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We Need to Talk About Black History
It’s so much more than slavery, MLK Jr., and rap’s founding fathers.
It’s eight p.m. at Zula Sound Bar in Cape Town, and dinner with Brendan, a thirty-year-old white man from Pittsburgh, is about to turn into an unexpected history lesson.
Brendan has temporarily relocated to Cape Town for a two-month internship after spending three years in Cameroon with the Peace Corps. He’s engaged to a Cameroonian, so he has every intention of returning, although he realizes the wind (and the Peace Corps) could eventually blow him and his husband-to-be anywhere.
Tonight, though, his mind is on Johannesburg. His Peace Corps internship is sending him on his first trip there next week, so naturally I’m inclined to offer my glowing impression of my favorite South African city. The artsy Melville district is a must-do, I insist, especially Sophiatown Bar Lounge, easily its best hot spot.
“There was a live jazz band, and the crowd was mostly black and beautiful,” I say, describing the night I walked into Sophiatown to order takeout and left hours later with one of my most indelible South Africa memories.
“I felt as if I’d stepped into a time-travel machine and ended up in the Harlem Renaissance,” I say.
