Word: papas
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George Davis, Jackson's maternal grandfather whom he called "Papa," served as a link between Harrisburg and Chicago. Forced by economic considerations to live in Chicago, Davis was the kind of black man whose influence on other blacks and the history of the country has been so severely undernoticed as to make their existence a questionable issue to many. Yet many and perhaps, most black families have had a "Papa" Davis in them, and there are very few black people who after consideration can claim not to have known one. Jackson's description of "Papa" in Soledad Brother...
...grandfather, George "Papa" Davis, stands out of those early years more than any other figure in my total environment. He was separated from his wife by the system. Work for men was impossible to find in Harrisburg. He was living and working in Chicago--sending his wage back to the people downstate. He was an extremely aggressive man, and since aggression on the part of the slave means crime, he was in jail now and then. He tried to direct my great energy into the proper form of protest. He invented long simple allegories that always pictured the white politicians...
That description appears in the autobiography Jackson wrote at the request of the editor of Soledad Brother. Perhaps an even more meaningful evaluation of the influence Papa had on him is given in a letter Jackson wrote to his mother after Papa had died alone and broke during George Jackson's fifth year at San Quentin...
...loved him dearly and thought of him as one of our most practical and level-headed kin. You probably don't remember the long walks and talks Papa and I used to have...But I remember. He used to say things, probably just thinking aloud, sure that I wasn't listening or would not comprehend. But I did, and I think I knew him better than most. Do you remember how I used to answer "What" to every question put to me, and how Papa would deride me for this? He later in the course of our exchanges taught...
...hotel space, the government last month called in leaders of the local Italian and Lebanese communities and ordered them to foot the bill for two new hotels. The casinos too are once again raking in big money. More important, the dread Tonton Macoutes, or "bogeymen," who served as Papa Doc's private army of extortionists, are being relegated to the background. The warden of the notorious Fort Dimanche prison has been replaced, although an unknown number of political prisoners are still held there...