Public observations, private conversations -- Watching and remembering -- The chasm that separated our world -- Standing alone, surrounded by history -- An unexpected invitation -- Uneasy moments, lingering thoughts -- Bearing witness to the possibilities -- Bearing the burden of history -- Invisible people -- Once forbidden -- On the inside, looking out -- Our bridge to cross -- A familiar place -- Private conversations -- Our shared reality : the final divide -- The epilogue
Summary
When international lecturer Clifton Taulbert receives an unexpected invitation to supper in Allendale, South Carolina, he brings with him Little Cliff, the colored boy from the Mississippi Delta who is also Clifton Taulbert, carrying all he was taught as a child about staying "in his place" and surviving in the Jim Crow South. Transported back into a setting that looks and feels like the cotton fields and shotgun shacks of his childhood, Taulbert finds himself expected to cross racial barriers he would have been forbidden to cross before. The Invitation is the story of the man and the little boy inside him wrestling with a past they both know so well, while stepping into a future that is still being determined
