The Maturation of the Mouse
Until I was about 42 years old I wondered how it had come about that I had come to feel nothing like the prejudices I should have been feeling. Reared in the deep south of share-cropper lineage, I had ought to have grown up not only saying things like “had ought to have” but also looking down on black people as inferior beings with whom white people should have no truck. But I didn’t. For some reason – or reasons – I grew up trusting that the differences among the peoples of the earth had more to do with the way they were raised than with the accidents of their birth. It seemed I had just always believed that racial differences didn’t much matter.
But I guess when I reached 42 something must have happened that led me to wonder how I had gotten that way. It just didn’t seem “right” – although it was certainly right – for a southern boy to believe as I did. So I began to wonder.
Well, my wondering turned up a lot of reasons. I wrote of one of them in my blog of May 22. I ‘lowed as how the incident described in that piece explained how I became color blind. Maybe I misspoke myself there. The change may very well have taken place long before, and nowhere near Crawford Park. I finally came to understand that it had a lot to do with my father, a railroad engineer who never learned to drive an automobile. His best friends were railroad firemen, and the firemen were all black men. You see, the railroad had an unwritten policy that no negro would ever be promoted to engineer, and when that fact was coupled to the company’s seniority rules, it was bound to happen that the vast majority of the firemen would be black.
One of those firemen, Jerry Shepherd, who could drive a car, always came by to pick up my dad when they were scheduled for the same run, and it had become the custom that dad would invite Jerry – who we were brought up to call Mr. Shepherd – for a cup of coffee or even breakfast, if it was that time of day. That certainly must have had a liberating effect on the child that I was. But then, why didn’t it also affect my brother who remained a “good southern boy” all his life? I really don’t know the answer, not even now.
Later, when I was 19 years old, another incident occurred that I am convinced finally sealed the matter. I was then a railroad employee myself, working in the clerk’s “extra board,” which meant that I would work the vacation time or other off-time for the regular employees. This particular day – a Sunday morning – I was working as the “call boy,” a job with no duties other than to go to the rooming houses where the away-from-home railroaders slept and wake them up for their run. During the daylight hours the job was almost a no-job, since most of the men would be awake and not need the services of the call boy. So, I was sitting around the depot, earning my wages the hard way – doing nothing. But that turned out OK on this particular day, because it happened that the U.S. Congressman from our district, Mr. Frank Boykin, wandered down to the depot that morning himself and sat down on the bench beside me and told the true story I’m about to tell you. As I say, that story closed the jar lid on my growing up to be what I am as regards the “race issue.”
These were Mr. Boykin’s words:
An old black man came in one day to the court house up in Jackson, in Washington County. Said he wanted to register to vote. That would have been a first, you understand. No n_____ had ever voted in Washington County.
The registrar knew what to do. He proceeded to ask the old man a series of questions that had been put together just for the purpose of disqualifying n_____s from voting. “Have you ever had trouble with the law?” The old man answered, “Yessuh, once I happened to park the boss man’s horse an’ wagon two minutes longer than I wuz s’posed to … over at the feed store.” The registrar asked: “And that’s all? You never had any real trouble with the law?” “Yessuh,” the old man answered. “I’se purty much stayed to myself all these years.”
The registrar, even though a product of his times, was a decent man, so he realized that question had failed in its mission. He proceeded to ask four or five more questions, all of which the old black man answered to the satisfaction of the registrar. Finally came the question that had never failed. “Here’s your last question. What is a writ of certiorari” The old man, knowing he had met his match, slowly rose from the chair, put on his hat an started shuffling toward the door. But then, sadly shaking his head, he made this answer: “I guess, cap’n, tha’s a writ they done made up to stop a pore ole n___ah from votin’ in Washington County.”
At that point Mr. Boykin paused, like a good story teller, shook his head in admiration, and then, in a voice filled with pride, finished the story: “And that, young feller, is how they came to register the first black who ever voted in Washington County.
On that Sunday morning the story had certainly come across as a form of southern humor, but years later, when I came to reflect on the problem of how I came to be an “abolitionist” in Alabama, I remembered something else that had happened to me, or in me, as the story ended. I remembered that I had not only laughed but had also felt something like prideful hope, a feeling that seemed to be telling me more about the mindset of the registrar than of the old black man. Oh, for sure, the old man had his wits about him, and maybe he was permitted to vote only because he had entertained the registrar. But … well, maybe it was Mr. Boykin’s way of telling the story. I’m sure he told it as a way to make me laugh, but there was a look in his eye that spoke of a deeper, more enduring purpose. Mr. Boykin knew that he was telling me a story of how the injustices of the south began to unravel. He knew he was talking about a past that had to change, and even though he could never have been reelected if he had spoken aloud the words I saw in his eyes, his message was clear. “It’s wrong, boy. The way we have treated negroes has always been wrong.”
