Sparta, Illinois - 1963

The following appeared on riehlife.com on April 19, 2010

We have Maurice Hirsch’s mentor and friend, Catherine Rankovic, to thank for today’s Poem-of-the-Day. Welcome! He joins us from Chesterfield, Missouri. Here’s some background he’s shared on his poem “Sparta, Illinois–1963″

We lived and worked in Sparta from 1962-1964. It was a tipping point in the transition of this town/area from segregation toward integration in jobs and where you could live. While the printing plant put out magazines and comic books for urban center consumption, the town was Southern-Illinois rural.

In an “art imitates life imitates art” moment, the movie In the Heat of the Night was filmed there in 1966 and had a real impact on the community. Originally set in Mississippi, the IMDB database says: “Mississippi was eventually ruled out as a location due to the existing political conditions. Sparta, Illinois, was selected as the location, and the town’s name in the story was changed to Sparta so that local signs would not need to be changed.”

This led to African-American mid-level managers. One of their sons became the first African-American physician in town (and was taken as a partner by a while physician). It took until 1971 for there to be an African-American hero in a comic book.

Sparta, Illinois

1963

Like half the town

I work at “The Comic Book,”

where white men adjust

printing presses and bindery machines

that spew white heroes

Superman,

Archie,

Casper the Friendly Ghost,

while blacks wield brooms, load freight cars.

Six months pregnant

with our first child,

Marian walks to the plant,

our tiny black poodle,

Voodoo, on a leash.

As we stroll home for lunch,

she tells me the dog bit her hard.

We chat about baby names.

Later, I go to Rotary.

The minister sitting next to me says:

You’re the first Jew I’ve ever talked to.