Color Outside the Lines

Until just shy of my 11th birthday in 1966, I mostly grew up in El Paso, Texas. I grew up in communities of military, academic and professional families generally free of prejudice, or at least working hard to be. We often visited back east since Mom was from Alabama and Dad was from South Carolina. On one of these trips my sister, Sharon, and I nearly caused a race riot in Selma, AL. This must have been between 1962 and 1964. I don't recall who we were visiting, but several parts of the family crowded in the cozy, old home to visit with the Texas lot. It was a hot, lazy, summer afternoon; with just a few people in it the house would have been bearable, but crowded it was hot and stuffy. My parents agreed to let Sharon and I walk the few (5? 10? I'm not sure) blocks to a store for sodas. Armed with a nickel each, we went, happily waving and talking to everyone we saw.

A lot of folk weren't too friendly until we announced who we were. Once they knew we were Billie's kids, Thelma's grandkids, James and Mizz Daisy's great nephew and niece, they warmed right up. At least, the white folk did. The black kid we talked to on the way to the store acted terrified and ran away. We got our sodas and drank them, and started back. This trip was different. The white folk avoided us, and some older black people just glared at us. After a couple of blocks, a black boy a little bigger than us called to us from beside some bushes. "What you doin' talkin' to my little brother?" We explained we were just being friendly. He said something to the effect that we were trying to get his brother killed and ran off.

When we got home we told the adults our bizarre (to us) story. They went ballistic (not because we had talked to a black kid, but because of the possible consequences). We were confined to the house under watchful, adult eyes until we drove off, very quietly, after dark. Our parents had to explain some things they had hoped not to have to deal with just yet. My world grew a little darker, a little uglier, a little sadder. Apparently no riot ensued. Hopefully nobody got horsewhipped or anything. Despite having family there, I was not interested in returning to Selma for quite some time.

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A few years after we moved to Georgia, around 1969 (I would have been 13 or 14), we were visiting relatives. The young man my age and I were heading out to the woods to see a log cabin fort he and his brothers had built. He grabbed a pair of .22 rifles and handed one to me "in case we want to shoot squirrels or anything". After we were well into the woods, nearly to the fort, he looked carefully around and whispered. "The rifles are in case we run into niggers. We got a war going with some. We've shot at each other a few times." (And yes, he was serious,)

I was suddenly far less interested in the fort. I was pretty timid (OK, somewhat of a coward) at the time, so I didn't argue. I also knew it would make no difference and cause a lot of problems. So I just kept a wary eye out (planning to talk, not shoot) and made sure we headed home as soon as possible. I think he knew, and we both lost some respect for each other that day. I lost some respect for myself, too.

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1970 was a pivotal year for me. Augusta had some problems the previous couple of years over busing and heavier school integration, and I was slowly becoming aware that the world wasn't a happy, little place for everyone, and that it could get ugly. There had been marches, even some small riots.

I rode the bus to school. When I couldn't avoid it. The bus had seats for either 44 or 48 people, I forget. There were typically 80+ students, with three high school students to a seat designed for two, and kids packed, standing, from the back to the front. Somehow the buses for predominately black neighborhoods were always this packed, though the mainly white buses weren't The days everyone was on the bus you couldn't close the door. There were typically only two or three white kids on this bus. Some of the more aggressive, angry, black seniors made sure there were always seats in the back for us, where we tended to get roughed up. The rare days we could get on first leaving school, we got spit on and things were thrown at us. Small, hard to see, things, like bolts and nuts from the seats.

One day, Mr. Chris, the elderly, black bus driver, realized what was going on. He pulled over and stopped, stood up, and took off the old army jacket he wore, summer or winter. He had muscles I'd never envisioned, and looked like the world's only 65 year old drill sergeant. He stood there with his hands on his hips, glaring. "Everyone on this bus is my friend, including these boys." (I think he called everyone under 30 a boy or girl.) "If you mess with them, you mess with me. You want to fight them, you better fight me, and you ain't ridin this bus no more unless you whip me. Now come on, who wants to fight?"

After about a minute of dead silence other than the occasional "No sir" from someone he glared at specifically, he put his coat on, sat down, and resumed driving. Even the linebackers on the football team tried to hide. We had very little trouble after that.

As school districts were redrawn and kids bussed farther and farther from home, some white parents decided to keep their kids home in protest with a sick-out. Delighted to skip school, I stayed home that day. The next day, several black friends at school gave me the cold shoulder. I finally asked one, Carl, what was up. His reply? "You stayed home yesterday!"

"Well, yeah, a day out of school. So what?"

Carl dropped a lot on me that day. Despite having black friends at school for several years, I'd never had a clue what they felt like, how things looked from their side. I thought only a minority of black people felt repressed, that only troublemakers wanted change. In short I'd been clueless (I was clueless about lots of things). I apologized, thanked him and promised it wouldn't happen again.

