Light in the Darkness

Back in December, ​I was flipping through my November 13 edition of the New Yorker, trying to decide if I was ready to throw it out when I came across a striking photograph. An African American family is standing in front of what looks like a white bed sheet taped onto a clapboard wall. The bottom of the black and white photo is framed by a chain link fence, an “Amsco steel Fence” sign visible in the bottom right, complete with a phone number and Gretna, Louisiana address.   Is this their front porch turned into an ersatz photography studio?

The patriarch of the family is seated in the lower right, holding a sleeping baby. Everyone is in their Sunday best - even the baby, outfitted in a white sleeper and beribboned booties. The patriarch is William Casby, who, according to the caption, is “one of the last living Americans born into slavery.”

Though Casby’s eyes are milky with age, they project pride and strength, as well as a hint of defiance and some humour. A similar look shines from the eyes of the tall man on the left, most likely Casby’s son. The rest of the family members have expressions varying from closed to shy to a bit nervous. A young woman, her hair straightened and styled into a mod 60s flip and held back with a white headband, has the most open expression; she’s smiling warmly and looking directly into the camera. The photograph is dominated by the broad bodies of the two older Casby men; the space they fill is almost equal to that of the other seven family members combined. And with the back row taken up by a very tall grandson, one gets the impression of a strong family protected by a bulwark of male strength.

The photograph was taken on March 24, 1963 in Algiers, Louisiana by Richard Avedon for the book Nothing Personal, an exploration of American identity in collaboration with James Baldwin. 

A quote from Baldwin accompanies the photograph reprinted in the New Yorker:
“It is necessary, while in darkness, to know that there is a light somewhere. To know that in oneself, waiting to be found, there is a light. What the light reveals is danger, and what it demands is faith.”
 
I had been intending to write a blog about the winter solstice and was looking for quotes about light, so I copied Baldwin’s quote into my notebook and went about my housecleaning.

Between the busyness of the pre-holiday season and a nasty gastric virus that struck exactly at dinnertime on Christmas Eve and didn’t let go completely till the New Year, I didn’t get around to this project till now. I still wanted to write about light. The past year had been so dark – around the world and closer to home here in Northwestern Ontario - I needed a strong antidote.

When I reread Baldwin’s quote, I realized he was not talking about the usual light we celebrate at the solstice – the return of the sun, the external light we need to survive on this planet, or even the symbolic light of god and salvation celebrated by people of faith. He meant an internal light, a very human light.  
             
Light and fire can mean so many things. Warmth, safety, danger. Light can blind. There are now flashlights designed to temporarily blind a potential assailant. Those little squares of light we carry around, our “personal devices,” do they really help us see the world better? You Tube is full of videos of people walking into telephone poles or garbage cans. Some cities are considering banning using a cell phone while you are walking.

I decided to go back to the first human-controlled light – fire – and looked up the old stories.

According to the Penguin Book of Classical Myths (Jenny March, 2008), Zeus had originally given fire to mortals (that’s us). But the Titan Prometheus, who had a soft spot for mortals (one tradition has Prometheus creating mortals from earth and water), played a nasty prank on Zeus. A great banquet was to be held, attended by the gods and the mortals. Prometheus was in charge of cooking the great ox. He made two dishes: “…on the one hand, a choice selection of succulent meats unappealingly covered with the ox’s stomach, and on the other, a pile of bones, dressed in a layer of appetizing fat.”

Zeus chose menu item #2. And then got really mad when he discovered he had been fooled and took fire back from the mortals to get even.

Prometheus, ever on our side, “stole fire from heaven and carried it secretly down to earth in a hollow fennel stalk (the white pith of which burns slowly and so makes it possible to carry fire from one place to another).”

In the next round of the god versus Titan pissing match, Zeus set up the infamous scenario on a cliff in the Caucasian Mountains where poor Prometheus had his liver ripped out by an eagle every day, only to grow it back overnight. After eons of this suffering, Zeus relented and let his “mightiest son, Herakles” shoot the eagle and release Prometheus.

These legends read like histories of colossally dysfunctional families -incest, patricide, feuds, rape, revenge, dumb choices by smart people/gods (Really? All-knowing Zeus couldn’t tell he was picking the inferior dinner? Really?)

And forgiveness.

And challenges to authority.

Zeus himself came to power after overthrowing Kronos. The Titan Prometheus sided with the mortals against Zeus’ arbitrary rule.

Current hardliners of all creeds brook no argument with their authority figures. So who is our Prometheus now?

I think James Baldwin was telling us we each need to be our own Prometheus and tend the fire within, our individual, human, and mortal fire. Perhaps that’s the light that shines through the photograph of the Casby family.
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After all, according my Collins dictionary, the second meaning of Promethean is “creative, original, or life-enhancing.”

Happy New Year.