MY EARLIEST MEMORY TOOK eleven years to come to me. It happened when I was in the sixth grade, about eleven years old. That was the year my grade school, Bethel Grove, integrated a significantly large group of black students. The previous year the school hesitantly dipped their toes into those troubled racial waters by bringing precisely one little black girl to Bethel Grove. Her name was Andrea.
I discovered that Bethel Grove had been silently integrated that school year when, on the first day of class, I walked past the classroom windows and glancing inside noticed a solitary, tidy, well-groomed black child sitting erect at her desk, perfect posture, wearing a pair of cat’s eye glasses. My first thought was one of shock. They are in our school! I dreaded telling my father because I knew he would fume and make our lives at home miserable at the dinner table. His favorite topic for the remainder of his life was how black people were ruining things for us whites.
My second and more lingering thought was that this little black girl had to be the loneliest person in the whole world, sitting there all by herself. No friends her own color to laugh and play with.
The sky did not fall. The ground did not shake.
Dad grumbled and said, “I knew this was going to happen,” and left to fume about something else.
Only a handful of parents transferred their children to other schools, where they were faced with the same dilemma all over again. After a few days no one much mentioned Andrea any longer. Life had moved on. The only difference was less use of the N-word on the playground and no use of it at all in the classroom, where formerly the word had been quietly tolerated.
Obviously the stealth integration of one black child at Bethel Grove had been well orchestrated by the school board to minimize white panic and over-reaction. The following year, 1965, the real integration began, with at least 30 percent of the Bethel Grove student population black, the kids coming from the southern portion of the notorious Orange Mound neighborhood, which was located on the other side of Lamar Avenue that for decades had served as a line of demarcation separating blacks and whites.
By 1965 everyone had seen this coming. The only escape for whites so inclined was to send their kids to a private school, which cost money, much more than the average blue collar family from the Bethel Grove neighborhood could afford. So everyone bit down hard and swallowed integration. There were no fights between blacks and whites in the schoolyard. The black kids did not bring switchblade knives and razors as we had feared. And about the reports of uncleanliness and poor hygiene, those kids were better groomed than we were.
The principal, Miss Pittman, had one little trick left up her sleeve. I have no way of proving this was a calculated maneuver on her part, but my gut feeling is that it was. She created a split-level class, half fifth graders, half sixth graders. This was an accelerated class, reserved for the best and brightest students. My belief is that Miss Pittman did this both to protect the smarter white kids from the perceived coarsening effect of lower class black students and to give the brighter black students a chance at higher achievement.
I was selected for the sixth grade side of the classroom, one of 12 sixth graders. Two black students, Joyce and Sharon, were in my sixth grade section. Two were in the fifth grade section as well: Andrea, the little girl who all by herself had integrated Bethel Grove the previous year, and Catherine, a skinny little thing in pigtails whose backwoods accent was so impenetrable that we often couldn’t understand a word she was saying. Catherine’s accent was so bad that our teacher, Miss Dinkins, sent her to the school’s speech therapist. My memory of Andrea and Catherine is that they rarely uttered a word. Sharon and Joyce, on the other hand, were much more loquacious, especially Sharon, who loved to braid the white girls’ hair.
The first grade teachers at Bethel Grove, including my beloved first grade teacher, Mrs. Stevens, were getting up in age and were finding teaching calisthenics to the children during recess too taxing. Also, one of the teachers was pregnant and most certainly not capable of jumping jacks and push-ups. The solution was to get the boys from the accelerated sixth grade class to lead the first graders in their exercises.
This meant we would have to give up our own recess period, but duty called and I was assigned to Mrs. Stevens’ class, reuniting me with the teacher I loved the most. I wasn’t prepared for the reception we got from the first graders. They were overjoyed to have us among them.
Children that age do not see color. They do not see race. They would practically fight each other over who would get to hold our hands as we formed a circle or a line for Red Rover games. My first memory came to me when a happy, giggling, precious little black girl pushed her way to be first to hold my hand. As soon as she touched me an alarm bell clanged in my head: you are touching a nigger! I had never touched a black person in my life. Or so I thought at that particular moment. I’m happy to report that as soon as that thought whistled into my brain it vanished as soon as I saw the look of utter joy on that little girl’s face. Never again would I quail at the touch of a black person or have a moment’s hesitation holding a black child’s hand or giving one a needed hug. This one act on this one day broke a thousand taboos I had been pinioned with during my first eleven years of life.
And it gave me my earliest memory back. When that little girl touched my hand the most wonderful memory of Ophelia came sailing back to me. Ophelia was the older black woman who tended babies in the nursery at Charjean Baptist Church where my parents were members. My parents were not social people as such, and what little social world they had typically revolved around the church. Soon after birth, I was bottle fed, coddled, and soothed by Ophelia on Sundays. I remembered her calming voice, her pleasing smell, her starched nurse’s uniform, and most of all the comfort of her touch. That little girl holding my hand brought me back to Ophelia.
As I had grown, even while in the sixth grade, I would stop and say hello to Ophelia and her husband, Ed, who was the church janitor and was well-liked enough that he was permitted to smoke his cigars—which he always put in a cigar holder when he smoked them that I always thought was a touch of class—in the back of the church away from the sanctuary. My mom told me that Ophelia took a special shine to my brother Norris when he was a baby, telling people “that one’s mine.” The very mention of Ophelia’s name brings back not so much a flood of memories, but a flood of feelings. All of them warm and good and a balm for my spirit.
