Remember the lone violinist Samuel Thompson, who played Bach for hurricane survivors? Well, lots of people had a look at our story, including the classical music radio station WFMT, in Chicago, which may do a story of its own about him. It ought to, we wrote them, because he seemed to us “a really fine person” whose “experience intersects lots of things,” including “classical music, African-American heritage, Katrina” and so on.
Well, here’s an untold part of Samuel’s story about surviving Katrina. He told it to us in an e-mail a few hours ago:
Forgot to mention THIS part, which is most important, and even if not published, for people to know there were good things going on in hell.”
1. If it weren’t for the fortitude of two beautiful women, one from England and the other from Quebec, I would have been trapped in the Superdome the entire week. Francesca and Sarah, respectively, are two women who were staying in the same youth hostel as I when we were evacuated and, when the National Guard decided to “move” the international travelers (called “foreign nationals”) away from the “general population,” both Francesca and Sarah said, very adamantly, “Tell them that you’re traveling with us.” Yes, they saved my life, and I will be forever grateful to them for not abandoning a new friend.
2. When first settling into the Superdome and also at the Basketball Arena, Sarah asked me if I would play. So, it’s all to Sarah Rochon of Quebec, wherever she is.
Notice that Samuel, right, says nothing about race — he’s black and (we are guessing) Francesca and Sarah are white — but we’d bet that race had something — a BIG something? — to do with moving them away from the “general population” (mostly black) and their sense that, unless they insisted, Samuel would not have been evacuated with them. Are we making an unfair assumption by pointing to race rather than nationality, Samuel, or are we essentially correct?
— Tireless Staff of Thousands
Postscript: We just came upon Los Angeles Times reporter Scott Gold’s eloquent word picture of Samuel playing for fellow survivors. We had no idea it existed until now. Two days before we even posted the photo of Samuel performing, at the end of a lengthy story headlined “Trapped in an Arena of Suffering,” Gold wrote:
Suddenly, incongruously, the first notes of Bach’s Sonata No. 1 in G minor,” the Adagio, pierced the desperation.
Samuel Thompson, 34, is trying to make it as a professional violinist. He had grabbed his instrument — made in 1996 by a Boston woman — as he fled the youth hostel Sunday where he had been staying in New Orleans for the last two months.
“It’s the most important thing I own,” he said.
He had guarded it carefully and hadn’t taken it out until Wednesday afternoon, when he was able to move from the Superdome into the New Orleans Arena, far safer accommodations. He rested the black case on a table next to a man with no legs in a wheelchair and a pile of trash and boxes, and gingerly popped open the two locks. He lifted the violin out of the red velvet encasement and held it to his neck.
Thompson closed his eyes and leaned into each stretch of the bow as he played mournfully. A woman eating crackers and sitting where a vendor typically sold pizza watched him intently. A National Guard soldier applauded quietly when the song ended, and Thompson nodded his head and began another piece, the Andante from Bach’s Sonata in A minor.
Thompson’s family in Charleston, S.C., has no idea where he is and whether he is alive. Thompson figures he is safe for now and will get in touch when he can. In the meantime he will play, and once in a while someone at the sports complex will manage a smile.
“These people have nothing,” he said. “I have a violin. And I should play for them. They should have something.”
Thank you, Scott Gold.
PPS: “Yet another perspective on the chaos,” a friend writes, pointing to this eyewitness account of survival. “What a horror story.”
PPPS: Samuel sent an e-mail today, Oct. 1, commenting on our guess that race must have played a role in his evacuation from the Superdome, even though he didn’t mention it. He writes:
With more people paying attention to issues of race (or, rather, becoming painfully aware of them) and with modes of thinking that help validate and, in some cases, assume racism — I understand how you thought that. The majority of the people in the Superdome and, if I may say so, in most of the shelters that have been covered in the news, were African-American. But in this instance, I think Sara was more concerned about the well-being of another human being rather than thinking about race issues.
I’m sure there are many people who did think I “got out” simply because of the [white] people with whom I was associating, and yes, there was the question, “Are you African or from the islands?” before the group left the Superdome. But the man who became the leader of this group, an Australian, had no problem with me joining it.
I have never used my ethnicity as a “card.” No, I did not feel entitled and, yes, I do have and will always have compassion for those who were “left behind.” But to assume that race was an issue in my securing safety does nothing but perpetuate discussions that dishonor humanity.
That’s a wrap.
