The Sixties- Counterculture Part II

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: "We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal."

I have a dream that one day on the red hills of Georgia the sons of former slaves and the sons of former slave owners will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that one day even the state of Mississippi, a state sweltering with the heat of injustice, sweltering with the heat of oppression, will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and justice.

I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

There was so much going on in the '60s.  It was like a crazy quilt and trying to make sense of the decade can be mind boggling.  We witnessed a shared history that was filtered by our life's experiences.  To some the decade of the sixties was all about rock and roll, drugs, and free love (helped along with the pill) as a protest to conservatism and social repression of earlier years.

To others it was the rise of feminism: burning bras, ditching restrictive girdles, and trying find a ladder to climb up and break the glass ceiling. Others spent part of the '60s protesting and marching against the war in Vietnam, leading to the downfall of President Johnson. Still, others were immersed in the civil rights movement, marching, sitting in at lunch counters, and riding the bus to freedom.  It was an exciting and radical decade.  Somehow many of these causes, while separate, intersected and built to a huge crescendo by the end of the decade. Remember the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago?  That was wild.

My Aunt Osie in the 60s

What did we do during the 60s?  We missed the wild side of the sixties. I was never a flower child, we didn't do drugs, and didn't go to Woodstock.  Our chief focus was the civil rights movement, raising our young family, and working hard to achieve the so-called American Dream.  However, we were like Rosa Parks, tired of being at the back of the bus. The seminal event of the '60s to us was King's March on Washington where he delivered his prophetic I Have A Dream Speech.

Rosa Parks was one of the gentlest women I've ever met.  She was also composed and friendly.

We were old enough to understand the power and passion of his speech, and young enough to have hope and optimism for the future.  We were on the cusp of a new way of life for Black Americans. Our parents, who were born in the late 1800s, did not have the same confidence.  They had seen too much and been the recipients of many broken promises and prejudices.

The Sixties changed America and the world.  A blog is not the place to rewrite an entire decade, and much of what happened outside of my home is a blur because teaching school (sometimes two shifts), working on my master's degree, and being a mom/housewife took all of my energy.  Sometimes I was overwhelmed.  My husband was a school superintendent in the southern suburbs, worked on his Ph.D at Northwestern in the northern suburbs, and we lived in the city.  It was tough for both of us, but worth every minute.

Central State Alumni Club picnic in the 60s

Easter was a big Day.  You dressed in your best.  Sons Corey and Cam with me.

My mother with four of her 10 brothers and sisters.  The aunt on the far right is still alive and well at 102.

David and his daddy in the '60s

The Moody Clan in Louisiana, late '60s for my husband's mother funeral.  He had six brothers and two sisters.

The 60s impacted the entire world.

• Africa awoke and 32 nations received their independence from colonialism.
• The first African America mayor of a major American city was elected.
• James Meredith registered at Ole Miss.
• Martin Luther King, Jr. won a Nobel Peace Prize.  He was the second African American to win it, Ralph Bunche in 1950 was the first.
• A wave of assassinations threaten to disrupt the movement.
• Thurgood Marshall was appointed to the Supreme Court.
• Sidney Poitier won an Oscar for Lilies of the Field.
• Bill Cosby starred in a TV series, I Spy.

The times were a-changing.

On Being an African American in The Fifties - Part IV

The test of courage comes when we are in the minority.  

The test of tolerance comes when we are in the majority. 

 ~Ralph W. Sockman

(The Quotegarden)

Back in the real world, Chicago, after living in a fantasy land in Panama, it was time to get about the business of becoming an adult: finding a job, finishing school, raising a family, and finding a place to live.

Our first son, Charles David, was born May 21, 1956, in Chicago and Moody was transferred to Ft. Benning, Ga, where we lived on base.  White officers could live in the city, Columbus, but Blacks could not live in all areas.  This worked to our advantage because we had a big house on base.  For once, white officers were jealous of us because we didn't have to pay rent.  When we went to visit them they would leave their garage door open and we would drive directly into the garage so their neighbors couldn't see us visiting.

In Chicago, in October 1956, we had a difficult time finding affordable housing.  The practice of blockbusting by real estate agents encouraged white property owners to sell their houses at a loss, by fraudulently implying that racial, ethnic, or religious minorities — blacks, Hispanics, Jews et al. — were moving into their previously racially segregated neighborhood, and so would depress real estate property values.  Sometimes they would even hire Black people to walk around a neighborhood to scare white people into selling.  White people were terrified about Black people moving into "their" neighborhood.  (Sounds almost like the town hall people who want to take back "their" country.) A community could "turn" almost overnight from white to Black.

