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.

Thanks for the Award from Janie

Now to the rules for this Award:

This award is bestowed on to blogs that are exceedingly charming.
These kind bloggers aim to find and be friends.
They are not interested in self-aggrandizement.
Our hope is that when the ribbons of these prizes are cut, even more friendships are propagated. Please give more attention to these writers.
Deliver this award to other bloggers who must choose others to pass it on to and include this cleverly-written text into the body of their award.
I would like to pass this Award on to:


karinjurick.blogspot.com/
A Painting Today


http://pioneerproductions.blogspot.com/

Ennyman's Territory


http://attwilightblog.blogspot.com/

At Twilight


http://365drawingsofood.blogspot.com/

365 Drawings of Food


http://perilousplaces.blogspot.com

Perilous Places


http://themoodyman.blogspot.com/

Moody Man

For Jonas, I Didn't Know My Own Strength

I Didn't Know My Own Strength

A comment that posted on this blog compelled me to examine how the memories of my life might be viewed by others.  Jonas made a rather astute observation, a mixture of joy and sadness.  I think most of our lives have this mixture but what contributes to some of the sadness are the things we have to endure that we should not have to endure.  The key, for me, is not letting the sadness overtake the joy.

My generation has lived through much--from a lack of voting rights to the presidency of the United States.  I think we have a story to tell because we are a living respository of history.  I hope that seeing how one family made the journey can put a face on historical facts because we've seen and lived through more than what the history books tell.  We can't sugarcoat it.  It was difficult but inspiring.  We want you to know the highs and lows, the peaks and the valleys, but I also think it is a story also of a redemption of our country.

Restraints and low expectations that are placed on us contribute to the sadness.  Friendship, family, and faith help joy to flourish.

My Strength

My Immediate Family - 2007

In the fifties, continued resistance to oppression helped to subdue some of the sadness.  Thank God for people like Martin Luther King, Jr.

This morning I heard Whitney sing her new song on Oprah and I think it helps me explain how I dealt with some of the pain.  Thanks to the writer of these lyrics, Diane Warren, and the producer, David Foster.

I didn’t know my own strength
And I crashed down, and I tumbled
But I did not crumble
I got through all the pain
I didn't know my own strength

I guess I really didn't know my own strength.  We survive because of that strength.

We have a saying in the Black community, Black don't crack and I heard it in the song.

My faith kept me alive

I picked myself back up

Hold my head up high

I was not built to break

Thanks, Whitney, you made my day with this song and I wish you well.  You've been to the abyss and you're finding your way out.  

Found hope in my heart,

I found the light to life

My way out the dark

Found all that I need

Here inside of me

Jonas, thank you.  I needed that comment to help me put everything in perspective.  I started this blog for that reason and you saw something I needed to see.

Found hope in my heart,

I found the light to life

My way out the dark

Found all that I need

Here inside of me

As we said in the sixties, peace and love. 

On Being an African American in the Fifties, Part III

 The Fifties, Part III

We're all accidental soldiers in the army of life.

Ymber Delecto

In June, not long after my 18th birthday, I went to Ft. Hamilton, New York to board my ship.  I arrived early for orientation.  There was only one other Black woman on base,  and we became friends.  She had been traveling with her husband for years, mentored me, and we ate together every day at the NCO Club.  The day before we left they posted the wives' names along with their husbands' names and rank.   She was shocked when she discovered that my husband was an officer and told me we couldn't be friends because her husband wasn't an officer.  I shrugged my shoulders and said, "We will be friends."  On the ship I would slip down to her room and we would visit.  When we got ready to dock she told me she was a beautician and she did my hair the whole time we were in Panama.  Suppose I had obeyed the rule about not being friendly with women whose husbands weren't officers?  Lesson learned.

My roommate on the ship was from South Dakota and she had never seen a Black person.  We became fast friends and on the fourth day she got up the courage to ask me how did I hide my tail?  I was puzzled.  What did she mean?  She had been told that Black people had tails and I was very successful at hiding mine.  We both had a good laugh when I told her that was a lie.  I thought I had heard every stereotype but this was a new one for me. It gave us an opportunity to discuss other myths about both races and we stayed friends the whole time we were in Panama.

I still remember the day in June 1955, when the ship full of soldiers' wives arrived in Colon, Panama.  We all dressed our best and my new friend did my hair. The warm, tropical air hit me like a warm sauna.  The female passengers on the ship waved to the many waiting soldiers, each looking for only one person, her husband.  A scream could be heard whenever one woman found her spouse.  It was easy for me.  There were only two Black officers waiting for the ship and I knew both of them.  What an overwhelming, romantic way to begin a marriage.  Who knew it would last over fifty years?