A month later there was another sick-out. I went to school. Ten percent of the school was black. Total attendance was maybe 20% or 25% that day. My black friends started trusted me again, and black kids who'd hardly spoken to me warmed up. I woke up a bit more.

That same year, someone younger than me, who I knew and loved, was molested at school by a black guy a little older than her. A bunch of other black kids stood around, laughing, mocking, and encouraging the guy. Despite my upbringing, I found myself not mad at a handful of kids, but at blacks in general. Prejudice was alive and well right there in me (not to the extent it was in many, but any is too much).

After seething a few days, Carl took me aside and asked what was wrong. I let it all out. I saw anger in Carl's eyes, but also pain and sadness. He promised to check it out. He and a few friends looked into it, and assured me it would never happen again. As far as I know, it didn't happen at that school again while my family was there. (My parents had gone to the school about it, but the school hadn't been able to get anyone to talk about it.) Carl's anger wasn't so much at my response as it was the kids who'd participated. He understood my reaction all too well, since he and many people he knew had watched someone victimized by whites at some point. Thanks to Carl, I think I can honestly say I've never hated an entire group of people again over the actions of some.

There were a couple of black girls I would have liked to date. I never bothered to ask, because the consequences for both of us would have been ugly. That was partly real concern for everyone involved, and partly, still, cowardice. Then again, we're still alive... which we might not have been if we'd dated.

I also never went to a James Brown concert, despite Augusta being his home and his playing there several times a year. Just going myself would have been insane. It's a toss up whether the cops would have let me in, and whether it would have gotten ugly if they had. But it never occured to me to ask Carl and some friends about going with them.

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Fast forward a bit to 1971 or 1972. Dad and I were visiting his mom. After the usual, awesome cakes and pies (probably including caramel cake, which will invoke memories of Grandma until I die) and coffee, we moved to "the TV room". She said she'd had a scare. Someone had knocked on her door, and when she went to answer it, "the biggest nigra I ever saw was standing there in a police uniform, gun and all". She didn't invite him in; she locked the screen door. "I was terrified. I know he was a policeman, but I was terrified." Now before you judge her, remember that she'd grown up in the deep south with all that entails (good and bad). It's amazing she didn't hate the man, only feared him. There was still plenty of hate to go around, but at least some people (including my wonderful Grandma) understood from the Bible that "coloured people" were truly people, and God loved them, too.

I asked her to call him a "black man" as blacks didn't see much difference between "nigger" (a word she didn't like) and "nigra". In the ensuing discussion I challenged her to see him simply as a man, possibly even her brother in Christ. We had a long talk, and she agreed in principle. She said she'd pray and try to see blacks without fear. I reassured her it was OK to not let strangers in if she wasn't comfortable, whether black, white or purple. (She asked if I knew any purple people, because she didn't. 8^) Even though I knew she loved me and wouldn't actually reject me, I didn't know how she'd respond, so this was a turning point for me.

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In 1977 a roomie and I lived in a duplex in midtown Atlanta. The other half of the duplex was occupied by the owner, our landlady. A black friend, Ron, used to come over to visit us after he got off work. If we weren't home, he'd wait on the porch swing or just sit on the steps. Our landlady, who dated back to the previous century, mentioned to us that Ron made her nervous. We had some long talks with her, and she eventually got to know him, and was fine with him coming by (a remarkable change, no?) But her neighbors, her friends for over 50 years, were not interested in change of that sort, and started shunning her. Not long after that we went by to pay rent, and found our landlady crying. Having her friends turn their backs on her and call her ugly names was getting to her. We knew these women, and they weren't likely to change. We moved out so Mary could get on with her life (we weren't going to give up seeing Rob). I saw her a couple of months later. She was doing better, but still wasn't as happy as before because she was no longer the same as she had been-- but her old friends were.

Some time around then Grandma told me she had started going to "social luncheons" at her church. As she approached 80, her friends and relatives were dying off, and she was feeling lonely. During the conversation, I realized she had lots of new friends she was seeing several times a week, and most of her best friends were now black. I probably cried. I'd seen any number of "racial" miracles by now, but this one was so close to home.

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Yesterday we celebrated the life and death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr, a truly remarkable man. While he was not just a symbol, not just a focus, but instrumental in helping change our society, he was far from alone. Thank you, Dr King. But also thank you, Carl Henderson, for not giving up on me, for treating me like a brother, and for helping me wake up and grow up. Thank you, Rob, for your respect for Mary as she worked through things. Thank you, Mary and Grandma, for being willing to see the truth, and for embracing it after years of being told lies. You all helped make sure my kids didn't grow up in a world where black and white were separate (and hardly equal). It's not perfect, but it's a lot better that it was, thanks in part to you.