Through the magic of Facebook I put out some inquiries about Ophelia. No one could tell me what had happened to her. Surely she would now be dead and it bothers me that I can’t visit her gravesite or know who her folks are so I could call them to reminisce. One person who is my exact same age, Buster Sterling, remembered Ophelia babysitting him. His mother was the secretary for Charjean Baptist Church and hired Ophelia often to babysit and to do small household chores. Buster remembered her ironing clothes and humming as she worked.
All it took was the touch of one little girl to remind me of Ophelia. That touch meant everything.
And then there is the kind of touch that can cause you trouble. As I mentioned, I was in an accelerated split-level class—one half was fifth grade, the other sixth grade. I was sheltered from the greater mass of incoming black students that year. This was the first time that most of us white kids ever interacted in any substantial way with fellow blacks. Going from an all-white social structure to one in which we were expected to learn together, play together, eat together, and socialize together was a giant leap considering that these were a people we had been taught from birth to look down on as inferiors.
Considering the social gamble involved, the strategy succeeded surprisingly well. As stated, there weren’t fistfights or shivs secreted in boots to cut us with, and the simple truth is a lot of these black kids were loads of fun. But leave it to me to discover the kink in the armor.
As I was exiting the boys’ restroom one school day a black boy from the fifth grade who I didn’t know stopped me and said, “Boy, did you touch that bathroom do’ on your way out?”
This confused me. “Sure, yeah, I touched the door. What’s the matter?”
“Boy, don’t you touch that bathroom do’ no mo’,” he commanded with menace. “If I catch you touching that bathroom do’ ag’in I’m gonna whup yo’ ass.”
And then he walked off like he owned the building.
This shocked me to my core. To me he looked tough enough to carry out his threat. Even though he was in a lower grade he was my size and everyone knew the Negro race were nothing but walking death squads. I was terrified.
What to do? I certainly wasn’t going to challenge him. I had enough chicken in my DNA to prevent that from happening. I didn’t dare tell my teacher or go to the principal because, as you will read later, I had learned my lesson about telling on people. And if I got him in trouble he might tell his gang and they’d cut my throat after school.
I knew better than tell my Dad. My family protected Dad from himself, because when he lost his temper he lost his good sense. I had no idea what he might do if he thought I were being picked on by a black bully. So I kept mum on the subject and held my fear inside.
Every day at school I scouted the halls for this boy and when the coast was clear I’d dash into the bathroom, take care of business, and dash out as quickly as possible. I also held it as much as I could, waiting when possible to urinate at home. This seemed like a good plan and thus far it had worked.
Then one day when all seemed safe I sped out the door and nearly ran smack into my antagonist as I rounded a corner. Caught off guard, I just waved and said “hi!” thinking he’d let his threat pass, just maybe.
“Boy, did you touch that do’ when you left that bathroom? I told you I’d whup yo’ ass if you touched that do’.”
What happened next has only happened to me a couple of times in my entire life.
Instead of flight—running like hell—I summoned the ghosts of the graybeards from my past, some of whom were king-hell badasses, brought myself up to full height and said, “Of course I touched that damn door. How am I supposed to pee if I don’t go in the bathroom? I touched that door and I’m gonna keep touching the door and there’s not a damn thing you’re gonna do about it.”
Then I prepared to die.
He gave me a quizzical look, stuck out his hand and said, “Man, you my best friend. You can touch that do’ anytime you want.”
And that’s how Joe and I became friends.
* * *
One of the great pleasures of my youth was hanging out at my school playground during summer break. The Memphis Park Commission employed one male and one female college student to serve during those summers as park commissioners and they guided us in all manner of sports, recreation, and arts and crafts in their starched all-white uniforms. We universally adored our park commissioners and never let the brutal Memphis heat interfere with a sweaty good time.
For our amusement there was a tetherball pole (a teen boy with one arm slaughtered all competition at this game), a box hockey box where ferocious matches were held, volleyball, tennis, softball, track, touch football, etc. Also there was a sandbox that contained enough cat doo to keep most of us clear of it.
After breakfast, I usually walked or rode my bicycle one block north of Boyle Avenue to the Bethel Grove playground where the fun would begin.
One morning during the 1965-66 school year as I dismounted from my bicycle a playmate came up to me and said, “Did you hear what happened yesterday?”
“No,” I replied, “what happened?”
“A little nigger boy rode his bicycle over here and got off to play in the sandbox. The old man across the street over there saw the little nigger boy playing and came over and cussed the boy out and told him to get back to Niggertown where he belonged.”
About midway into the discussion our park commissioner, who I remember was named Mike Miles, overheard the tail-end of the conversation and asked us to repeat exactly what happened. My playmate obliged with a full and colorful description.
“He can’t do that,” Miles angrily told us regarding the old man’s behavior. “He has no right whatsoever to tell anyone, black or white, that they can’t play on this playground. This playground is open to everyone no matter who they are. I’m going to have a word with him.”
He marched straight across the street and knocked firmly on the old man’s door. We looked on aghast because we knew what a mean old troll this man was. He was the type who would holler at children to “get off my grass.” We were all scared to death of him.
The old man peered out his door at the handsome young man dressed in his all-white starched uniform. We couldn’t hear exactly what was being said but judging from the body language Mike Miles was setting the old man straight and the old man, looking guilty as hell, nodded in agreement apparently understanding he was in the wrong and had better not do it again.
Mike Miles strode back across the street, standing tall, with an air of righteousness in his step.
As he passed us by he said, “Well, I told that son of a gun.”
We never saw that black kid again.