Our Home  - Ft. Davis, Canal Zone

We spent a magical year in Panama, young and in love, enjoying the perks that officers had and traveled around the area.  I played bridge, bowled, shopped, and went to luncheons and parties.  This was a very different lifestyle for a woman who grew up on welfare and lived in a one bedroom apartment with 10 other relatives. 

Black officers in an integrated army was still rather new.  Even though President Truman desegregated the armed forces in 1948 it wasn't done with deliberate speed.  Integration in the armed services was still in the early stages.  My husband was the only Black Officer in his company and a few others were scattered over the Canal Zone. 

He didn't like army food.  When he was officer of the day at the locks I would take him lunch and dinner.  We would sit by the locks and lazily watch the ships going through the canal.  One of the most exciting days was the day the Ile de France docked in Colon.  Everyone went down to see the majestic ocean liner.  Sometimes we would get with a group, rent a boat, and take a ride through Gatun Lake.

I guess we're blessed because we didn't have problems on or off base.  This was the first time in our lives that we had white friends and for most of them it was the first time they had Black friends.  It was a learning experience for all of us.  

We were all newlyweds since most of the younger officers got married when they received their orders.  After nine months we all had a "go to hell" party for the people who said we got married because we were pregnant. 

For some reason I could never learn to drive our 1947 Dodge.  I kept having accidents and running into palm trees.  The children who lived in the area would run when they saw me coming.  Sometimes when I returned to base, the guard would stop my car and insist on driving me home.

I was surprised to find that segregation existed in the Canal Zone, also, but it was more by color than race, the lighter the better.  The water fountains were labeled "silver" and "gold," instead of white and colored.

Our maid was from Jamaica. Yes, the young lady who used to clean white people's homes on Saturdays now had a maid, but having a maid was mandatory for officers and a culture shock for me.  Maids had to wash clothes by hand in outdoor tubs and iron them in their quarters behind our house.  Because of the humidity sometimes my husband had to change uniforms twice a day. We would surreptitiously buy her pasteurized milk (We didn't have homogenized  milk then.) at the PX because only raw milk was available in town.

Since I had finished only two years of college, I took classes at a branch of Louisiana State University (LSU).  My professors were surprised to see me because they had never taught a "Negro" student.  LSU was white.  They were even more surprised that I could do the work and asked me to come back to the states to see if they could force desegregation on the Baton Rouge campus.  I thought about it but refused because I wanted a degree in a hurry since my Mom wouldn't speak to my husband until I finished.  It was 1964 before African American students would be admitted to the Baton Rouge campus.

Finally, I did get pregnant and the doctors expected complications.  They advised me to return to the States because the men spent a lot of time away and the trip to the hospital was through the jungle to Coco Solo Naval Base.  It's a good thing I came back to the States in case my son wants to run for President.  The birthers won't get him.

A mother is a person who seeing there are only

 four pieces of pie for five people, 

promptly announces she never did care for pie.  

~Tenneva Jordan

On Being an African American in the Fifties, Part II

 If you want to understand today, you have to search yesterday.  ~ Pearl Buck

One of the reasons I wanted to do this blog.

The Fifties

The end of World War II brought thousands of young servicemen back to America to pick up their lives and start new families in new homes with new jobs. With an energy never before experienced, American industry expanded to meet peacetime needs. Americans began buying goods not available during the war, which created corporate expansion and jobs.  Growth was everywhere and the baby boom was underway.

Compliance and attempts at social perfection were hallmarks of the 1950s domestic scene, where the two-parent families in which the father worked in industry and the mother remained home as a homemaker were idealized in television programs such as Leave it to Beaver, but it was also the time of Amos and Andy.  Fear of the bomb, McCarthyism, and desegregation attempts heightened tensions. Unnecessarily, race created a circumscribed context for our lives.

On May 17, 1954, the landmark decision, Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, overturned the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson ruling, which legalized segregation.  The Supreme Court Ruling stated that "separate educational facilities are inherently unequal." As a result, de jure racial segregation was ruled a violation of the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution. This victory paved the way for integration and the civil rights movement.  There was massive resistance to the ruling and it was many years before some institutions were desegregated.