Somehow we finally found a very nice one bedroom apartment in a neighborhood that was "changing."  Our rent was $100 a month and my husband made $50 a week screening dog feces at the University of Chicago.  People in factories said he was too educated and places where he could use his degree didn't want to hire a Black person.  These experiences honed our determination to fight injustice.  There was a resentment of our circumstances but it did not diminish our expectations for a better life.

To help bring money into the house while I was completing college, I worked evenings as a coder at Time Magazine, as a secretary during the day at the college, and carried 20 credit hours my student teaching year. One of my fellow students and friend was Emmett Till's mother and we spent time talking about his death but she refused to let his murder stop her from living her life.  I always admired her strength and calmness.  African American student teachers were not allowed to practice in white schools and in 1958, I finally finished college, only a year late. 

Graduation Day with my Mother

Another way to bring in money was for Moody to go back to school.  He could receive $160 a month since he was a veteran and college only cost $1.50 a credit hour.  ($1.50 is not a typo. Can you believe these prices?) He dropped his plans for medical school and earned a master's degree.  Needing money worked out to our advantage because he eventually received a PhD from Northwestern University.

Chance and adaptability entered our lives.  Mystical occurrences and serendipity became commonplace and an invisible presence seemed to follow us.  We never found out who recommended us to the real estate agency when we got our first apartment.  Someone, we never found out who it was, found him a job in Oak Forest as a lab technician.  Life was looking better and once I started teaching we could buy a car, a new 1958 Ford that cost $2400.  He now made over $300 a month and I made $400 a month.

The Montgomery Bus Boycott (December 1955-December 1956) was a protest that was sparked by Rosa Parks, who refused to give up her seat on a city bus to a white person.  The boycott protested the practice of Black passengers  having to sit at the back of the bus, but if it was crowded they were expected to give up their seats to white passengers.  When Mrs. Parks was arrested, the Montgomery Improvement Association was established to lead the boycott.  The boycott catapulted Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. to national prominence and gave the Civil Rights Movement a big victory.  A national struggle was born.

Little Rock was a defining desegregation event of the decade.  The Little Rock Nine was a group of nine African American students who were selected to desegregate Little Rock Central High School in 1957.  The Governor, Orval Faubus, the National Guard, and rowdy crowds had protests and blocked their entrance to the school.  After many days of violent protests, President Eisenhower sent the 101st Airborne Division of the United States Army to Little Rock and federalized the entire 10,000 member Arkansas National Guard.  President Eisenhower stated in his radio and TV address: 


Mob rule cannot be allowed to override the decisions of our courts....


Whenever normal agencies prove inadequate to the task and it becomes necessary for the Executive Branch of the Federal Government to use its powers and authority to uphold Federal Courts, the President’s responsibility is inescapable. In accordance with that responsibility, I have today issued an Executive Order directing the use of troops under Federal authority to aid in the execution of Federal law at Little Rock, Arkansas. This became necessary when my Proclamation of yesterday was not observed, and the obstruction of justice still continues.


It is important that the reasons for my action be understood by all our citizens. As you know, the Supreme Court of the United States has decided that separate public educational facilities for the races are inherently unequal and therefore compulsory school segregation laws are unconstitutional.... 


On September 25, the nine students finally successfully entered the school. However, they were subjected to vicious physical and verbal abuse by students, parents, and community people and all but one, Minnijean Brown, graduated.  She was suspended, not because of something she did, and transferred to a high school in New York.

Incidents starting taking place all over the country, in the North and South, as people resisted desegregation.  Change was coming to America because this time whites were working with Blacks to help achieve equality.  This time there would be no turning back.

I am an invisible man.... I am a man of substance, of flesh and bone, fiber and liquids - 

and I might even be said to possess a mind.  

I am invisible, understand, simply because people refuse to see me.  

~Ralph Ellison, The Invisible Man, 1952

A few selected events of the '50s

• The Korean War (1950-1953)
• The Red Scare and anti-Communist hysteria of the McCarthy era.
• The U.S. reaction to the 1957 launch by the Soviet Union of the Sputnik satellite, a major milepost of the Cold War.
• Francis Crick and James D. Watson discover the helical structure of DNA at the Cavendish Laboratory at the University of Cambridge.
• Polio vaccine developed.
• Suez Canal crisis.
• Emmett Till is murdered in Money, MS for allegedly whistling at a white woman.
• Althea Gibson becomes the first African American tennis player to win a major title by winning both the women's singles and doubles championships at Wimbledon.
• Lorraine Hansberry's Raisin in the Sun is the first play by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway. 
• Chuck Berry travels from St. Louis to Chicago, recording Maybellene, an immediate sensation among teenagers. The hit helps shape the evolution of rock and roll.
• Fullback Jim Brown begins his professional football career with the Cleveland Browns. He leads the National Football League in rushing for eight of his nine seasons.
• Singer Ray Charles records What'd I Say, which becomes his first million-seller, and exemplifies the emergence of soul music, combining rhythm and blues with gospel.
• Motown Records is founded in Detroit, MI by Berry Gordy, Jr.
• Baseball player Ernie Banks is named the National League's Most Valuable Player for a second consecutive season.

