History is important because it can explain so much, such as certain behaviors, actions, and beliefs. You must dig deep into the past in order to uncover the reasons behind certain things. Curious about my personal family history, I asked my grandfather, Harold Mossey, to explain how we got our Creole roots. He told me a story, which took place sometime during the 1800s, of a German man with the surname Roth that married an African woman in Louisiana and had kids. He passed away before her, and because at the time blacks weren’t allowed to own property, she lost the house they had lived in. When she finally died, she had to be buried on the opposite side of the cemetery as her husband since it was segregated. He explained to me how that was the nature of the South at the time. Jerah Johnson writes, “They called for segregation of all hotels, theatres, bars, soda fountains, restaurants, social clubs, whorehouses, churches, streetcars, courts, libraries, parks, playgrounds, drinking fountains, restrooms, hospitals, insane asylums and cemeteries” (249). It was absurdities such as this that was far too common and helped contribute to the migration of my family from the South to up North.
Being Creole from New Orleans, the center of jazz culture, my grandfather was a huge fan of music. Creoles in New Orleans had a very significant role in the invention of jazz music. According to Vincent York, in the 1890’s,
“the earliest forms of jazz began to emerge in New Orleans, a multiracial and multicultural French-ruled city with a social order that demanded music and revelry. Creole musicians were combining the elements of West African work songs, slave spirituals, minstrel and vaudeville shows, and rural blues expression with European brass band instruments and harmonies. This newly born hybrid music filled the streets of New Orleans on every occasion from parades to funeral marches.”
Jazz was a force that was taking over New Orleans, and eventually, it took over my grandfather’s heart.
Dig deeper into my roots at: cheathams.myheritage.com
