I died a 26 year old black man

This morning my wife, mother-in-law and I went to the Henry Ford Museum for a special exhibit. As a result of the 100 year anniversary of the sinking, the Titanic seems to have taken over. Three giant cloth banners advertise various Titanic things going on the the museum. The IMAX is playing Titanica, a documentary on exploring the wreck and Titanic, the motion picture, in 3D. We aren't here for either of these things. We are here for the traveling exhibit, enclosed in a special area of the Museum's floor.

After we walk by the attendant keeping people who haven't paid out of the showing area, we see it right away. Looming over the old stoves and farm equipment is the simulated side of a cruise liner. You can see the portholes and grey and red. What look to be riveted plates. As we get closer it looms above us, but we can also see the first pieces of the exhibit under them.

We give our special admission tickets to the people out front and the lady hands us boarding passes. My wife reads the name on her boarding pass and gleefully announces, by just reading the name, that she lives. These boarding passes give you the name of an actual passenger and a few details about them, but they don't say what happened to them. The lady is not impressed. Part of the exhibit is getting to the end and discovering the fate of the person on your boarding pass. Not many people will know as many of the names of those who survived and perished as my wife.

I tell her the name of my passenger, Mr. Joseph Philippe L. LaRoche, but she doesn't know him. Because he is a man, she suspects he died, women and children first, by she can't say for sure. So, I look for clues on the card. He had a wife and two daughters. He's traveling from Paris to Haiti. Joseph, the card says, is the only person of color on the ship. He's dead I thought. We talked about this tidbit, which is fascinating, but came to the conclusion the a 1912 cruise ship was not going to be a friendly place for a man of color. We also talked briefly about the fact that his wife was white and how that might have not been well received either.

We had our picture taken on the recreation on the grand stairway. We saw bottle and plates, giant wrenches and lightbulbs, all of which had been recovered. We read amazing and prophetic quotes on the walls, from the passengers and tried to read the tiny faded print on papers not eaten away by sea life. We touched a simulated iceberg and heard the events from the final moments. All the while I carried the thought of Joseph with me.

At the end we there are four giant posters. First Class. Second Class. Third Class. Crew. Each divided into those who survived and those who persisted. I'm pretty sure I know where to find Joseph. I make my way through the school kids who are standing there and read through the Third Class, starting with persisted. He's not there. He's also not listed as survived. I read through the boarding pass one more time and I see the X marks 2nd, not 3rd class. Interesting.

This time I start with the survivors. I find his wife and daughter's. I feel for a moment happy for him. They made it. He is not on that list, though. I glance down to those who perished. There are so many of them it is hard to see if he is there or not. Eventually, as I suspected, I confirm he is. He made sure his family was cared for, but he would not take the place of a women or child.

Joseph, an engineer trying to be free of the discrimination he was experiencing in France, was traveling to his wealthy and well connected family in Haiti. He had switched the tickets from the steamship, France, because the France would not allow his children to dine with him. He and his wife did not want to be separated from their children at meal times.