All movements of Black people in America generate their own music, and sometimes in the traditional vein of call-and-response so well known from Negro Spirituals and traditional gospel music.
Lead: We are workin'
Choir: Workin' on the motorcade!
Lead: Yes, we are
Choir: Workin' on the motorcade!
Lead: We are workin'
Choir: Workin' on the motorcade!
Lead: Yes, we are
Choir: Workin' on the motorcade!
All: We're gonna drive this city, shut it down
Make it do right and turn it around!
Lead: Because we're workin'
Choir: Workin' on the motorcade!
Lead: Yes, we are
Choir: Yes, we are!
A lot of things go into getting ready to move thousands and thousands of cars in one great movement of traffic, but this was what the 60,000 family members of those lost and at first uncounted in the Ridgeline Fire were planning.
The count had been corrected, and the mayor of Big Loft, VA had apologized … but gaining access to the sites of where the 12,020 family members had perished was being held up by the private owners of the 4,000 properties lost … 4,000 homes where the 12,020 had worked as servants.
There was some rumor that Mayor Garner – “after Rev. Stone whipped him with his tongue the way Mayor Garner's ancestors used to do ours with whips of hide,” the story went – was working on those private owners, using his massive leverage as mayor to eventually compel them to allow access to the lots where their houses had stood up in the Blue Ridge, Starview, and Skyview neighborhoods.
There was a further rumor that at least one property owner was planning to allow access and even a place for a service to be held.
But all of that was just that – rumors, unconfirmed, and not enough to keep people from drowning in grief, anger, and despair.
Rev. Stone, faced with two communities dealing with Civil War-level losses, knew: agency had to be given back to them, and bound up with that would be their sense of hope and the regaining of their dignity and respect.
He also knew, given the youth of the two communities, that if his generation of Black and Latino adults could not create positive and powerful ways to channel all the emotion the tragedy of the Ridgeline Fire had caused, all the communities in Lofton County would pay a price for it. No one would have peace and untroubled prosperity, no matter the color of their skin, because there are terrible consequences for telling a whole generation of young people that all institutions are powerless and therefore useless to their needs and aspirations.
It could not just be busy work, either – it had been important to do real things and teach real skills that not only allowed the expression of power in the situation, but through life. A lot of young people were coming of age in the midst of all this – some at the time of life, some a little early, and some a little late – but the occasion existed, and so it had to be used.
Planning a motorcade offered opportunities galore... .
“Okay, how many of you just got your driver's licenses?”
“Okay, how many of you understand the principles of defensive driving – driving aware of the traffic situation around you to protect your safety and that of others?”
“Okay, how many of you know how to behave in a road rage situation?”
“Okay, how many of you want to learn how to drive in formation?”
“Okay, how many of you want to give yourself the best chance to come home alive should the police stop you in your cars?”
People of all ages needed to learn these things as well, with an overarching theme they could relate to:
“Understand that the 51 percent of Lofton County today that had ancestors that went right on with their lives untroubled with the suffering of our ancestors either in slavery or when the United States took over what once was part of Mexico and started meddling constantly in Latin America have passed that attitude of apathy and unconcern onto their descendants. They won't care about our 12,020 dead or even us alive until the point is driven home to them that they have to care.”
Someone always started the song …
“That's why we're workin'”... .
And the rest answered, “Workin' on the motorcade!” and the song and the people were on their way.
Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash