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BY KATHY WILLIAMS

HERALD DEMOCRAT

Dr. Njoki McElroy successfully claims authority to examine the black and white world in which she grew and has the gumption to label that growth in the patois of each distinct culture that influenced her life.

In "1012 Natchez: A Memoir of Grace, Hardship, and Love" McElroy details growing up in a highly racist Jim Crow era in Texas, especially spending time with her grandparents at 1012 Natchez in Sherman. She came of age in the Creole world of New Orleans during her first college days at Xavier University, the only institution of higher learning for black women in the 1940s. As a young wife and mother, she experienced the harsh bigotry directed at her race in Chicago during the Great Migration.

Some in Sherman's white community might flinch at her perspective on local racial history, particularly her recount of the murder of George Hughes and the burning of the Courthouse in 1930. But none can deny the authenticity of her perspective. McElroy calls it as she sees it. And although she expresses outrage and anger over the insults and violence directed at her people, she avoids bitterness. Her story is one of growth, survival, triumph, heritage -- and food.

A delightful garnish to her book is a sprinkling of family recipes throughout its pages. Much of the book might show up the differences in black and white heritage, but taste buds surely do not discriminate when it comes to the "Hot Water Cornbread" and "Granma Julia's Fresh Peach Ice Cream" and "Papa T's Grit Town Gumbo" recipes she includes.

The memoir might seem simple, but the telling details provided show deep research. McElroy must have been exceptionally disciplined in keeping journals to capture such richness of language, fashion and history in the narrative of her life. One can smell the Old English on her grandparents' antique wood and leather sofa -- and the fear as fire sweeps through her little family's basement apartment in Chicago's "Black Belt."

The details of her story introduce us to people and culture that might otherwise be forgotten.

At 1012 Natchez, she describes "the porch gatherers":

"At night, the neighbors gather on the porch to tell stories, as the lightning bugs flicker in the darkness and the cicadas and crickets provide background sounds. In addition to their entertainment value, the stories I heard at 1012 Natchez provided lessons in human behavior and warnings about what life had in store for black people.

"Tall and handsome Mr. Tatum was a Buffalo Soldier. Flint Mama, part Cherokee, told her neighbors on the porch that Choctaws, Chickasaws and Cherokees also had been slave owners.

"Flint Mama went fishing dressed in layers of petticoats, skirts, sweaters, shawls, headscarves and a hat. We wondered how in the world Flint Mama could wear all those clothes in the fry-an-egg-on-the-sidewalk Texas heat. 'Never mind the heat,' Flint Mama said, At eighty years old, I can't afford to break nothing. Children, in case I fall, these clothes is my padding."

Miz Luvenia, Mr. Marant's niece, had the rhythm of an old rocking chair in her walk and told the best Brer Rabbit stories, McElroy tells her readers. "The characters came alive with her funny voices and movements. She was naturally comical and kept us howling with laughter."

McElroy talks about leaving her home in South Dallas, where she attended Lincoln High School, one of the city's two black high schools. An only child, and she admits to being doted upon and protected by her parents, she matriculated to Xavier University at 16. The Catholic school, run by nuns, had the strictest of rules for the homes in which the girls lived. And they were not able to date without the nuns' permission, and then only double dating was allowed. And that's how she met Jackie Robinson, a star with the Kansas City Monarchs team in the Negro National League, shortly before Branch Rickey signed him to the Brooklyn Dodgers farm team in Canada.

The memoir does not proceed chronologically. It begins with her seeking refuge with her three little boys in Sherman after the fire claimed their home in Chicago. In 1951, at 26, McElroy had to leave her husband to run the television business they've started and find a new home for them. The parting and separation are painful, and her parents' and grandparents' love and shelter, her salve.

In her later years she began shuttling between Dallas and Chicago, between her husband and children in the north, and her mother in the south.

She earned a master's degree, and then her doctorate. Perhaps it was those evenings spent on the porch at 1012 Natchez that provided the spark, and McElroy became a folklorist. She traveled the nation and collected stories and then went on to Africa to discover her more ancient heritage. Born Hilda Nadine Hampton, in 1972 her Kenyan hosts named her after a Kikuya folk character Njoki "the one who came back."

In her later life, she continued her Chicago-Dallas shuttle, teaching as an adjunct professor at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., and Southern Methodist University in Dallas.

"1012 Natchez: A Memoir of Grace, Hardship, and Love" is published by Brown Books Publishing Group, Dallas. It is available through the publisher and through Amazon and Barnes and Noble. McElroy will be selling and signing copies of her memoir at events in her honor from 5 -7 p.m. Friday at NAACP Headquarters 1000 N. East St. in Sherman; and from 1 -3 p.m. Saturday at Red River Historical Museum.