We were married March 5, 1955, in Chicago, Illinois, in my mother's living room.  I was 17 and he was 22.  When we returned to campus after a week-end honeymoon, I was suspended for a month because married women could not live in the dorms.  Before we left campus, two professors gave us gifts, the only gifts we received.  We still use those gifts today.

The question was where would we go until Moody left for Panama?  My mother was upset about the marriage so we couldn’t go back to Chicago.  Moody suggested that we go to Baton Rouge with the few dollars we had, so I could get to know his family better.  I packed my clothes, Moody got his duffel bag, and off we went on a bus to catch a train in Covington, KY.  In 1955, because of segregation, we couldn't board in Cincinnati because they couldn't legally separate the races. So they sent Black people across the river to Covington to board the train. In Kentucky there was a white section and a colored section on the train so the new Lt. and Mrs. Moody had to take their place in the colored coach section.  We played cards, while traveling, and talked about our future.  


As the train ambled into Montgomery, AL we noticed a lot of stirring among the train staff.  After being in the station for an inordinate amount of time passengers began to get nervous.  Finally, we were told what was happening. 

Train strike.  The train was not moving another mile.  Everyone had to get off the train and find another mode of transportation  The airplanes were reserved for white people but Greyhound allowed us to board a bus to finish our trip. 

This was my first ride at the back of a segregated bus.  I was unprepared mentally and physically for the strain of the ride the rest of the way, after all, I was a suspended college student on her honeymoon.  The colored restrooms at stops along the way were incredibly nasty and the food we were allowed to purchase was substandard.  

Us in Louisiana on our honeymoon

The bus rolled slowly toward Louisiana, making stops at every town along the way.  When the bus reached Baton Rouge, Moody remarked that he lived not too far from where the bus was stopped, waiting for a traffic light to change. I could take it no more.  I yelled to the driver to stop.  We got our bags, jumped off the bus, and began to walk toward Moody’s parents’ home.  In winter clothes, we were overdressed for the Louisiana sun.  By the time we reached the house, we collapsed.

Moody’s family made sure we had a good, relaxing stay.  Too soon, it was time for me to return to school and Moody left for Panama.  We would be apart in April, May, and most of June.

Love puts the fun in together, the sad in apart, 

and the joy in a heart.  ~Author Unknown

On Being an African American in the Fifties - Part 1

I am working for the time when unqualified blacks, browns, and women

 join the unqualified men in running our government. 

 ~Cissy Farenthold

It's complicated, race in America. While I have plans to do blog posts on memories of each decade, I feel it is necessary to also do a separate posting on my memories of race for that decade.  I thought about it because of Rep. Wilson shameful heckling of President Obama with, "You lie," on September 9, 2009, while the President was giving his stirring speech on health care at a Joint Session of Congress.  Without the background on race, the rest of the story might not make sense.  And that's the purpose of the blog, to help me make sense of my life and experiences.

Real life has a way of making us change our focus as memories of past incidents creep forward in our mind.  His comments, the rowdy town hall meetings, and the frenzied actions of the birthers and teabaggers remind us that we've seen this before.  "It's deja vu all over again," as Yogi Berra remarked.  It also reminded me how much of our lives has been defined by race.

Segregation in the 50s' was legal (de jure segregation) in the South.  In the North it was called "de facto segregation" "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but without being officially established".  (Wikipedia)  That meant that we went to segregated schools, even though we had neighborhood schools, because we lived, not by choice, in Black neighborhoods .   In practice, landlords would not even show Blacks an apartment in a white neighborhood and banks would not give you loans to buy a home in a white neighborhood. There were some white areas of the city and suburbs where African Americans did not even think about visiting, (think Cicero, Illinois) unless they were working, and then they got out before dark.


In the North we could go into department stores try on clothes and buy what we wanted.  We could eat in restaurants and stay in most hotels.  The South was different.  Everything was separate, but definitely not equal.

I remember my first visit to Georgia in 1951 at the age of 14.  I was born in Chicago but all of the older family members were born in Georgia and came to Chicago during the Great Migration.  They thought it important that those of us born in Chicago take a trip South to see what it was all about.

An aunt took me on my trip because she was making her annual trek back to Georgia.  I was excited, not knowing what to expect.  Even though we left from Chicago, we traveled in segregated trains cars; they told us they had to do this because we were going South and the races didn't mix.  We couldn't eat in the dining car because that was reserved for whites.  We had to pack enough food to last almost 20 hours.

