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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Growing Up under Southern Apartheid (Part 2)

Downtown Wedowee as it looks today (photo by Courthouselover at Flickr)

What's in a Name?

When I was a year old, my family moved to Wedowee, Alabama when my father became pastor of the First Baptist Church. We lived there until I was six, so many of my first-experiences happened in Wedowee. It was where I had my first best friend, my first explorations of the Five & Ten Cent store, my first time to attend Sunday School and kindergarten. My understanding of family and community was honed during that time. I was happy and protected as any toddler or preschooler’s life should be.

Naturally, my first awareness of race emerged in those young years in Wedowee. One early encounter that I recall was when I was playing alone out in the front yard of the pastorium where we lived. It was a quiet neighborhood, and I was rolling about in the leaves near the street. As I sat there on the ground, I saw a Black man walking by. I was a shy, quiet kid, so I said nothing, but I watched the man as he walked by. He looked down at me as he walked and said, “I ain’t gonna hurt ya.” As he kept walking by he repeated, “I ain’t gonna hurt ya.”

I had no fear of being hurt, and I remember wondering why he was saying that. Later I went to my mother and I mentioned the Black man walking by and I asked her he kept saying he wouldn't hurt me.  As I recall, my mother said something like, he probably wanted to make sure I wasn’t afraid of him, that I need not worry.

In our small town, there was never any sense of danger that I can recall. My older brother has said that on any given Saturday when he went off to play with friends, the only direction he got from our mother was, “Just be back by suppertime.” Everyone knew that everyone else would be looking out for the kids.

Careful with the N-Word

It would have been in the late 1950s when my brother was riding his bike to meet friends and I was at play in my yard. Having contact with Black people was common, whether it was a worker walking to a job, or a maid in a household. In those days, the word we used to refer to Blacks was negro. It was the accepted term that even Martin Luther King used in his speeches in the early 1960s. When we used the term, however, with our southern dialect it was pronounced “negra.”

One day when I was playing with one of my friends, I'll call her “Jane,” who lived just up the street, a Black man was walking by. In those days there was a lot more walking, especially since there were so many who could not afford a car and also given the fact that Wedowee was too small a town to support any kind of public transportation system. I said to my friend, “There goes a negra,” simply commenting on the man I saw walking by.

“Uh-oh!” she exclaimed, “You’re not s’posed to say that word! I’m tellin’ ” With that she went skipping off into her house to report to her mother. Her mother came straight out to inform me that I was never to use that n-word, that I should say “colored” instead. My bashful self tried to explain that I didn’t say “that word,” but all I could do was to swallow my words and say, “Yes ma’am.”

Jane’s parents were always kind and generous. On that day, they wanted to make absolutely certain that I did not use any derogatory term when talking about Blacks. Even though I was not using “the n-word” that they thought I was using, the conversation was not lost on me. By the time I started school as a first-grader, I had decided that it was easier to avoid any confusion by saying “colored people*” instead of “negro” (or negra) so that my dialect did not communicate something unintended, to show I meant no disrespect.

Jane’s father was an Alabama State Trooper. He went on to become part of Gov. George Wallace’s private security detail. Serving as his primary bodyguard, he was injured by gunfire during the assassination attempt on Wallace's life. He was then appointed by the Governor to be the director of the Alabama Department of Public Safety. Years later when he died by suicide while being treated for terminal cancer, the AP news story ran in The New York Times and The Washington Post. George Wallace personally lamented the loss saying, “He was almost like a member of my family.”

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< Part 1, The Long Shadow of Jim Crow                           Part 3, A Matter of Complexion >
 

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* As the Civil Rights Movement unfolded in the 1960s, finding the proper terminology to use when referring to Black people began to evolve with some terms falling in and out of favor. While "negro" was used in official writing and discourse, "colored" was seen by many as the polite term for everyday use in the 1950s and early 60s. Soon "Black" became the accepted term ("colored" and "negro" were out), and then the term "Afro-American" was in vogue for a while. In recent years, "African-American" and "Black" have both been in use. It was just last week that the Associated Press announced new writing style guidelines to capitalize Black "when referring to people in a racial, ethnic, or cultural context." The New York Times has followed suit, and I have chosen to follow those guidelines in my writing about segregation here.

