THE GIANTS UPON WHOSE SHOULDERS WE STAND. Pts. 1-8

I grew up during the age of segregation, and (thankfully) as my childhood years gave way to young adulthood, I was privileged to see bigotry give way to tolerance, and prejudice give way to acceptance.

But to digress.

As a boy citizen of the South, I thought little or nothing about the Black & White restrooms and Black and White water fountains; which I so often walked past inside our local “Kwik Chek” Supermarket.

It was what it was, and nothing to “get all shook up” about. I mean, we had a black maid named, “Etta” and we treated her like a member of our family. She ate at our table and used our bathroom. As an elderly woman, my mother even briefly administered Etta’s checkbook; given our former employee was “beginning to drift,” and her only child lived halfway across the country.

During my Sophomore year, several of the best and brightest of black students from Union Academy joined us at Summerlin Institute. I recall befriending one of the new students, Charles Richardson. I can tell you, he was a ‘class act,’ as he was gifted both academically and athletically gifted. Charlie was assigned to the ‘preppy class,’ played on our state championship football team, ran track, and had the most massive biceps I’d ever seen. He went on to serve on the board of our local community college, and was elected to our county commission. Sadly, he left us at a relatively young age.

However, in spite of my exposure to the Black & White utilities in our city supermarket, and the academic experiment of secondary school integration, I must have been oblivious to everything else going on around me at the time.

Pt. 2

Of course, with the passing of years, I am altogether familiar with the Civil Rights Movement which prevailed in this country during the 50’s and 60’s; (and continues in one form or another to this day).

While I have little or no use for CNN, (as I’ve never been exposed to a television broadcast which is more negative or more biased towards the ‘Left’) I was determined to watch a documentary which ran on their network last night. I was not disappointed.

As I have previously implied, the documentary reflected on the Civil Rights Movement, and its focus was primarily on the part which the (now) Georgia Representative John Lewis played during that difficult season of our nation’s history.

At the time, John Lewis was a 21 year old, African-American college student. It goes without saying that he has long past transcended the age, but not the ethnicity; (nor would he wish to do so).

I think it is no overstatement to say that, even at his relatively young age at the time, the man was fearless, and was nothing less than an icon of the Civil Rights Movement. Among what has come to be known as “The Big Six,” John Lewis, chairman of “The Student Non-violent Coordinating Committee” was the youngest of half a dozen prominent black leaders in the ‘hey-day’ of the Civil Rights Movement. In spite of his comparative age, he ‘rubbed shoulders’ with such men as Martin Luther King Jr., James Farmer, and Roy Wilkins.

As the documentary proceeds, CNN consultant David Axelrod interviews Rep. Lewis, and elicits the most poignant responses concerning his work as a “Freedom Rider” and “Lunch Counter Sitter” and leader of the Selma to Montgomery marches.

In terms of voter registration, Alabama was, at the time, the worst of the worst in the nation. 99% of all registered voters in the state were white, and massive voter qualification ‘irregularities’ prevented most African-Americans from participating in the electoral process.

Pt. 3

Lewis remembers one march, in particular. As he and other Civil Rights leaders led the way across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, they were ‘greeted’ by a multitude of state policemen and sheriff’s deputies. The assembled throng of civilians, black and white, never made it across the bridge, much less to the state capitol that day.

Rep. Lewis shares his poignant story.

“My legs went out from under me. I felt like I was going to die. I thought I saw Death. All these many years later, I don’t recall how I made it back across that bridge to the church.”

For ‘all his trouble’ Lewis received a concussion. Prior to the passage of The Civil Rights Act of 1964, the young man was jailed an amazing 40 times!

Did I mention that the David Axelrod/John Lewis interview took place at The National Center for Civil and Human Rights in Atlanta? (Well, it did). As the duo sit at a small table, amongst a myriad of exhibits, the Georgia representative shares another poignant personal story.

“When I was in my office in Washington one day, my receptionist informed me that I had a couple of visitors; an elderly man and his middle-aged son. I invited them into my study.

The elderly man was named Elwin Wilson; a former Ku Klux Klan member. He said he had come to apologize for having assaulted me at a bus station in Rock Hill, South Carolina, as I and several others attempted to walk into a so-called ‘Whites Only’ waiting room.

And with this, he and his son began to weep. And I can tell you, there were tears enough to go around that day. He asked me to forgive him, and I assured him that I’d forgiven him from the moment he beat me. The power of love. Before he left my office, we embraced and it was all put behind us.” (paraphrased)

Pt. 4

Following is an excerpt from the official website of Representative John Lewis concerning the passing of his friend, Elwin Wilson:

Upon learning about the death of Elwin Wilson, the former Ku Klux Klan member who beat him when the Freedom Rides stopped at a bus station in Rock Hill, South Carolina in 1961 and apologized for his actions decades later, Rep. John Lewis made this statement:

“I am very sorry to learn of Elwin Wilson’s passing.  It is my prayer that he will rest in peace since he made amends to many of those he had injured.  He told me he wanted to be right when he met his Maker, and I believe Elwin Wilson accomplished what he set out to do.

We can all learn a valuable lesson from the life of this one man.  He demonstrates to all of us that we fall down, but we can get up.  We all make blunders, but we can get on the right road toward building a greater sense of community.

Elwin Wilson experienced what Martin Luther King Jr. told all of us that ‘hate is too heavy a burden to bear.’ He demonstrated the power of love and the effectiveness of non-violent direct action not only to fix legislative injustice but to mend the wounded souls in our society, the soul of the victim as well as the perpetrator.  Elwin Wilson shows us, that people can change, and when they put down the mechanisms of division and separation to pick up the tools of reconciliation, they can help build a greater sense of community in our society, even between the most unlikely people.  Elwin Wilson proves that we are all one people, one family, the human family, and what affects one of us affect us all.

