hey and I love you all.
Yours,
Odessa