The Chattanooga of Charlotte Williams’ youth was a land of hopscotch, red light, green light and mother may I, where from community centers and house porches, the “frozen ladies” doled out frozen Kool-Aid and sugar for 25 cents in the four essential flavors: blueberry, pina colada, grape and “red.”
Williams said she was always outdoors. Pre-peak-Nintendo, the era brimmed for her with pride and community, though the shadow of a swelling crack cocaine wave had begun to cast a shadow on such sentiments. She remembered family gatherings and fish fries, games of spades and dominoes. The children were the entertainment, putting on little shows, while the evening soundtracks played in the background: “conscious hip-hop,” blending with oldies like the OJs, The Temptations and Teddy Pendergrass.
“You can hear those influences in Usher’s music,” Williams, the pastor at Eastdale Community Village United Methodist Church, said by phone Friday.
Williams did not personally know the church choir boy turned spirited Dalewood Middle School student performer turned R&B sensation — who, having now reached so many cultural peaks, approaches another with his Super Bowl halftime headline performance set for Sunday evening.
Yet like many others still here in Chattanooga, she knew a world that shaped him.