I loved standing on the gangway connection between the cars, relishing the country smells of cut grass and animal life, listening to the clickety-clack of the train wheels, observing the dilapidated housing the further South we went, and wondering about the shoeless people in the shabby clothes who waved to us on the train.   The further South we went, the worse the housing became.  The ramshackle houses were occupied by whites and Blacks and I noticed that most of the houses had another small shack out back.

In Social Circle, Georgia I had my first experience in a segregated movie theater.  We sat in the balcony and I still can feel the hard, wooden bench we had for "seats."  The whites had comfortable, separate seats on the first floor.  I cannot remember the movie that was on the screen because I kept trying to process the separation of the races and couldn't understand why we had to sit on hard benches.

And then we went to a restaurant to eat and had to enter though the back where we had segregated seating.  I scratched my head trying to figure why we ate in one area and whites ate in another area, even though the food that was served to both groups came from the same kitchen.  It didn't make sense to me.

I stared and stared at the colored and white drinking fountains.  By then I thought the South was crazy.  How could people live like this?  Don't get me started on the nasty, nasty, places they called colored restrooms.

The relative we stayed with had an outhouse and I made the mistake of looking into the hole we sat on. I was always curious about how things work and was never the same after that.  I developed the strongest bladder after that incident.  There was a gas station down the road and I walked there twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening after dinner, because they had real toilets.  I was only 14 years old but I convinced the owner that he had to let me use his toilet.  I think he felt sorry for this northern "fool" and never turned me away, even though he didn't have a colored restroom.

The best part of the trip was the food.  Each morning we went out to the fields to "get dinner."  Whatever we wanted to eat was in the yard:  corn, peas, greens, and the best watermelon I've ever had.  Then we had to kill a couple of chickens.  I'll never forget how fresh and tasty everything was.

After that trip, I understood why members of my family who were born in the North had to make the trip down South.  We needed to know why our relatives left the deep South and how "lucky" we were to live in the North.  We needed to experience what legal segregation was and why we shouldn't accept it.  We needed to know that our ancestors had suffered much worse.  We needed to know that we should never forget.

I swear to the Lord

I still can't see

Why Democracy means

Everybody but me.

~Langston Hughes, The Black Man Speaks

Sunrise to Sunset -Grow Old With Me

Grow old with me!  The best is yet to be.  ~Robert Browning

Sunrise in Las Vegas - 2001

I took this picture a week after September 11.  The sky was so fiery I thought we were being attacked.  I'm not known for getting up early so many will refuse to believe that I took this picture.

When my husband and I moved to Las Vegas eight years ago, we were 64 and 69.  We were still young enough and vibrant, or so we thought.  We had worked hard and were always active in charitable and educational organizations.  We had raised three sons and mentored many others.  After working over 45 years it was time to celebrate and let our hair down.

Us in Ann Arbor - Before Las Vegas

How different Las Vegas was from the intellectual and cultural energy in Ann Arbor, Michigan, our previous home.  In Ann Arbor, we were dignified college administrators.  We attended dinners, seminars, conferences, football parties, (Go Blue) the Big Boule Christmas Party, many college functions and traveled extensively.  (There will be more about Ann Arbor in future posts.)

Us after moving to Las Vegas for the Pimp/Ho Party

Our lifestyle changed completely.  No make up.  Have you ever tried to keep make up on when it is 110 degrees?  No more designer duds.  Shorts, tank tops, sweats, and jogging suits became our everyday dress.  Pantyhose was a thing of the past.  Heels and dress shoes were discarded; sandals and flip flops now.  We even gave our group a name, The Wild Bunch.  Several friends, after visiting, sold their homes in the Midwest and bought homes in Las Vegas.

In Las Vegas it was party in the house, party on the strip, party, party, party.  Don't be late for the party as it will start on time.  Party with this group, party with that group.  Many weeks at least two parties and often several parties in a night.  The Links, the Boule, the sororities, the fraternities, the Bridge Club, the Urban League, the Carrousels....

We dress for formal affairs several times a year but mostly we have casual parties such as, the Pimp and Ho Party, the Roaring Twenties, Po Ass People, patio parties, swimming parties, birthday parties, picnics, election parties, quick potlucks, anniversary parties, lunch just because, card parties, out-of-town visitors, any excuse work for a party.  Even our children, who are in their late 40s and early 50s, came to our parties because we were jammin' and dancing as fast as we could.

Remember we are seniors.

