The following excerpt comes from chapter 7, “Bonds of Memory”, as found in Sally Hemings & Thomas Jefferson edited by Jan Ellen Lewis and Peter S. Onuf, 1999:
Four years into our project to collect the oral histories of Monticello’s African-Americans, we made our first trip to New York City, arriving in Manhattan on a December morning on a bus from LaGuardia Airport. We were deposited, along with our bags of clothing, cameras, and recording equipment, on Harlem’s 125 Street, to await the downtown bus. At this point in the project , we were used to sharing the same spaces but at different comfort levels, invariably determined by the fact that one of us is black and the other white.
Dianne Swann-Wright (DSW): The 125th Street bus stop provided a visual feast for my imagination. Small matter that over fifty years separated me from its Renaissance or that thirty years separated me from Malcolm X’s physical presence on this very street. I stretched my neck looking for Claude McKay, Zora Neale Hurston, and Langston Hughes. I strained to hear the notes that just had to be coming from the uptown jazz clubs. Some of the brothers and sisters who had heard Malcolm speak must be somewhere close. They just had to be.
In my mind’s eye, I formed a bond with the folks who shared the actual present with me this December morning. We were in Harlem, the home and center of cultural expression. I was home.
Lucia Stanton (LCS): While I eyed the dark figures coming to life in the doorways and worried about the safety of our newly purchased video camera, I craned my neck to spot the bus that would take us away from Harlem and down to familiar streets with two-digit numbers.