THE HIGH SCHOOL YEARS 1949-1953

High school was fun.  That's the first thing that comes to mind when I think of my years at Phillips High School in Chicago.  Friends, classes, athletics, parties--everything was the best.  We walked to school in a group, picking up classmates along the way. Couldn't afford bus fare.

We were not allowed to wear pants in school.  In the winter we wore pants under our dresses or skirts and had to take them off at the door.

When I went to high school in 1949 high schools were as segregated as our elementary schools, but we didn't care or notice because we had wonderful teachers and stimulating classes.  It goes without saying that our athletic teams were at the top.  Some of the famous alumni from Phillips include:  Nat King Cole, Gwendolyn Brooks, first African American to win the Pulitzer Prize; Archibald Carey, Jr., lawyer, judge, politician, diplomat and clergyman; Sam Cooke, Pop and gospel recording star; Paul Des Jardien, Member of College Football Hall of Fame; George E. Johnson, Sr., Founder, Johnson Products, the first African-American owned company listed on American Stock Exchange; Buddy Young, football legend; Alonzo S. Parham, the second African-American to attend West Point;  Al Pullins: Original member, Harlem Globetrotters; and Dinah Washington, legendary recording artist.

Our principal in 1949 was Maudelle Brown Bousfield, the first Black principal in Chicago.  She retired in 1950 and was replaced by Dr. Virginia F. Lewis who at the age of 100 remained involved in her career, making frequent visits to Eckerd College engaging students as a lecturer.  Her teaching and administrative career experience included the roles of teacher, principal, district superintendent and assistant superintendent with Chicago Public Schools.  She died in 2008 at the age of 101.

Dr. Lewis is the person who saved my life.  Okay, I'll admit it.  Even though I was a good student I was pretty bad.  I liked to fight and caused trouble.  When Dr. Lewis "adopted" me instead of suspending me, (which surely would happen today) my entire present and future changed.  She got me out of gangs and put me in academic and athletic activities.  The only thing she could not change in me was my habit of cutting classes.  When I was in my 50s she told me that she used to follow me in the halls and could not understand how I cut so many classes.  I told her my secret.  I had a permanent hallway pass.

• Before Dr. Lewis (BAL) I was an excellent student but after Dr. Lewis (ADL) I became ambitious.  I wanted to do something with my life.
• BDL I didn't know much about college.  ADL I wanted to go to college.
• BDL I took regular classes.  ADL I took honors classes.
• BDL I thought of myself as ugly and unworthy.  ADL I thought I had possibilities.
• BDL I was a gang leader.  ADL I was a school leader.
• We had a college preparatory class where we learned social graces, how to study, how to take a test, and other things that weren't taught in regular classes.  The class was taught by Miss Hogan, a petite, white haired, white woman who terrified everyone in the school.  Best foundation I could have had for college. 
• Dr. Lewis took me to restaurants so I could learn how to eat in a restaurant.

Our school was a nine period day. We had major regular subjects and minors, such as art, music, and physical education.  Our teachers were the cream of the crop because at that time it was hard for African Americans and women to get jobs in many fields.  The students reaped this benefit.

Our biggest rival in athletics, was DuSable High School.  We were the two premier Black high schools and we competed on and off the field.  

We had many clubs at Phillips, even a trigonometry club, service clubs, a school newspaper that everyone read for the latest gossip, and honor societies.  We had clubs and activities at the YMCA and the Lincoln Center.  We were as busy as students are today.  We also competed with other schools in debates and other intellectual pursuits.

Pictures tell a better story than words.

Elaine, Toots, Chris, and Elaine

Cheerleading Team

The Football Team - A Legend in its own time.

Phillips High School Students in Springfield, IL when students took over the government.

