“The blues is an impulse to keep the painful details and episodes of a brutal experience alive in one's aching consciousness, to finger its jagged grain, and to transcend it, not by the consolation of philosophy but by squeezing from it a near-tragic, near-comic lyricism. As a form, the blues is an autobiographical chronicle of personal catastrophe expressed lyrically.”

-Ralph Ellison

The area in OKC known as “Deep Deuce” is a special place for me, because I know a few of its secrets.  The area today is known for modern, upscale, urban housing and new hotels and is unrecognizable from what it once was.  But Deep Deuce, or “deep” Second Street, was historically the segregated African American cultural and entertainment hub of OKC, similar to Harlem in the 1930s, thriving the same way in spirit if not in scope. 

The community was established by former slaves coming to Indian Territory for the Land Runs in the 1880s.  It eventually became an island of African American culture and creativity, producing many prominent artists and musicians of the day including jazz men Charlie Christian and Jimmy Rushing and the writer Ralph Ellison. 

 “Swing to Bop” by Charlie Christian, 1941

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ce9Jtl9D6FQ

 “We look too much to museums. The sun coming up in the morning is enough.”

           -Ralph Ellison

 

Credit: rediscovered by William Welge Arcadia Publishing 2007

 

Many of the best singers and musicians of the day were regulars at the historic Aldridge Theatre on Deep Deuce including Cab Calloway, Duke Ellington, Billie Holiday, and Count Basie.  But Deep Deuce fell into decline in the 70s and 80s.  So about twenty years ago, after the OKC community started investing a lot of money in re-urbanization projects after the federal building bombing, Deep Deuce gentrified into what it is today.  Most of the old storefronts and clubs were leveled, leaving only the Calvary Baptist Church.  This is where Dr. Martin Luther King tried to become its pastor when he was young, before he became known as a civil rights leader, although he did give sermons at Calvary in the 60s. 

 



Calvary Baptist Church, Deep Deuce

 

I once read that William Faulkner thought the best books ever written were The Bible and James Joyce’s Ulysses.  And perhaps they were, from a literary point of view.  But I once read a book called The WPA Oklahoma Slave Narratives that I’d put right up there with any book I’ve ever read.   

The WPA Oklahoma Slave Narratives were collected as part of the WPA employment programs during the great depression.  The WPA hired out-of-work scholars to travel throughout the southern states interviewing former slaves, most of them in their 80s and 90s.  These interviews are the contents of the WPA narratives. 

 

 

I will tell you that I have never read anything more profound, violent, disparaging, disturbing, but also uplifting in my life . . . . uplifting to see that the spirit and will of those people enduring the overwhelming dehumanization and torture of slavery survived, although bruised and battered.  I was thinking that those imbecile SAE fraternity boys at the University of Oklahoma who were chanting racial slurs on a party bus should be forced to read the Slave Narratives, cover to cover, down at the Calvary Baptist Church in Deep Deuce, in front of their parents and a congregation full of Black elders. 

So one day, when I was reading the Oklahoma Narratives, I noticed the physical addresses of the interviewees were listed.  I got into the habit of locating them on a map with the intent of visiting some of the places.  Many of the addresses were down in Deep Deuce. 

I remember one in particular.  His name was James, and he lived on Second Street and Walnut.  James was a former slave from Alabama.  He told of being whipped dozens of times with the cat-o-nine tails until the flesh on his back disintegrated to a pulp.  To add insult to injury, they’d mix boiling tar with hot peppers and pour it on his back to cauterize the wounds, until he was near death. 

So one day I went down there and discovered that James’s old address was the new address of a multi-million dollar condominium that Kevin Durant, one of the greatest African American NBA players of all time, had recently purchased.    

I thought of the irony of this and how sometimes things come full circle.