Today is a day of Remembrance. It’s a day set aside to honor a man who
gave hope to those who were treated as
second class citizens. Today is Martin
Luther King Day.
I don’t remember hearing the speech that still echoes
throughout history. I was just a little
kid, only three on that day in August, 1963.
When you’re that small you aren't as affected by things that happen
far from you, even if they are on television.
What I do remember is the way things were. Not only that day in 1963, but days and years
later. I remember how, even in Ohio, if
you were black you didn't quite measure up.
When I was a little older, before I even attended school, I can remember
going to Kresge’s Department store on Main St. with my Grandma Freed and eating
lunch. It was something we did often
and, for me, was a treat I looked forward to.
I asked my Grandma why the “colored” people couldn't set in the booths
like we did. I’ll never forget the look
on her face as she explained that “They aren’t like us.” She used words that were common for the day,
ones that we don’t use now.
When I asked why the “coloreds” didn’t have plates and forks
like ours, she just gave me a look and told me to eat my grilled cheese
sandwich. Although I was still curious,
I did as I was told and was later rewarded with a toy.
But it stuck with me, those men and women being made to sit
at the end of the counter and eat off of paper plates with plastic forks. It hurt me to see the way the white
waitresses ignored them when they wanted more coffee or soda.
The only thing I understood was that things were just that
way and there was nothing to be done about it.
I was told that “they” should be glad they were allowed to eat inside
with “decent” (meaning White) people.
When we were in Kentucky I never remarked on the fact that
there were water fountains that said “WHITE ONLY” or that the bathrooms were
MEN, WOMEN and COLORED. I guess up until
that day in the Department store with my Grandma Freed, I had never noticed
that there were people who were treated like they were less than me.
When I started school the kids in my class looked like me,
they were white. When I was in first
grade the school system started “bussing” kids into white schools, I just
thought that meant that those kids lived far away from the school and had to ride
the bus to get there. It didn’t bother
me that they were darker than I was, or that their hair was different than
mine. They were just new kids in school.
I remember the adults saying awful things about those kids,
things I won’t repeat. If I asked any
questions about why they were mad that those little kids were coming to school
with me, the adults would either tell me that I didn’t understand or else they
would get angry and yell things that I didn’t understand.
I made friends with this little girl that I’ll call “Jenny”. She was so pretty with her caramel colored
skin, green eyes and almost straight hair.
We enjoyed playing together, although my Momma wouldn’t let her come
into the house and threw a fit when she found out I had gone into “Jenny”’s
house to play. Momma actually spanked me
and told me to “never go into that ******* house again”. I told Mamma she was a good girl and her Momma
looked just like my Momma. That’s when I
found out that there were things worse than simply being “colored”.
“Jenny” told me about this man named Martin Luther King and
how he was leading people to freedom. We
talked a great deal about that because I thought we were already free and I
didn’t understand what she meant when she said this man was going to free her
people.
That young girl taught me
a lot about how life really was in the 1960’s.
She explained that her Momma and Daddy had to come to the
North just to get married. A black man
would be killed for even attempting to marry a white woman. She told me about her Daddy’s brother who was
found hanging from a tree in Mississippi because he wanted colored people to be
able to vote. She told me of the men in
sheets terrorizing her Granny and burning down her house.
She told me how she and I couldn’t go into Kresge’s together
and have a root beer float. She said
that I couldn’t sit with her at the counter because if I did the waitresses
would make me move and then wouldn’t serve her because I had sat with her. She explained how she couldn’t go into the
movies with me and sit in the same row, or why my Momma wouldn’t let her stay
with me or me go to her house to play.
She told me how her Momma, who was white, was treated worse than any
colored woman because she had “lowered” herself by marrying a colored man.
I saw for myself how people, of both colors, treated “Jenny”. She was considered the lowest of the low
because she was not white OR colored.
The colored people hated her because she wasn’t black, the white people
hated her because she wasn’t white. She
didn’t fit in anywhere, and it scared her for life.
On that warm April evening in 1968, a shot was fired from a
30 caliber weapon. That shot changed the
world.
A man of peace, a man who had nothing but hope for this
country and the citizens in it, lay bleeding on a balcony in Memphis. A short time later he lay dead in a hospital close
by.
Many thought the Dream was as dead as the man who had spoken
of it.
Many more thought violence was the only response.
And my best friend “Jenny”?
She ran all the way to my house, tears streaming from her eyes, to share
with me a pain I could never understand.
She found me playing under the streetlight in front of my house. She simply looked at me with her big green
eyes and, with a sob catching in her throat, told me that Dr. King was dead and
that a white man had killed him.
The next few years were rift with protest, murders, and riots. The National Guard used teargas and riot
sticks on college students. People were
shot in their beds and horrible medical experimentations on black men were
ended.
Slowly things changed.
People began to change their perception of each other. Anyone could sit anywhere to eat their
sandwiches and drink their sodas. The
balcony was for whomever wanted to sit there.
In the years that followed I found out a lot about my own
family history. I discovered that, although
most of us look white, we aren’t. Many
of our ancestors “passed” as white, many didn’t care. The mixture of Black, White and Native
American had created a wide variety in my family’s skin tone, eye color and
hair texture. Many of the older ones
wouldn’t admit to it, many of the young ones didn’t care.
My friend “Jenny” would have laughed. But “Jenny” didn’t live to see the changes
that have taken place. The scars on her
soul were too deep. She was just
seventeen years old when drugs and alcohol took her from us.
So, today, while so very many people remember a great man by
the name of Dr. Martin Luther King, I also remember a little light skinned,
green eyed girl named “Jenny”.
