Talk:Paris, Tennessee
Obviously, this is not encyclopedic
This is obviously not a typical encyclopedia article, and no such thing is needed; already in Wikipedia, one can read about all the little ways a town such as Paris, TN, likes to advertise itselfin the public eye. I hope for this article to be tended by everyday people who lived in, or are closely associated with, Paris, TN, and I wish for it to grow without hype or interference from the Chamber of Commerce, Lion's Club, Kiwanis Club, the Women's Club, Daughters of the American Revolution, the Masonic lodge, the Shriners, the Ku Klux Klan, the Farmer's co-op, industry, the school boards, the police, the hospital, the sheriff, the mayor, the county commissioners or any member of the club of any sort, or of the government. It's not that I disapprove of any of those institutions, all of which do much civic good in modern times. But they represent "the powers that be" and as such, they seem incapable of providing an adequate reporting about what it was really like to live in Paris, TN, (and by analogy, many other small towns throughout the American South), and what it was like to live there in the past for people of all stripes and income levels. It being 2020, I want to talk about the elephants in the room, dredge up the hard questions and uncover the past as it really was for everyday people. I want to delve all the way back to the arrival of settlers in Henry County. Paris is neither better nor worse than any of these other small town in the rural American South. But Paris is where I was born and raised, and from that area, my ancestors lives going back several generations. And I know from firsthand experience some of the bitter fruits of slavery that manifested themselves vividly in the 1960's of my childhood. And I remember vividly the widespread distrust, suspicion, prejudice or hatred of the white blue collar populace, of which my family was a part, towards outsiders, people of color, Jews, Catholics, and the federal government. It is, for me, a boil which needs to be lanced, a most unpleasant chore, but with healing intentions.Pat Palmer (talk) 18:21, 6 September 2020 (UTC)
Key Sources, besides our memories, will be:
- In The West Tennessee Historical Society Papers, 1979, “Antebellum Henry County” by Roger Raymond Van Dyke
Reminders, seriously missing stuff
- Rabies, Polio, Vietnam, MLK, pol. parties, blue laws, Iraq War