Meridian

Meridian Seminar,

The Nineties

A recent seminar on my 1976 novel, Meridian, arranged by Robert Cohen, author of the much anticipated and highly praised Freedom’s Orator: Mario Savio, and the Radical Movements of the 1960s, gave me the opportunity to look back at that book, as I had not done, possibly, ever.  In speaking with the alertly interested young UC students around me, I was reminded of what I had wanted, all those years ago, to show: that the “meaning” of the Civil Rights Movement in that novel, was, above all, that it was a training ground for the recognition and use, to our own benefit, of our collective compassion and love; and, as well, a preparation for the full and free future use of our individual and/ or collective voice.  That the political structure of the US, comprised then as now of almost identical parties, both unfair where race was concerned in the Sixties – when one risked being murdered for attempting to vote – and as it exists now – when one’s right to vote as a black or poor person can be denied on the basis of almost anything dreamed up – is patently absurd.  Which is why there has been an ongoing, seemingly endless sense of futility among those who deeply ponder such things.

I pointed out places in the novel where this idea is obvious:  Meridian Hill, the protagonist, faces down a tank (in Jackson, Mississippi the tank used against black non-violent protesters was named for the Mayor, whose last name was Thompson:  hence, Thompson’s tank) in order to take black school children to see a mummified white woman whose husband prostitutes her body, by showing it off for money, in the small towns of the South.  Children of color are allowed to see this spectacle only on Thursday, the day set aside for Colored.  Meridian takes them to see the mummy on a Tuesday, risking arrest.  They discover the “mummy” is a fake. What is Meridian teaching?  Not that we all have the same right to go anywhere, regardless of skin tone, but that once there we can see for ourselves it isn’t worth the trouble.

Or, when, toward the end of the novel, a woman old enough to have forgotten sex is convinced by her equally ancient sister that she was impregnated by an old man passing by who perhaps put his hand on her neck.  Meridian, understanding the dynamics of the rivalry between the sisters, helps the old woman push her colossal bed of sin out of her house and set it on fire.  Then she asks her if she’ll risk what life she has left to come to the courthouse and register to vote.  The vote is as delusional as the pregnancy, so what is happening?

Love, compassion, solidarity with our people in all forms of craziness.

 Early in the book an old black man who has been pushing a broom one feels for generations, sums up the black experience with the political structure of America:  “I seen rights come and I seen’em go.”  Meridian, the novel, is about acknowledging this more than three centuries of shifting sand, saying enough!, freeing ourselves of our delusions, addictions, illnesses of whatever sort, and moving on to join the rest of an awakening world.