Jim Crow era workers lost pay for any missed day, no excuse accepted

Evidence

My cousin who lives out in California told me a long time ago that right before an earthquake there was a stillness in the air. He said to watch out because it could mean good news or bad news but it would be something you can’t prepare for. Well, I missed work yesterday because the bus broke down and by the time I walked to Woolworth’s it woulda almost been time for me to turn around and come on back home so I got a ride to the closest gas station and they let me use their phone but my boss didn’t care what the reason was I wasn’t coming and docked me the seven dollars I woulda made. It took me almost two hours to walk back home and the whole time I didn’t see one leaf move on any of the trees. Even when I turned the corner and walked up the hill, I didn’t feel a breeze. — Nikole Hannah-Jones et al., The 1619 Project, 986

Categorization

• SHARE: The earthquake stillness foreshadowing details paint the Greensboro sit-in as an approaching tremor — a metaphorical structure worth sharing with a writer friend.