Opal Robinson arrived in New York City via bus in July 1970—the same month and year Funkadelic dropped that fierce edict to “Free Your Mind… and Your Ass Will Follow.” She lugged to the taxi stand at Port Authority two duffel bags—one of them bursting with brand-new fabrics, sewing supplies, and paperbacks; the other stuffed with an assortment of shoes for every season and cheap synthetic wigs. (As for the fluffy Afro wig that would not fit into her luggage, she wore that during her travels.) In her jeans pocket was a slip of paper with the address for her new home in Harlem. She had found the room listed in the classifieds of the Amsterdam News and arranged to rent it via phone from her station at Michigan Bell, after the other accounts-payable girls had gone home. She gave the address to the hack, and from the back seat of his cab, Opal absorbed her new environs. In this city of nearly eight million people, she was completely anonymous. No one she knew, neither relative nor acquaintance, could say her exact whereabouts.
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