Work In Progress:
Battle Creek
We travel across the USA on a rainy day
We reach Battle Creek on the third of May.
Students on a journey to learn
About race and prejudice in our city streets.
Richmond, Virginia is where we plan to meet.
(Shhh! Keep it to yourself. Just call it Urban Studies
instead.)
In Battle Creek we find Uncle John’s Pancake House
On Michigan 94 and we find out that
It’s rainy in Battle Creek and we are soaked.|
A day to dream and maybe, just maybe,
To find out what Max Weber really
knew.
Bellies full and caffeinated, too,
We find out that the Road to Find Out
Is a vast and endless venture of signs,
True and tall tales, and the story of Kellogg corn
flakes.
Searching deeper we find Potawatomi and Ottawa
People gathered on the Coguagiack prairie.
Mending wounds from earlier attacks in 1774
To form a village in peace around the lake.
Here on this Road to Find Out,
the US army saw a chance to gain ground
For eastern settlers to claim the fertile soil.
Holding up food supplies from the tribes,
A theft caused a serious wound and the Potawatomi
Lost their land.
Life is cruel to some;
Trust intruders and find out who’s the fool.
Then came the sawmill and a small log cabin school.
Then a factory to make bricks.
See how progress comes when the victor knows the tricks.
Freed from slavery Sojourner Truth made her home here
On the Road to Find Out; Battle Creek became a stop,
The underground railroad’s secret, safe spot for slaves
Fleeing to Canada in the north.
Ellen White's Adventists found here a place to
convene in 1863:
William Miller had the Christ Return set for 1844,
But had the wrong country as the place to be
As Shiraz was the place he really should have longed for.
Dr. John Harvey Kellogg blended health, eugenics
And the betterment of race;
As long as it upheld a separate but equal face.
A twist to keep races apart with his social calisthenics
Roads to Find Out often took ugly turns and strange ones
too.
His hapless brother, W.K., wandered on The Road to Find
Out.
He sold brooms in Oklahoma boom towns,
But they were not a place for him to be.
Still a loser,
W.K. returned on the Road to Find Out
To assist his
brother’s sanitarium. There he chanced to spill
Liquefied cornmeal on a heating device and gave a shout.
He added milk and fed it to residents: corn flakes were born!
“Cereal City” had a destiny selling corn.
On the Road to Find Out we find out that race hate follows
Some white folks wherever they go
Like the time boxing Champ Jack Johnson
Was arrested here for marrying a white woman
And carrying her across state lines. The times didn’t seem to change
On the Road to Find Out.
Thousands of dough boys passed through
For training in WWI and WWII for army life
And prepare for their first taste of combat strife.
Later hundreds of wounded arrived in the second world war
Amputations, Neurosurgery, and plastic artificial eyes and surgeries galore.
Battle Creek was the first American city to install
Wheelchair ramps on sidewalks, ya’all
For the wounded to enjoy downtown life.
Every general knows that war has its rewards.
Train the troops and inter German Prisoners of War.
Wear black skin and the law could stop and frisk.
That’s the risk one took to enjoy a walk to the store
Or to a park or going home from work.
Dr. King came and spoke here, as did Muhammad Ali.
The Black Recondos made schools hire black teachers,
Officials too, or every black child would leave the
school.
Black bodies filled seats that brought federal funds
And the school board would find what federal money was
all about.
We’re on the Road to Find Out.We were on the Road to Find Out.
(At that time, we did not know the history around us
The stories of Battle Creek like layers of fallen leaves
In the rain-soaked ground that surrounded us.)
We sat, syrup raised to battle stations
And waged our pogrom against stacks
Of buttermilk pancakes at Uncle John’s Pancake House
On Michigan 94 still looking for the betterment of race.
Naïve about who wins and who finishes in last place.
C. S. Cholas, May 3, 1974, Battle Creek, Michigan
