Author Beth Macy’s latest book a must read labor of love
by S. Rotan Hale
Listening to Beth Macy during presentations about whatever project she’s working on, forces one to actually live and experience the lives of her subjects on the deepest level.
Macy totally immerses herself in the stories she brings to life through vivid details born of her thirst to delve into the intricacies that reveal the real and often hidden story.
Now the prize-winning journalist and author has done it again through her new book “Truevine: The strange and Troubling Tale of Two Brothers in Jim Crow America.”
A group of those familiar with Macy’s works joined several of the brother’s family members who gathered Thursday, Nov. 5 at Roanoke’s Gainsboro Library for a sneak preview of her latest work.
Sitting in the front row during the presentation was Nancy Saunders and her cousin Louise Burrell who added various details to Macy’s sensitive story about their uncles–twins George and Willie Muse.
The brothers were legally blind from birth and had a condition known as oscillating eyes.
George died in 1971. Nancy was caregiver to Willie, who passed away in 2001 on Good Friday, amazingly at 108.
Bizarre as it was, the albino twins were abducted early in life and sold as circus acts eventually landing with Ringling Brothers & Barnum and Baily Circus where they continued to be exploited as freaks with the names Eko and Iko.
“We were sitting at the dinner table and my father said they were our relatives. That’s how I found out about them,” commented an audience member who said it was in the early 60’s–which was shortly before the twins retired and returned to Roanoke.
After 20 years with the circus they were reunited with their family after their mother Harriett Muse filed a lawsuit to reclaim them.
The storied account of the Muse Brothers was chronicled through a 5-part series Macy co-wrote that was published 2001 in Roanoke’s daily paper, known then as “The Roanoke Times and World News.”
“The newspaper was very racist then, it was a very accurate reflection of what White people thought at the time,” Macy said candidly.
Her presentation included images of, racists cartoons featured in the Times, Candy Shelton the man credited with abducting the twins and images of them as they appeared in the circus. Also featured were graphic scenes that showed the stark reality of Roanoke as the Klu Klux Klan hot bed that it was.
founder local KKK; Harriett Muse, mother of the Twins.
“Roanoke had the largest congregation of the KKK in Virginia at that time,” she noted and showed a photo of Col. Kent Spiller, Roanoke Commonwealth’s Attorney who founded the Klan in this area.
She read excerpts from her book that vividly painted a picture of the racist environment prevalent to the region during that period.
One account was of an elderly White lady who kept parrots on a screened-in front porch of her large Victorian house on Salem Ave. where no Blacks lived at the time. The birds were trained to call Blacks “ni–ers” and did so as they passed the house.
Macy’s detailed and insightful treatment of this multi-layered story not only examines the horrors faced by the twins but boldly exposes the blatant racism tightly woven into Roanoke’s past.
The story is just one of many that uncovers the struggles African Americans face in the relentless battle against racism.
Although the story unfortunately is rooted in Roanoke’s history, it now takes on new meaning as an agent of healing offered through the pages of Macy’s touching and brilliant book.
Real change is hinged on the efforts of courageous and compassionate visionaries like Beth Macy and others who dare to step outside the box promoting the very elements that connect us all on a deeper level.
Her first book “Factory Man,” published in 2014, was listed among The New York Times bestselling non-fiction works and received numerous other awards.
“Truevine” is scheduled for release September 2016 and is truly a must-read labor of love.
