This Is the Fire: What I Say to My Friends About Racism

To begin this chapter, Lemon describes his early years growing up in Port Allen, Louisiana, a suburb near Baton Rouge. The Muskogean originally developed the area, and the name Baton Rouge refers to a 30-foot red stick that a French expedition came across. The US bought the land from the French without the consent of the Indigenous peoples, and plantations brought in enslaved Africans. In 1811, biracial overseer Charles Deslondes led the German Coast Uprising, the largest slave revolt in American history. White militias crushed the rebellion and brutally murdered Deslondes. Early accounts praised the lopsided victory as an example of White supremacy, and the idealization of the antebellum South cannot hide the vicious deeds necessary to maintain it.

Lemon describes his parents as a “Black Perry Mason” and a “Black Della Street” (40). Lemon’s father, Wilmon, passed away when Lemon was nine after an infection triggered a blood clot that eventually reached his heart. His mother, Katherine, eventually remarried. Other events that affected Lemon during childhood were sexual abuse by a neighbor and a “Black box” in which White teachers and parents derided his achievements and downplayed his potential (44). However, Katherine wholeheartedly accepted his coming out as gay.