SURPRISE, SURPRISE! PATRICIA AND I HAD ANOTHER BROTHER and sister, Charlie and Rhonda. They were five and six years older than me, born to Mama by a different biological father than ours. We didn’t know Charlie or Rhonda until one day they showed up at the trailer park and Charlie said, “Your mama is our mama too.”
That kind of news will rock your world.
Mama confirmed the truth of Charlie’s statement, that we had older siblings even though they didn’t live with us. Charlie showed up again when I was around eleven. Mama told him that he couldn’t stay with us unless he provided some food. Charlie left in a huff but returned a few hours later, carrying several bags of groceries he had stolen. Mama let him in, and he stashed the stolen food in our refrigerator. Just as Charlie finished unloading the food, Mama screamed at him, “Get out of here. Leave now, or I’m callin’ the cops!”
Charlie bolted out the front door, but I could still hear him yelling back at Mama. “You tricked me!” he railed at her as he fled.
Mama didn’t answer. She simply slammed the door.
I didn’t see Charlie again until Mama went to jail for stabbing Ronnie Brown. Charlie showed up at the trailer park with a gorgeous new girlfriend on his arm and a gun in his hand as he strutted around the trailer park with his chest bowed out like a rooster. For some reason, I was impressed by him. I guess because he stood up for himself.
By then his arms and neck were covered in tattoos. He had everything from a swastika to the words White Power! inked onto his skin.
To say that Charlie was a racist would be a gross understatement. One day Charlie handed me two business cards soliciting new members for the Ku Klux Klan. The information on the cards included a sketch of a hooded KKK member and the message, “Join the KKK and fight for race and nation.” An address and a phone number to call for free information about joining were boldly printed on the cards.
I didn’t know much about the Ku Klux Klan or its activities, but Charlie told me Klan members did not like black people. I thought that was cool, especially since my sixth grade teacher at school, Ms. Friday, was an African-American.
“I’m going to take these cards to school,” I told Charlie, “and flash them to let Ms. Friday know she better not mess with me again.”
Charlie nodded approvingly, and I could tell he thought I had a great future as a racist.
CRYSTAL FRIDAY WAS ONE OF NINE CHILDREN IN A CHRISTIAN family with traditional values and a strong work ethic. She had been teaching professionally for about six years when I showed up in her sixth grade class at Bessemer City Central Elementary School. A rotund woman with a vibrant personality, she was one of very few black teachers in a predominantly white school system in North Carolina, but she kept a firm grip on the class. She strengthened that grip with the help of a leather strap she used for corporal punishment when anyone in our class stepped out of line—which I did often.
I acted out horribly, doing everything I could to make Ms. Friday mad. At one point I received more than sixty citations denoting poor behavior.
Although she was a strict disciplinarian and didn’t take any guff from anyone, Ms. Friday was an angel. She loved her students and called us her “kids.” She often made Rice Krispies treats and brought them to school for us.
Despite Ms. Friday’s kindness, I was determined to make her miserable. I gave her dirty looks and made nasty comments about her in class. Since Mama was in prison and I was living at either Grandpa’s or Sarah’s, I often showed up late for school, conveniently just before lunch. I did everything Ms. Friday told us not to do. If I knew something might get on her nerves, I did it intentionally.
Ms. Friday kept the leather barber strap in her desk—the sort of strap barbers used to sharpen their razors. She whipped me with that strap at least once a week. I never sensed that she took any joy from disciplining me; in fact, I knew she was trying to help me, and she disliked paddling me almost as much as I disliked her doing it. Ms. Friday didn’t know Mama was in prison; she had never met anyone else in my family, but she recognized that I had no discipline at home. As she liberally applied the leather strap to my behind, she said, “You’re not getting this at home, so you’re gonna get it here.”
It made no sense that I should constantly attempt to irritate Ms. Friday. But I did. Sometimes I’d sneak up to the front of the classroom when she wasn’t looking and erase something she had written on the chalkboard.
Whenever she caught me being mischievous or disobedient, Ms. Friday sent me out to the hallway to wait for her. She corralled another teacher as a witness before Ms. Friday reminded me of what I had done wrong. “Okay, bend over and touch your toes.”
Ms. Friday grabbed my belt loop, pulled it up, and then reared back and hit me three times with that leather strap. She hit so hard the force made my face hurt!
When I returned to the classroom, I wore an expression on my face daring any kid in that room to think it was funny that I had just been whipped. None of my classmates even looked at me after a whipping.
I tried everything to make Ms. Friday mad, and that included flashing the Ku Klux Klan business cards that Charlie had given me and writing derogatory comments, such as “Save the land, join the Klan,” on the back of my T-shirts with magic markers.
“Jimmy, why is that on your shirt?” Ms. Friday asked me.
“It’s a new club I’ve joined.”
“Do you know what that means or what the Klan does?”
“We just get together to talk.”
“Well, Jimmy, whether you realize it or not, that is offensive to me and to many other people.”