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Flashback: Memorial Day Thoughts

While I am working on another project, I am re-posting some past essays, This one is from 2010. Like then, I'll be working on Memorial Day this year. I hope you will take some time to reflect on ways we can remember past wars without instigating new ones. War always wreaks untold havoc when we unleash it.

I'll be spending Memorial Day at work since I'll be on duty at the hospital. I wanted to stop today and share some thoughts on the holiday.

I don’t recall much being made of Memorial Day when I was growing up. It was barely on my radar. I suppose there were Memorial Day sales, but as a holiday it was not high up on the list. Several years ago, Alison, a young colleague at work started talking about her childhood memories of Memorial Day. “I was always excited about the holiday, because I would get brand new clothes. My mamma would always take me shopping. She would tell me, ‘We were going out to get your Memorial Day dress.’ That was the big thing about Memorial Day.” She was a young African American woman talking to me and Kevin, another colleague who was white. Kevin and I looked at one another in mild amusement. We had never heard of such a Memorial Day tradition.

“You mean ya’ll didn’t get new clothes on Memorial Day?”

Kevin and I said no we didn’t.

“I wonder if my mamma was just telling me that. I sure thought new clothes were a Memorial Day tradition.”

It got to my young black colleague so that she went to another black co-worker to ask her about it. Alison returned later with a big smile on her face. "I asked Phyllis about it – she said it was a black thang.” We all three laughed about it.

That incident led me to ponder how and what we remember, and how we mark special days of observance. A quick look at the history of Memorial Day reveals the difference in how I, Kevin, and Alison had grown up observing the holiday. Memorial Day first came to be observed to commemorate Union soldiers who died in the Civil War. After World War I it became a day to honor Americans who have died in all wars. In my white southern heritage, Memorial Day had no strong observance because it was not a thing that my white ancestors would have particularly wanted to honor or remember. To our black neighbors’ ancestors, however, Memorial Day would have signified a new beginning, new hope and opportunity (even though it took 100 more years for Civil Rights to be enacted). It makes perfect sense that our black neighbors would have celebrated with new clothes for a new beginning.

How then should we observe the day in the 21st century, after so many other wars have given us so many other soldiers killed in the service of our country? On Memorial Day it is certainly fitting to remember those soldiers who have paid the ultimate price for our country. It is also fitting to be thankful for the freedom we enjoy in this country. We would be remiss, however, if we did not pause to consider the price all of our soldiers pay during wartime. Rather than glorifying the fight, we should consider what our brave soldiers actually endure. We do not honor our soldiers by holding on to fantasies about the glories of war. By really understanding what it is we ask our soldiers to do, perhaps we would not be so quick to enter into armed conflict.

Nancy Sherman of Georgetown University writes of the invisible wounds of war in an article, "What Good Soldiers Bear". The article appeared in America magazine and was written after interviews with soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Well stated and insightful, I recommend the article which you can find by clicking here.

For another reflection on the origins of Memorial Day, check out this 2011 op ed piece in the New York Times, Forgetting Why We Remember, by David W. Blight.


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Photo by Mark Wilson (Getty Images)



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Friends Writing Good Books: Chervis Isom

Chervis Isom
(Photo from author's website)

I met Chervis Isom one summer a few years back at the Alabama Writers' Conclave. We struck up a friendship and had some nice discussions in between conference sessions. Since that time we have met periodically for lively discussions about writing, living in the South, and life in general. His book, The Newspaper Boy, came out in 2014, and I wrote a review in July of that year. It is a story about “Coming of age in Birmingham, Alabama during the civil rights era.”  I found the book to be engaging, informative, and instructive on many levels.

I mentioned in my review that  "I learned important details about how local government was structured, and how speeches by a rabble-rousing Ace Carter of the White Citizens Council revved up the populace in an attempt to preserve segregation." In fact, when Donald Trump was first gaining momentum in the presidential race, I immediately saw some similarities between his campaign and Ace Carter's demagoguery in Birmingham during the 1950s. I contacted Cheris for his input and observations on today's political climate and wrote about that in another blog post earlier this year.

Here is the review I shared in July of 2014:

 

The Newspaper Boy: A Memoir that Looks into the Heart of a City 

 

I just finished reading a very important book. The Newspaper Boy, by Chervis Isom, is a well-written and entertaining memoir, subtitled, “Coming of age in Birmingham, Alabama during the civil rights era.” I first met Chervis a few years ago at the Alabama Writers’ Conclave and have always enjoyed my conversations with him. When news of his book came out, I was eager to get a copy.

