Harlem Duet

In Harlem 1862, delta blues play under a male voice reciting the Emancipation Proclamation. Her is holding Him in a pose reminiscent of Michelangelo’s The Pieta. Him’s body is lifeless, and there is a rope around his neck. As Her caresses his form, she tells a tale of a man who wanted to find a magic spell to be white. A psychic advised him that the only way to become white is to enter the Whiteness. Her then makes a cloaked reference to Him’s relationship with Miss Dessy, saying that after the man found his “ice queen, his alabaster goddess” (91), he made love to her and died. At that moment, he became “Her and her whiteness” (91).