Growing Up under Southern Apartheid (Part 3)

Photo by Jack Delano, 1940 (Getty Images)

A Matter of Complexion

During my preschool years in the small town of Wedowee, I had been observant enough, perhaps heard enough conversations to realize that there was a difference between Blacks and whites. My understanding of race, however, was still in flux, as evidenced by the memory I now recount.

My father always had a dark tanned complexion, while my mother was of fair complexion.  In the summer, my father spent a lot of time outdoors. He tended a vegetable garden and he did a lot of walking about town in his role as pastor of the First Baptist Church. It must have been in the summertime when I noticed that it seemed that my father’s complexion was getting darker.

Preschoolers are naturally fascinated by stories of metamorphosis – tadpoles turning to frogs, caterpillars turning to butterflies. Perhaps that is what put a certain question in my mind. If my father continued to get darker, is it possible that he would turn into a negro? One night at supper, after my older brother had finished eating and had left the table, I posed the question, directing my query to my mother but glancing over to my father. “I’ve been noticing how Dad seems to be getting darker and darker. I’m just wondering, could he be turning into a negro?”

Mom and Dad chuckled at the notion. They told me no, that would not happen. Maybe they talked to me about how we all continue to be the same as when we are born even as we grow and change. I don’t remember if they elaborated further, but there is the memory of being relieved that my world was secure.

After that table conversation, I went back to the bedroom that my brother and I shared. He was four years older and knew a lot more than I did. Maybe I was still not completely settled on my question, or maybe I picked up on some uneasiness from my parents, but I felt like I had to mention it to him.

“I said something as supper tonight,” I told my brother.

“Well, what did you say?”

I ran through the conversation with my parents about Dad’s skin tone and my question of whether he might become a negro.

“Awww!” my brother said as he jostled me about the shoulders. “You should not have said that!”

  

Then we both giggled and went about our business. It had been a day of learning. I learned that day that race is a settled thing, you cannot change from one to the other. And I learned that there are some things you should not say.

As a small child watching and observing, I was trying to figure out the differences in the people of our town. The lesson learned about race that day was that while it was definitely about skin color, it was more than a matter of complexion. 


< Part 2, What's in a Name?                                                     Part 4, White Christmas >

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