The Newspaper Boy is fascinating on several different levels. It is delightful and engaging as a story about a boy growing up in a working class family, going to school, discovering girls, and getting his first job delivering papers. It is also an important first-hand account of an historical time in the city of Birmingham. I have written before on this blog about civil rights and growing up in the Deep South under the apartheid of racial segregation, but in reading Chervis Isom’s memoir, I gained a much clearer picture of what was happening in Birmingham during those days leading up to the civil rights movement. I learned important details about how local government was structured, and how speeches by a rabble-rousing Ace Carter of the White Citizens Council revved up the populace in an attempt to preserve segregation. I also learned about the important work of some open-minded civic leaders such as David Vann and Abraham Berkowitz.

It was inspiring for me to read about how an ordinary young fellow growing up in a society steeped in racism began to question a way of life that had once been accepted without question. It is a story about being able to listen to another point of view and thereby beginning a slow process of change. It is a story about how a liberal arts education can propel a young college student to approach life with a much broader view. It is a story about quietly finding liberation from the shackles of cultural ignorance.

For more information about this important book, you can visit the author’s website for The Newspaper Boy at http://www.thenewspaperboy.net . To read a very fine interview with the author in Weld, go here. For another review of the book, go here. The Newspaper Boy is a thoughtful reflection of a life lived during times of change. It is also a book that is important for our time as we face new hopes and challenges for building a city that works for the benefit of all.

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Memorial Day Thoughts

I spent Memorial Day working. I was on duty at the hospital the entire weekend, so I’m just now getting time to jot down a few thoughts on the holiday.

I don’t recall much being made of Memorial Day when I was growing up. It was barely on my radar. I suppose there were Memorial Day sales, but as a holiday it was not high up on the list. Several years ago, Alison, a young colleague at work started talking about her childhood memories of Memorial Day. “I was always excited about the holiday, because I would get brand new clothes. My mamma would always take me shopping. She would tell me, ‘We were going out to get your Memorial Day dress.’ That was the big thing about Memorial Day.” She was a young African American woman talking to me and Kevin, another young white colleague. Kevin and I looked at one another in mild amusement. We had never heard of such a Memorial Day tradition.

“You mean ya’ll didn’t get new clothes on Memorial Day?”

Kevin and I said no we didn’t.

“I wonder if my mamma was just telling me that. I sure thought new clothes were a Memorial Day tradition.”

It got to my young black colleague so that she went to another black co-worker to ask her about it. Alison returned later with a big smile on her face. "I asked Phyllis about it – she said it was a black thang.” We all three laughed about it.

That incident led me to ponder how and what we remember, and how we mark special days of observance. A quick look at the history of Memorial Day reveals the difference in how I, Kevin, and Alison had grown up observing the holiday. Memorial Day first came to be observed to commemorate Union soldiers who died in the Civil War. After World War I it became a day to honor Americans who have died in all wars. In my white southern heritage, Memorial Day had no strong observance because it was not a thing that my white ancestors would have particularly wanted to honor or remember. To our black neighbors’ ancestors, however, Memorial Day would have signified a new beginning, new hope and opportunity (even though it took 100 more years for Civil Rights to be enacted). It makes perfect sense that our black neighbors would have celebrated with new clothes for a new beginning.

How then should we observe the day in the 21st century, after so many other wars have given us so many other soldiers killed in the service of our country? On Memorial Day it is certainly fitting to remember those soldiers who have paid the ultimate price for our country. It is also fitting to be thankful for the freedom we enjoy in this country. We would be remiss, however, if we did not pause to consider the price all of our soldiers pay during wartime. Rather than glorifying the fight, we should consider what our brave soldiers actually endure. We do not honor our soldiers by holding on to fantasies about the glories of war. By really understanding what it is we ask our soldiers to do, perhaps we would not be so quick to enter into armed conflict.

Nancy Sherman of Georgetown University writes of the invisible wounds of war in an article, "What Good Soldiers Bear". The article appeared in America magazine and was written after interviews with soldiers fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. Well stated and insightful, I recommend the article which you can find by clicking here.

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Photo by Mark Wilson (Getty Images)



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