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Showing posts from January 29, 2011

Nanny and the Drag Queen

  My Godmother’s name was Catherine. Because she was my Godmother, I called her Nanny. Catherine had a fantastic way with people. She went out of her way to be kind to everyone she met, and once she met someone, she treated them as a friend unless they proved otherwise. Nanny didn’t judge people by their appearance. She believed it is a person's personality and actions that define them. In the early 1950s, Nanny worked at F.W. Woolworth on Canal Street in New Orleans. Back then, most of the merchandise was kept behind sales counters. Customers had to be waited on by a salesperson if they wanted to try on shoes, slips, or dresses. At Woolworths there was a social scale among the staff,  Many thought that they were too good to wait on black customers, poor white people, or anyone different.  One day a male "Drag Queen '' performer who worked at a nightclub on Bourbon Street in the French Quarter came in.  When he asked to try on ladies