Chris as Director of Revenue in Springfield

Chris at Red Cross Camp in Lake Forest, IL

Prom in 1952 - Chris and Carl

Prom 1953 - Chris and Danny

FULLER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL 1942-1949

No school buses in the city for us.  We walked to school.  My school was all Black, with a few exceptions.  The term that is now used is de facto segregation, that is in practice, not necessarily by law.  Chicago was called the most segregated city in the country and we went to school in our neighborhood, which was a Black neighborhood.  In the South, schools were segregated by law and public Black schools were very underfunded and underequipped.

Since many African Americans were migrating from the South our schools were crowded.  Unfortunately and wrongly, school officials thought that students from the South were not prepared for schools in the North and most of them were put back several grades.  It was not unusual to find a 16 year-old student in an eighth grade class.  This was another type of prejudice.

We had over 40 students in each class and 48 desks and seats were fixed to the floor.  Notice how each student is seated with hands folded.  You were expected to sit like this whenever you were not working on something.  We had an inkwell in each desk where we dipped our ink pens.  Most of the time we wrote with pencils.  Good students, and the students teachers wanted to keep an eye on were seated in the front.

We didn't dare talk back to a teacher because discipline problems were handled differently.  We were whipped in school or at least we were smacked on the hand.  If we were disciplined in the schools, our parents didn't want to sue the school, they brought the teacher a cake and thanks.

Rote learning was the rule: a focus on memorization and repetition.  Every morning, after The Pledge to the Flag, we would repeat (in rhythm) our multiplication tables in unison.   We didn't have to understand it, as students do today, we just repeated:  6X6 is 36,  8X3 is 24, etc.  It worked.  Have you ever been to McDonald's and the cash register was broken?  You have to tell them how much you owe them and how much change to give you because without a calculator or computer they don't know what to do.  Whatever you tell them they believe.

Spelling tests every Friday... naming the Great Lakes...listing the continents...knowing the capital of each state(48 states then)...diagramming a sentence...singing the Negro National Anthem at assemblies, Lift Every Voice and Sing...memorizing poems and still knowing them today,  Once upon a midnight dreary, while I pondered weak and weary...knowing the Latin Names of plants, this and more.  We read, read, read.  Book reports were due every week.  We didn't buy many books but we all had library cards and we used them.

We were very patriotic. We learned a lot about World War II and the places where our soldiers were fighting.  We recycled at school and, even though we didn't have much money, we bought savings bond stamps.  Whens we completed a book with ten cents stamps, we received a $25.00 savings bond. Air raid drills were common.

During recess we played ball games and had swings, slides and a pole with a rope hanging off of it for kids to swing around. We also played hopscotch, jump rope, or marbles.


We wore gym uniforms:  ugly green short jumpsuits and you had better polish your white gym shoes, even though girls only played half-court basketball.

Graduation from 8th grade was a big event because many students didn't finish high school.  Notice the graduation ribbon.  We received those about a month before graduation and you wore it everywhere you went.  Everyone needed to know that you were graduating to high school.  There was a party and flowers celebrating this achievement.

GROWING UP IN CHICAGO - The Early '40s

GROWING UP IN CHICAGO - The Early '40s

When I was growing up most of my life was spent outdoors.  We didn’t have computers or television, but we did have radio.  Our home was small and crowded, over 10 people in a one bedroom apartment, but outside we had lots of space.  We were poor, but didn’t know it.  Everyone we knew was poor, after all it was the late 30s and early 40s.

Our entire neighborhood in Chicago was our playground.  We knew everyone and they knew us.  If we did something bad, any neighbor who saw us felt comfortable enough to confront us and insist that we change our behavior.  Our favorite place was the vacant lot across the street from our home.  We could play baseball in the spring and football in the fall.  Boys and girls played together; we didn’t care.  In the winter the lot became a skating rink or a place to build a snowman.  Sometimes we would go to the playground at Fuller Elementary School.  It had real swings and a jungle gym.

There were so many games to play:  Red Rover, Little Sally Walker, Jacks, Come and Get It, etc., and we even had cussing contests.  If we had cliques, I don’t remember them.  We played with whoever was outside and it was safe.  We had to be home “when the street lights” came on but we didn’t have to go into the house.   We could stay outside after the lights came on as long as we were on our block.  We would sit on the porch and tell stories, especially ghost stories.

During WWII, the lot became a victory garden.  Anyone could plant fruits or vegetables without permission.  I don’t know who owned that lot, but it was a common practice.  We also had rations during this time.  With the ration stamps we received our allotment of necessities like sugar and shoes.   Since you couldn’t buy shoes as needed, you bought sensible shoes that you knew would last.  Women wore make-up on their legs to simulate stockings and with an eyebrow pencil someone would draw a line up the back of their leg to mimic the seam.  Everyone knew it was fake but looks mattered.  Sugar was at a premium along with stockings and elastic waist panties.  (Our panties were tied together with a string and sometimes that string broke!  Yes, your panties fell down.)

