Alabama Nine - Text
Alabama 9 The speaker is an older African-American female, born and raised in Tuskeegee Alabama, a community of educated African American professionals with its own unique history. The subject describes her educational history, her travels as a professional dancer, and her chameleon-like speech. You will notice marked differences in the speaker's rate, inflection pattern and articulation as she moves from the reading to the unscripted portion of the recording. She speaks more rapidly in the improvised section, articulation is more relaxed and the retroflexed r is released. The heightened inflection patterns of the region intensifies, diphthongs are modified, and the characteristic i/e substitution ( Sister Cleminza for Clemenza) appears. There is also a slight dentalization of the th sound- both voiced and unvoiced.
Recorded and edited 2002, Daydrie Hague running time 00:06:38.
TRANSCRIPTION
I was born in Tuskeegee, Alabama, June 22nd, 1942—a thousand years ago. And this was in, ah, Macon County, Alabama. Tuskeegee is a very special town, I think. Ah, is 98 percent African-American. Most of the African-American people there were people who were educated, who had professional careers. They were doctors, lawyers, teachers, nurses. One reason is that, ah, Tuskeegee Universtiy was there (started in 1881), and, and that the life of the black people in the town really centered around Tuskeegee. The other thing is that we never had any industry of note there, so that, ah, unless you were maybe a farmer, there was nothing to do if you didn’t go to school, you know, go to college. And I’m talking about the period that I grew up in, you know, you know…’cause I was in high school in the fifties and I went to college in the sixties, right?
My family…My father came to the area in the thirties, when he was thirteen years old. And he was a country boy. Came from Guellville (?), Alabama and he came to Tuskeegee to study at the institute at the time, you know. My mother came there in, um I think, ’39 as a nurse. And my father eventually worked at the veteran’s hospital there. My mother was working at the veteran’s hospital—that’s how they met.
I also went to Catholic school. All the school were good, I think; but the Catholic school really was strong on teaching English and grammar. And Sister Clemenza was ferocious. And when I graduated from high school I went to Butler University in Indianapolis because I wanted to become a dancer. And, of course, ah…and my parents said I had to go to college they didn’t care what I decided I wanted to do, as long as I went to college. There was no opportunity to do that in, um, Tuskeegee. And you have to remember that this was in the ’60s, everything was segregated and if there were opportunities anywhere around, I couldn’t take advantage of them. I couldn’t even come to Auburn ’cause it was, you know, I was black. Couldn’t come here.
Ah, there were about four dance schools in the…in the country and I went to Butler University at the time. Now that’s in Indianapolis but I do know that I was a dance major surrounded by a whole cadre of very artistic and highly articulate people. But when I left, um, Butler, I went to New York. I’d already been to New York. I would go to New York in the summer to study dance. Here was a little southern girl going to New York, you know, when I was like 15, 16. I also went to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania some of those summers. Now, you know, Pittsburgh’s kinda very distinct. But I, thank goodness, did not pick up any of their dialect. (Laughs) I never really liked that so much.
And when I graduated from college I went to, um, New York City and I was there just about a year. Had my first professional experience. Got sick and had to go home again. Got a job teaching dance while I was recovering. That was teaching dance in college in Howard University in Washington D.C. So I was there for five years. And I traveled a lot. Ah, I left Howard to go to Boston. To work, um…I worked at an arts center there. And then I got the opportunity to go to Europe to Brussels, Belgium, ah, to dance with the ballet, Ballet of the Twentieth Century in Brussels. Now that was, ah, my first trip to Europe. And the I got the opportunity to work on Broadway, ah, with, you know, Billy Wilson in, in, um Bubbling Brown Sugar. And we live in, you know, for like 6 weeks at a time in Chicago, in Toronto, in Philadelphia, in Washington D.C. and then came back to Broadway.
Then afterwards…after the…I, I decided I wanted to come home again to Tuskeegee because I wanted to start a theatre company. And I wanted to make sure that other little African-American girls, like myself, would not necessarily have to go away to, at least, begin a professional career in theatre or in dance. And I was thinking about a dance company, so I came home and I began to work with the, um, ah, the city of Tuskeegee; they hired me to be Director of Cultural Affairs. So I had a whole thing I was teaching dance, plus I was dealing with the whole cultural affair thing…affairs thing, you know.
Um, anything that culturally related to…I mean, things like celebrating Martin Luther King’s birthday, um, um, other cultural highlights in the community, celebrating the history of the community, plus to understand (word unclear).
I can wrap it up now. What were the greatest influence on my speech? Hmm. I don’t know. I think my teachers in grade school. My parents who insisted that I speak, try to speak, correct English. You see, as a black person, I can switch off. I can speak…I can say “I-aint-gonna-do-that”. I don’t know how to tell you but sometimes when black people are together we can speak in another tone. Not necessarily bad English but say another thing which involves a whole lot of colloquial things that you just don’t say. And then I can switch off and talk another way, you know. I’m like a chameleon.
Ah, what else? Dialects? Hmmm. I think that’s enough about me.
Transcribed by Mitchell Kelly, January 15, 2008