Everything changed in seventh grade. Something called freedom of choice. What it meant was all the Black schools were closing. That was the goal. I hate to say “they”, but what name do you give to the persons who decided not to equally fund our schools and to provide “freedom of choice” and provide no “choice”?
I became one of the few that year, 1967?, to integrate a white elementary school. There were four of us Blacks in the seventh grade. There were two seventh grade homerooms. Two, a girl and a boy, were assigned to each room and, within the room, we were assigned seats as far from each other as physically possible.
What did I feel then? I try not to remember. But, it was then that I discovered that I was “other” and that “other” was reviled and cursed. Seventh graders are cruel…viciously cruel, but how could they not be now that I know the history of their group of people with my group of people. I had no friends and when I told my mother about the foul names I was called….there was a male who would stand in front of me and spew foulness. I suppose it made him feel good. Because I did not respond…he would continue until he ran out of foulness for that day. I told the teacher as my mother instructed. I think he just became sneakier with his foulness.
I didn’t respond because I had no idea how to respond. We didn’t curse at home. We didn’t talk about them. My parents went to all Black schools, so maybe they believed the lie that proximity would breed tolerance. My grades plummeted, but the teacher seemed to think my grades were normal. I mean…I couldn’t possibly be an A student, could I? It would take two years for my grades to recover.
Was their school better? It was different, but I cannot say it was better. When one is experiencing the worse of times, one tends to fold into oneself and forget. I remember a few white outliers, but they were the ones who were the bullied or something in their background was not acceptable. One…I remember…I think the mother was divorced? That may be a false memory. It was something that wasn’t acceptable in a 1960’s southern small town. I remember no names from that time…not even the teachers’ names. If I think about it long enough, I probably would, but there is nothing there I want to think about.
In eighth grade, the other Black elementary school closed, so there was an influx of Black students. Not that many, but we had a presence and I gained a best friend, C. I think we made that year bearable for each other.
That was the year, I had to get glasses. My parents knew I was nearsighted, but the optometrist wanted to wait on prescribing glasses. Seems like the theory at the time was to hold off on glasses until one’s eyesight deterioration had leveled off which should happen around thirteen or fourteen years of age. My poor eyesight was accommodated at the Black school. If I couldn’t see the board, I would position my desk or chair, so that I could see. My parents told my teachers I couldn’t see, so there was no problem with me moving to where I could see.
That, of course, did not work at the white school, because even sitting on the front row, the writing on the board was a blur. So, I got glasses…cateye…glass lens. One lens was much thicker than the other and thus began the years of lopsided glasses. For the first time, I could see the pinpoints of light that people called stars. I could see the different phases of the moon and not a blurred image of many moons…something to do with refraction…I think. I could actually see the details of people’s faces.
However, even now, as I write this, my hand eye coordination is poor. And let’s not talk about eye foot coordination. And, it’s amusing now, but my parents would argue about who was responsible for my poor eyesight. Which side of the family did it come from.
Family history aside… Did you know one of our collateral relatives, in the early 1900’s, had to flee A’ville? His crime? Laughing at a white male. Don’t know anything about the situation, except he laughed. He was warned that the white male and his friend-cowards were coming to get him. So he fled. He ended up in California and worked as a porter on a train. He never returned to A’ville and I wonder if he ever told his children about his birthplace. The full story is in one of the family history booklets that I gave out at family reunions. I wonder if he ever wondered about being a porter versus being a farm hand? About living in California versus a rural area in southern Kentucky? Did he miss what he was forced to leave behind? Was it better or a different kind of worse?
I think he married someone from A’ville or he was already married and she fled with him. (This is speculation and solely based on the wife’s maiden name which was a family name in A’ville.) But, if memory serves, the child I found was born in California. Maybe, his wife or soon to be wife joined him at a later time after he got settled. If you had to flee everything you knew because of a barbarian’s low self-esteem, would you tell that story or take it to your grave?
We’ve lost family, probably more than we know… On Mama’s side, a branch started out as L’s, the slave owner’s last name. Then, the older sons changed their last name. What was odd was that the younger sons retained the slave owner’s last name and the son that fled to California was one of the younger sons. After the name change, we believe that one of the sons moved away and never returned. A cousin thought that son’s son was a prominent member of the Methodist hierarchy. I never could confirm that story. (Methodist in this context was the C.M.E. branch. Now–Christian Methodist Episcopalian; formerly–Colored Methodist Episcopalian.)
NB and I did a history of the A’Villle CME church and some of the older members were not happy that the A’ville Baptist Church was instrumental in its creation. However, the two churches have always been close. The churches held services on alternating Sundays, so everyone attended both churches. Couples married, regardless of affiliation.
Okay, back to eighth grade? No, in April 1968, I would have been in the seventh grade. We were watching Batman. A news flash interrupted the program. That’s when we found out that MLK had been assassinated. Living in the country has some advantages. We were insulated from the urban story.
At the Black elementary school, there would have been an eighth grade graduation ceremony. I vaguely remember my older siblings’ graduation ceremonies. The girls wore white and the boys were in white shirt and ties. At the elementary school, I was attending, there was nothing. My parents signed me up for the white junior high. Most of the Blacks in my eighth grade class went to the Black High School for ninth grade.
All during school, we rode a yellow school bus to school. Mr. G was the driver. He served in WWII in France. He still remembered some French and, as I was taking French (ninth grade), he would sometimes randomly say something to see if I understood. We were among the first on the bus. I think that’s why we talked. In the afternoon, there was a race to the back of the bus.There was a lot of stupid going on in the back of the bus, but also a lot of singing and dancing.
A big part of after school was watching the movies on the “The Big Show.” Monster movies, cowboy movies, comedies–D-F grade movies. Most were in black and white. Wouldn’t have mattered if they were in color. We had a black and white TV.
Another aside: I don’t write about my father’s family because I did not know them until I was practically a teenager. I know that when I was small we went to Texas, but I have no memory of that trip. I do remember the trip when I was eleven or twelve. We went to one of his sisters’ funeral. That’s my first memory of his family. My father was the youngest of eight children that survived to adulthood. His mother died when he was around twelve and, if it weren’t for his older brothers and sisters, he probably would not have survived. Sometime after his mother died, my father had appendicitis and his father, not realizing the gravity of the situation, refused to take him to a doctor. His older brother took him to the hospital without their father’s approval and my father’s appendix was removed. From then on, it appeared he stayed with his older siblings more so than with his father. I have to remember to include their stories.
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