As much as I tried to agitate Ms. Friday, deep down I really loved her, and it hurt my heart to think that I had insulted her. She noticed my pained expression and said, “I want you to go to the restroom and turn your shirt inside out. You can wear it like that the remainder of the school day.”
“Yes, Ms. Friday,” I said obediently. I went to the restroom and turned my shirt inside out, cursing Charlie the whole time.
One day Ms. Friday kept me after school because of my behavior. I don’t recall what I did wrong, but I remember Ms. Friday making me write over and over on a piece of paper, “I will not do this again. I will not do this again. I will not do this again.”
As soon as Ms. Friday said I could leave, I went outside and lowered the flag on the flagpole that stood near her classroom window. I hooked my book bag on the latches that held the flag, hoisted the bag up to the top of the flagpole, and left it dangling outside her window next to the desk where she was sitting. She took one look and knew that it was my blue book bag.
Seconds later Ms. Friday came to the open window and placed both of her hands on the windowsill. She leaned out the third-floor window and yelled at me, “Take that book bag down!”
I cursed her from the road and told her, “I don’t have to, and you can’t make me. School’s out.” I eventually took the bag down and walked home to Reed’s Trailer Park, approximately five miles away.
The following morning every kid in the school heard Ms. Friday whipping me once again with that leather strap.
I failed nearly every subject in sixth grade. I think I even failed lunch. Although it would have been much easier for Ms. Friday to pass me on to the seventh grade simply to get rid of me, she didn’t. She held me back in sixth grade, so I had to repeat it. And when I repeated, she again was my teacher.
Nowadays I like to tell people that Ms. Friday was my sixth grade teacher—twice. The second year, Ms. Friday pulled my desk up to the front of the class. This was not an honor. She put my desk right next to hers so she could keep an eye on me. She motivated me by giving me simple chores to do: washing the chalkboard or sweeping the floor or being the leader of the line were big deals. Slowly but surely I responded to her love and discipline.
MS. FRIDAY INSTILLED IN HER STUDENTS THE CONCEPT THAT nobody was any better or worse than anyone else, regardless of color or social status. I didn’t mind playing with any of my classmates, but one student with whom I had a good friendship was African-American, Nigel Smith. We both enjoyed music and dancing, but I never volunteered to sing.
At the end of each school year, we had a talent show, and students had to earn the opportunity to perform. I earned my shot by making a beard out of brown construction paper and a guitar from cardboard. I lip-synched to ZZ Top’s “Sharp Dressed Man.” There were no cash prizes, but that talent show was my first public performance. Nigel did a rap song and was the best performer in our class by far. For years after that I tried to write some poems I could turn into rap songs, but I never could get the groove like Nigel. It probably wouldn’t have worked—a white kid from North Carolina with KKK on his shirt—no wonder my rap songs were horrible!
ANGER WAS A BIG PART OF MY LIFE DURING THAT TIME, AND it had little to do with school. The first year, I refused to cooperate with Ms. Friday. I wasn’t belligerent, but I definitely displayed passive-aggressive characteristics. During my second stint in sixth grade, I was much more cooperative. I knew Ms. Friday might hold me back for a third year.
Ms. Friday was a Christian, but out of respect for school policy, she didn’t discuss her faith with her students. She simply lived out Christian values every day in front of us. She filled a desperate need in my life for order and also for a role model, someone who exemplified moral character.
She emphasized the importance of education. “You need an education, and you need a job. It’s not going to be fun all the time,” she said, “but if you don’t get a good education, there are two places waiting for you—either the prison or the cemetery.”
Ms. Friday was also big on taking personal responsibility. She tolerated no excuses for laziness. Although it wasn’t unusual for kids in our class to wear the same clothes over and over, she expected the clothes to be clean. “You’re in the sixth grade,” she said. “Don’t tell me you can’t wear clean clothes. You can wash them yourself with hand soap in the sink. You may not have much, but you can be clean.”
In addition to encouraging self-control, one of the greatest gifts Ms. Friday gave me was a desire to write. Ms. Friday taught me to keep a journal and write out my experiences. At the time, I called the practice of writing down my experiences “stupid journaling,” but Ms. Friday would not accept any excuses. She didn’t necessarily read our journals—we could write anything we wanted, including deeply personal thoughts—but she did check every day to make sure that we had written something. It is a practice that I’ve continued to this day.
MS. FRIDAY WAS A LIGHT IN THE DARKNESS OF MY LIFE; SHE remains one of the most positive influences I’ve ever known, and I will be eternally grateful to her. More than anything, Ms. Friday taught me that your circumstances do not define you. If you really want to do something, if you make up your mind and put forth the effort, you can do it.
Ms. Friday is not merely a teacher; she is an educator, and educators hope that their students will eventually catch on. Although I gave her a difficult time during my two years in the sixth grade, I did indeed catch on. Gracious woman that she is, Ms. Friday still sends me birthday and Christmas cards every year, and we have remained good friends.