The Wild Bunch at the Pimp-Ho Party

The Wild Bunch Wives dressed for the Roaring Twenties

Winners at the 70s' party

How glad I am that we lived vigorously when we were younger.  Life changes so swiftly.  The seventies are different.  Old age manifests like itself with a slap in the face and warns you that there is no going back;  old age doesn't care how many days you go to the gym, or how many miles you walk.  You will never be young again.

Friends began to get sick, others passed away gently in the night.  The  infirmities of old age are upon us.  Arthur acts up (arthritis),  diabetes demands insulin, (at some of our parties diabetics are allowed to get in line first because of the insulin they just took)  blood pressure climbs, kidneys fail, knees need replacement, hearts don't pump as well, cataract surgery, chemo, radiation...the body is literally falling apart.

Our party mode has slowed but we are still hanging.  Everyone is tired.  Who wants to clean up after a party?  Now we are glad the party starts at four so we can be home by seven or eight.

What's on TV tonight?

One Summer Evening

Sunset in Las Vegas

None are so old as those who have outlived enthusiasm.  ~Henry David Thoreau

King and Obama

Last week I told my husband that I did not want to get into politics in this blog.   After reading the following statement , I changed my mind.


In the end, we will remember not the words of our enemies, but the silence of our friends.
- Martin Luther King, Jr., "The Trumpet of Conscience", 1967

Our oldest son, David, with President Obama

Those of us who support President Obama should no longer maintain our silence.  I  have followed some of the assertions of his enemies but I don't do it often because I recoil at their disgusting, ignorant rantings.  It reminds me of the injustices that African Americans have had to endure since the first Africans came to this country in 1619 as indentured servants.  Actually, there is proof that Africans were here long before that date but that is another post.  Let's just stick with 1619, and notice that date is before the Mayflower arrived at Plymouth.

As a former educator I am saddened by the vocal minority that have a problem with President Obama speaking to school children.  I will not restate or discuss their rambling comments because they have received enough coverage owing to the fact that in America we have freedom of speech.  

People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.  ~Soren Kierkegaard


Instead, I would like to publicly support President Obama, a man who is known to be a deep thinker, and suggest that the following quote might explain why some have a hard time dealing with him.  


Rarely do we find men who willingly engage in hard, solid thinking. There is an almost universal quest for easy answers and half-baked solutions. Nothing pains some people more than having to think.
 - Martin Luther King, Jr.


Godspeed, Mr. President

College Days 1953-55

Labor Day always reminds everyone of the start of school.  Back in the day no one started school in August.  Everyone waited for Labor Day...the last day of summer vacation.  Elementary, high school, college-everyone started after Labor Day.

I had just turned 16 in June 1953,  and my high school principal, Dr. Lewis, made sure that I had enough scholarship money to go to Central State College, a historically Black College, in Wilberforce, Ohio.  No one in my family had even considered going to college so my dream was not encouraged.  But somehow, Dr. Lewis knew and she made sure that I had enough money.  After all, it cost just about $700.00 a year, including out-of-state fees, tuition, room, and board, and no one in my family had ever seen that much money.  One sister, Mary, sent me my allowance:  $5.00 a week from her salary of $40.00 a week.  I could never thank her enough.

Someone in the family took me to the train station and I boarded the train with over $750 in cash stuffed in my bra.  How excited I was.  It was only about 250 miles from Chicago, but I was traveling alone and did not even think about being scared.  I just saw possibilities and was open to each and every one.

Seniors met new students at the train station and we took a bus to campus.  My guide was a student named Charles Moody.  (Who knew that in two years we would marry?)  He took me to the bursar to pay my bill and everyone was horrified when I went into my bra to get my money.  My tuition was already paid so I had just over $300.00 left.  Moody suggested that I leave it in an account in the bursar's office but he needed to borrow $40.00 for his books.  I loaned him the money but made him take me to the Campus Grill and buy me a milk shake.

Moody and Chris on campus in 1953

Some rambling thoughts on college in the 1950s....

• Central State was small, less than 1000 students and everyone knew each other.  Less than 10 students had cars so everyone walked.
• If you took less than 16 hours of classes,  people assumed you weren't very smart.  Most people took 17 or 18 hours and finished in four years.  Many classes met every day.  You were busy from 8:00 AM until 4:00 PM.
• This is before computers and calculators so we did calculations on paper or in our heads.  We would borrow a typewriter for our papers.
• We could visit our professors in their homes and they would feed us while we discussed class assignments.
• The sunken gardens, in the middle of campus, was a favorite spot for fraternity and sorority members to meet and sing.
• Sometimes fraternities, carrying burning torches, would serenade the women in the female dorms after midnight.  We would be asleep and all of a sudden we could hear a frat chant and the stomping of feet.  We would hurry downstairs in our pjs to listen and swoon.
• Our athletic teams were very competitive.  We played other Black Colleges and since I was a cheerleader I got to travel with the team.  Homecoming was big.  The graduates would return in stylish clothes and we had a big parade and dance.  The game was incidental.

