Sunday Share: Cyril's Scrapbook

Better than Alvin Ailey.

A few weeks ago, I promised no more nostalgia hoarding. So here’s another share from the collection I’m actively inheriting.

Introducing Cyril Peters, the son of my grandmother's godmother.

My grandmother is a product of the Harlem Renaissance. Born uptown in 1935 to Caribbean parents who immigrated separately to New York City, drawn by the bursting Black community and vibrant Black creativity that defined the era. Her father opened a Launderette on St. Nicholas, her mother worked as a domestic and piano teacher. There, her mother befriend Ursula, a bon vivant and black chorus girl who had also immigrated from the Caribbean (presumably Haiti). Ursula was mother to a little boy named Cyril, who my grandmother remembers as the “effeminate” little boy who always wanted to play tea party with her.