#cushite

Of course the party and club are Ancient Egypt themed; ever since they cracked opened Tut's tomb in 1922, the entire Western world has been Egypt-happy. Everything from the Art Deco motif of the Roaring Twenties to the flapper's look now has a heavy dose of the Nile. For those of African heritage like Zip, it's a matter of personal pride. Zip's father Preacher Shepherd--the son of a Black sharecropper who moved North, and a Druze woman who immigrated during the previous century--claims a spectrum of African and Arab heritage, from the Cushites to the Midianites. So when Zip does herself up tonight, she goes for a bit of everything. Unfortunately she does not have a swell time. The two gangsters who own the Sphinx waste no time harassing her with racist misogyny, inspired by the Jezebel stereotype and helped along by the fact that it's not the 1960s yet. She gets into a tug-of-war with one of them over her necklace, and he "lets her go" into a fountain of whiskey. Thoroughly outraged, storms out of the club. Of course just outside are two white cops, who she has to sneak past while literally drenched in liquor. "Officers!" She looks across the street and sees one of the thugs from the bar, staring stupidly between her and the coppers. He finishes... "There's....a drink spilled on the sidewalk over here...smells like whiskey!" Stunned at this favor, Zip hurries away from the distracted cops too quickly to say thanks. A few weeks later, guess who turns up in her neighborhood on the run from the law. His name is Moshe Levi, and he's just killed a white police officer (by accident), while trying to stop him beating an elderly Colored man. Moshe's presence in Harlem is not that conspicuous; not all of the white residents moved out when African Americans began moving in, and whites from elsewhere frequent Harlem for the music. Zip and Mo's eventually marriage, of course, does raise eyebrows. But since they're in the North, it's legal. They end up moving to Manhattan, where Mo reconnects with his estranged family, faith and heritage. The whole clan sticks to a journey to a Promised Land of equality, even knowing it will take several decades to get there. AN: Tzipporah's ethnicity is a matter of debate, with the Bible describing her as both Midianite (a people from the northern Arabian desert) and Cushite (from the Horn of Africa). I also wanted 1920s "Zip" to be Druze (a religious group who believe they are descended from Jethro, Tzipporah's father); but doing more research this time around, I learned that by 1920, a Druze who wasn't fully Arab would be unlikely. The movie clearly says Midian, but portrays the Midians as darker-skinned than the Egyptians, with dreadlocks. African-American felt more topical for the Roaring Twenties, so I ultimately went with that. There was of course plenty going on in Egypt and the Middle East in the '20s, but I'll be touching on that with other characters. The Harlem Renaissance, likewise, will be covered with Tiana.