The stories of the white American South in the 1920s and 1930s are ever more difficult to retrieve given the awful shadows cast by Jim Crow.
This might change as streaming TV opens more channels to divers tastes. My suggestion is a story set in a place like this with an all white cast (except for the lady who cleans the rooms). I guess I might call the show “White Trash?”
The star could be a proud fallen lady from a southern family, maybe like the Swift family I have written about elsewhere on THE-Ave? The family would have dim memories of life before the civil war, memories that might be a bit more grand than the reality of a broken down cabin with two or three black slaves,. Still the star would be very proud of her heritage but outraged at any suggestion that great grand mamma had had a black lover!
She is, of course not the owner of the Cheap Motel. The owner lives in far off Atlanta and only visits once a year to give a Christmas party for his employees. Miss Giil is the madam, the boss lady.
None of the customers are (obviously) black, but one or two of the ladies are .. well a bit swarthy. Then one spring, disaster hits. The star, Miss Gill, gets pregnant. Someone did not use a condom? No, but maybe things got rushed or pinched? Well these things happen and in South Carolina that means either the coat hanger or the baby. So the baby is born and .. the baby is more than just swarthy. The baby is out and out a deep ruby tinged brown!
Of course the opening episode happens nine months later at Christmas time, just as Miss Gill is nursing baby Ruby while preparing for the visit by Doc “Popeye” Overton. (The Doc. of course is honorary, but does make the owner feel better about his big eyes!). Popeye will certainly like Miss Gills bigger tits but not if he finds they are in use! The Doc is also pretty strict about black folks and any baby in a place like this is bad for business!
So the opening plot is about how the girls, including Missy the cleaning lady, manage to keep baby Ruby away for Popeye’s site. Tune in…