Homecoming 1954

• Central State also had a farm and we had fresh food.  Our food, which was delicious, was actually cooked on location, not shipped in by a catering company.
• However, a big event was when a box of food from home would arrive.  Cakes, fried chicken, spam, vienna sausages, cookies--all arrived by mail.   Can you believe we ate cooked food that had been in a box for several days?  You became very popular when you got a box.
• We also had a couple of small grills in the area but seldom did anyone have any extra money.
• Females had to be in the dorm by 7:30 PM but males did not have a curfew.  Of course, there were ways to sneak out and ways to sneak back in.
• If we wanted to leave campus on the weekend, or to ride in a car,  we had to have a signed note from a parent.  Sometimes we would go home on a weekend with another girl who lived in Ohio.
• Our rooms were inspected every week and they had to be clean.  The school did our laundry.  No one had a refrigerator or stove, but they were available in the dorm.
• Each dorm had one black and white television in the lounge area and girls were not allowed to sit too close to a boy.
• Late movies were brought to campus on a regular basis which we watched in Galloway Hall.  This was one time we could stay out past 7:30.
• Clubs also met after 7:30 so I joined lots of clubs.  Oh, we could also sign out and go to the library.
• We would meet in each other's room to play cards, gossip, eat and drink.
• I joined Delta Sigma Theta Sorority.  We didn't have sorority houses but we always found a place to meet for our business.

My Sorority Picture 1954

(Notice the white gloves and hat)

• Campus parties, formal and informal, were frequent.  We also had many famous Black entertainers and speakers come visit the campus.
• If we had 15 cents we could take the bus to Xenia to shop or go to the movies.  If we didn't have the money we would hitchhike or walk.
• Our president, Dr. Charles Wesley, was the most handsome man on campus and he actually walked the campus and talked to us.
• We didn't like going home on vacations, we preferred the campus with our friends.

Moody's Graduation - June 1954

Who will cry for the little boy

by Antwone Fisher

"Who will cry for the little boy, lost and all alone?
Who will cry for the little boy, abandoned without his own?
Who will cry for the little boy? He cried himself to sleep.
Who will cry for the little boy? He never had for keeps.
Who will cry for the little boy? He walked the burning sand.
Who will cry for the little boy? The boy inside the man.
Who will cry for the little boy? Who knows well hurt and pain.
Who will cry for the little boy? He died and died again.
Who will cry for the little boy? A good boy he tried to be.
Who will cry for the little boy, who cries inside of me?"
The last time I went to a movie theater was in the late 70s.  Therefore, I have missed a lot of movies unless they are scheduled for TV.  I didn't see the movie Antwone Fisher (2002) until yesterday.  I actually bought the DVD several years ago but I couldn't bring myself to see it because I thought it would be painful to watch.  And I was right.
While it was painful, the joyful ending made the pain bearable.
The reciting of the poem, which Mr. Fisher wrote, was the most heartbreaking scene to me because I grew up without a father and I just inserted the gender girl for boy.  We often hear about boys needing fathers but seldom do we hear the same about girls.  

Three sisters with the same father in New York, 1951

Chris, Cozette, and Mary

As a female I can state that a father's love is just as important to a girl because she needs that unconditional love from a male.  All of my youth I yearned for my father and the only time I saw him was when I was visiting some relatives in New Jersey.  I was with an older sister who pointed to a short man standing in the yard with his family.
"That's your father," she said.
I was so startled I couldn't open my mouth.  I was paralyzed.  I was too afraid to go speak to him and wondered if he knew who I was.  I wanted to tell him that I was a good girl who did well in school, hoping one day he would find out and come to tell me how proud he was of me.  I wanted to tell him I loved him, even though I didn't know him, and to ask him if he loved me.  I did nothing.  
I had my camera with me, which I always carry, and snapped his picture from afar.   This was before digital cameras and I had to wait until I got back home to develop the film.  I took numerous pictures on that trip and they all were perfect, except the picture I took of my father.  The negative was completely black.  I was horrified.  Now I had no proof that he existed and even though this happened over fifty years ago, it is a picture that is burned in my mind.