Nothing was wasted.  We saved grease from cooking, flattened every can we opened, had meatless Tuesday, and took our hangers to the cleaners if we wanted our clothes returned on hangers.  We listened to President Roosevelt on the radio and took part in air raid drills.  When the sirens blew you didn’t take chances. Chicago was a big railroad stop and most soldiers traveled by train.  There would be a knock on the door and an African American soldier would appear, asking for a place to stay overnight.  There was always room for another person and of course,this added income to our home.  It was especially exciting when a soldier came by that we knew.  He would jingle his pockets, like he had a lot of money, and allow us children to put our hands in to see how much we could grab.  Sometimes they had souvenirs from faraway places and stories of exotic locations.  Homes had banners with stars, announcing their sons’ participation in the war.

My favorite time was the first snow.  No matter what time it was, all of the children in the neighborhood would run outside to throw snowballs or ride their sleds.  Our parents would bundle us up in snowsuits.  Do children still wear snowsuits? It was exhilarating, letting the snow touch your tongue, or building your first snowman.  It was cold–we called the wind, The Hawk.

Another favorite time was after a rainfall and the street would flood.  Then the street became our swimming pool.  We didn’t know or care about dirty water because we weren’t that clean to begin with.  We were lucky if we got a bath on Saturday night.  We did have to be clean for Church and if you had any morals your family went to Church.
The two most important things in our lives were Family and Church.  Almost everyone in our family, extended and otherwise, went to West Point Baptist Church for Sunday service and during the week for meetings and choir rehearsal.  


We would walk to 36th and Cottage Grove and it was difficult staying clean that long.  Adults had service upstairs and we had a children’s church downstairs.  My sister and I would listen for our mother getting “happy.”  When the choir sang certain songs or the minister preached moving sermons, some of the parishioners would become moved and “feel” the Holy Spirit.  They would shout, dance, throw their hands in the air, and need the help of the ushers who would fan and try to get them quiet.

We weren’t allowed to go the movies on Sunday.  This was the Lord’s Day and after dinner we would visit and talk.  We always made extra food because somebody would drop by.  If they did, you had to have something to offer.  I never remember anyone turning down my mother’s food.  My mother was 41 when I was born and already a grandmother.  She was known for her good cooking.

My mother was a terrible disciplinarian.  In those days, everyone whipped children if they did something wrong.  My mother couldn’t bring herself to hit us and would cry if we did something wrong because she knew it meant a whipping and she just wasn’t up to it.  Sometimes she would ask Uncle William to come and whip us but he was as bad as my Mother was.  He would look at us and tell us to be good and then say to my mother that he couldn’t whip those children.  We were amazed at their utter dislike for whipping children. 

My nemesis was another student named Margaret.  For some reason, she got a big kick out of taunting and teasing me.  It meant many fights and many punishments.  No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t get her to leave me alone. I never did discover why she had it in for me.  One day, when I was in seventh grade, she disappeared.  I didn’t know what had happened to her and frankly, I didn’t care.  Soon we were told that she was dead.  I felt so much relief.  At last I could walk to school and get home safely.  But I thought I had better check.  I went to the neighborhood funeral home when her body was ready for viewing.  I looked into the casket, and thought to myself that it was true, she was dead.  


My older sisters and their husbands lived a totally different life.  They went to real parties and clubs like the Club De Lisa.  They would put on their best clothes and men would look fine in their double-breasted suits and highly polished shoes.  They would tell us about the famous people they saw and heard.  Billy Eckstine, Lena Horne, Cab Calloway, Louis Armstrong, etc.

A big night in the neighborhood was a Joe Louis fight.  We would gather around the radio, listen to the announcer, and “see” the fight in our heads.   People left their windows open so people who didn’t own a radio could hear the commentary. He was the biggest hero in our world—Joe Louis, Heavyweight Champion of the World.  There was no one we admired more.  If he won a fight, we all won.  After a victory, everyone would run out of his or her home and we would literally dance in the street.  An even bigger thrill was hearing when he was in town and trying to get a glimpse of him and his beautiful wife. 
My mother did daywork; in other words she cleaned homes.  During the summers and on Saturday, I would accompany her and help.  My sister, Ruby,  cleaned houses sometimes, while Susie, another sister,  and Lee, my brother-in-law, worked in a laundry.  After the war, Delawerence, Ruby's husband,  was hired as a mailman.  A number of family members had jobs in the stockyards and made what we thought was real money.  No one had a professional job but everyone worked.