I will never forget Elwin Wilson.  I speak about our meeting often.  In fact, just this morning I mentioned him to 147 students from California, New York, and Ohio.  And I spoke about him earlier this month on the pilgrimage to Alabama.  Because this one man had the courage to seek the power of forgiveness, he stepped off the sidelines and into the pages of American history forever.”

Pt. 5

But to return to the CNN documentary which I was privileged to view last night:

As the interview nears its conclusion, David Axelrod leads Rep. Lewis over to a facsimile lunch counter, and stands as the congressman sits down on a stool. Picking up a headset, Georgia’s representative listens to an audio recreation of the violence which accompanied one of the  lunch counter protests in which he’d once participated. The harsh words are protracted and vulgar.

“You don’t belong here, N_ _ _ _ _!”

(and)

“You better get the h_ _ _ outta here now… or there’s gonna be trouble!”

(and accompanied by the sound of slapping and punching)

“You just wouldn’t listen, would you, N_ _ _ _ _?”

As the recording comes to an end, and John Lewis removes his headphones, he suddenly begins sobbing, and he buries his head in his hands. David Axelrod touches his left shoulder and, without so much as a word, lends his support.

I have rarely felt such compassion, or sensed such emotion as I did at that moment.

The interview over, the two men walk over to what might be described as “The Wall of Civil Rights Heroes;” many of them long since gone on to their reward.

People such as, Martin Luther King Jr., James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and Emmett Till.

Pointing to this one and that one, and finally pausing to offer a silent tribute, the valiant old Civil Rights hero turns towards the door.

Pt. 6

Dear readers, I can assure you that while in my youth I took segregation for granted, with the passing of years it has become impossible to do so.

Not only has time and experience combined to gradually remove the scales from my eyes, but the past year has lent me a bit of information to which I only became privy, as I approached the seventh decade of my life.

I think my mother meant to prepare me for the news. But I must begin at the beginning.

Mama had always hoped to submit her DNA to one of the major test providers, and having ordered the kit I drove to the nursing home where she resided, and made her aware it would soon be on its way. I was only mildly surprised when she said,

“Back when I was a teenager my friends used to ask me if I were part black.”

I was not altogether surprised because I remember the four sisters well. My grandmother and my three great aunts. Two, in particular, were extremely dark complexioned, and early photos of my mother betrayed a similar complexion.

As it fell together, the DNA kit arrived, and mama contributed the requisite amount of saliva before I capped the vial, and sent it off in the mail. Sadly, my mother passed away before the results became available.

As I sat down at my computer one day and opened my email account, I read the salutations.

“Dear Erma, Your DNA results are ready. Please click on the attached link and enter your password.”

You can imagine I wasted no time in doing so.

Pt. 7

There was in my mother’s extended family, an oral tradition which indicated a Native American heritage among our people. In retrospect, I believe one of my ancient grandparents created the myth “out of whole cloth” in order to hide the truth.

As I scanned mama’s DNA results, there was nothing at all unusual about the first indicator.

70% - British Isles

(Yes. Tell me something I don’t know).

Most of the subsequent indicators were also relatively ‘benign.’

3% - German

3% - France

2% - Spain

2% - Eastern Europe

2% - Italy

But as I waded through the remainder of the list, some rather exotic ethnicities “came to the fore.”

1% - Caucasus

1% - North Africa

(and)

…2% - Sub-Saharan Africa

I found myself staring blankly at that one line of print.

My mother was 2 percent African-American. My Grandmother had been 4 percent African-American. I was, as “a matter of course” 1 percent African-American.

My mind clicked into 4^th gear quicker than you can say,

“Whoa!”

Pt. 8

All I had to do was “do the math.” My 5x (ggggg) Grandmother was black, and had, in all likelihood, lived during the era of the American Revolution; and had, as a result, been a slave.

It was not difficult to envision it.

There is every reason to believe that my 5x (ggggg) Grandfather was a white slave owner, and that he practiced the despicable tradition of “going out back,” and “visiting” his favorite female slaves. As a result, my 4x (gggg) Grandfather or Grandmother was the resulting progeny of their union. And so forth and so on.

Since I became privy to the results of my mother’s DNA test, it seems I have experienced a virtual epiphany.

‘Til now I only thought I understood the trials and triumphs of those peoples from the Dark Continent who were taken against their will and transported in shackles to the New World.

However, I think now it is a bit more ‘real’ than heretofore.

I should like to have known my immigrant African grandmother. I’m hopeful she was treated kindly, that her sufferings were few, and that before her passing she knew what it meant to live as a free woman.

I am privileged to be associated, in spite of role and distance, with people such as Representative John Lewis of Georgia. People such as this good man, and his and my ancient African grandparents who preceded us have borne the burden, and blazed the trail for the rest of us.

They are the giants upon whose shoulders we stand.


William McDonald, PhD. Excerpt from (Mc)Donald's Daily Diary, Vol. 61. Copyright Pending.

If you wish to share, copy or 'save', please include the credit line, above
********
Due to a design flaw on this blogsite, if you would like to see the titles and access hundreds of my blogs from 2015 & 2016, you will need to do the following:

Click on 2015 in the index to the right of this blog. When my December 31st blog, "The Shot Must Choose You" appears, click on the title. All my 2015 blogs will come up in the right margin.

Click on 2016 in the index to the right of this blog. When my December 31st blog, "Children of a Lesser God" appears, click on the title. All my 2016 blogs will come up in the right margin.