I cannot be sure of the role Frank Boykin’s story played in the stage play that has been my life, but I like to think it contributed a moral to the plot. Otherwise, it would be just another funny story. As it has turned out, now that I am closer to the curtain than I was when the “plot began to thicken,” it seems to me that … well, let me put it this way … I may not be all that I ought to be, but I like the part of me that I learned from the likes of my dad, and Jerry Shepherd, and Frank Boykin, and … yes … from that old man, the first negro who was registered to vote in Washington County Alabama. Yes, I like that part of me.
But I guess when I reached 42 something must have happened that led me to wonder how I had gotten that way. It just didn’t seem “right” – although it was certainly right – for a southern boy to believe as I did. So I began to wonder.
Well, my wondering turned up a lot of reasons. I wrote of one of them in my blog of May 22. I ‘lowed as how the incident described in that piece explained how I became color blind. Maybe I misspoke myself there. The change may very well have taken place long before, and nowhere near Crawford Park. I finally came to understand that it had a lot to do with my father, a railroad engineer who never learned to drive an automobile. His best friends were railroad firemen, and the firemen were all black men. You see, the railroad had an unwritten policy that no negro would ever be promoted to engineer, and when that fact was coupled to the company’s seniority rules, it was bound to happen that the vast majority of the firemen would be black.
One of those firemen, Jerry Shepherd, who could drive a car, always came by to pick up my dad when they were scheduled for the same run, and it had become the custom that dad would invite Jerry – who we were brought up to call Mr. Shepherd – for a cup of coffee or even breakfast, if it was that time of day. That certainly must have had a liberating effect on the child that I was. But then, why didn’t it also affect my brother who remained a “good southern boy” all his life? I really don’t know the answer, not even now.
Later, when I was 19 years old, another incident occurred that I am convinced finally sealed the matter. I was then a railroad employee myself, working in the clerk’s “extra board,” which meant that I would work the vacation time or other off-time for the regular employees. This particular day – a Sunday morning – I was working as the “call boy,” a job with no duties other than to go to the rooming houses where the away-from-home railroaders slept and wake them up for their run. During the daylight hours the job was almost a no-job, since most of the men would be awake and not need the services of the call boy. So, I was sitting around the depot, earning my wages the hard way – doing nothing. But that turned out OK on this particular day, because it happened that the U.S. Congressman from our district, Mr. Frank Boykin, wandered down to the depot that morning himself and sat down on the bench beside me and told the true story I’m about to tell you. As I say, that story closed the jar lid on my growing up to be what I am as regards the “race issue.”
These were Mr. Boykin’s words:
An old black man came in one day to the court house up in Jackson, in Washington County. Said he wanted to register to vote. That would have been a first, you understand. No n_____ had ever voted in Washington County.
The registrar knew what to do. He proceeded to ask the old man a series of questions that had been put together just for the purpose of disqualifying n_____s from voting. “Have you ever had trouble with the law?” The old man answered, “Yessuh, once I happened to park the boss man’s horse an’ wagon two minutes longer than I wuz s’posed to … over at the feed store.” The registrar asked: “And that’s all? You never had any real trouble with the law?” “Yessuh,” the old man answered. “I’se purty much stayed to myself all these years.”
The registrar, even though a product of his times, was a decent man, so he realized that question had failed in its mission. He proceeded to ask four or five more questions, all of which the old black man answered to the satisfaction of the registrar. Finally came the question that had never failed. “Here’s your last question. What is a writ of certiorari” The old man, knowing he had met his match, slowly rose from the chair, put on his hat an started shuffling toward the door. But then, sadly shaking his head, he made this answer: “I guess, cap’n, tha’s a writ they done made up to stop a pore ole n___ah from votin’ in Washington County.”
At that point Mr. Boykin paused, like a good story teller, shook his head in admiration, and then, in a voice filled with pride, finished the story: “And that, young feller, is how they came to register the first black who ever voted in Washington County.
On that Sunday morning the story had certainly come across as a form of southern humor, but years later, when I came to reflect on the problem of how I came to be an “abolitionist” in Alabama, I remembered something else that had happened to me, or in me, as the story ended. I remembered that I had not only laughed but had also felt something like prideful hope, a feeling that seemed to be telling me more about the mindset of the registrar than of the old black man. Oh, for sure, the old man had his wits about him, and maybe he was permitted to vote only because he had entertained the registrar. But … well, maybe it was Mr. Boykin’s way of telling the story. I’m sure he told it as a way to make me laugh, but there was a look in his eye that spoke of a deeper, more enduring purpose. Mr. Boykin knew that he was telling me a story of how the injustices of the south began to unravel. He knew he was talking about a past that had to change, and even though he could never have been reelected if he had spoken aloud the words I saw in his eyes, his message was clear. “It’s wrong, boy. The way we have treated negroes has always been wrong.”
I cannot be sure of the role Frank Boykin’s story played in the stage play that has been my life, but I like to think it contributed a moral to the plot. Otherwise, it would be just another funny story. As it has turned out, now that I am closer to the curtain than I was when the “plot began to thicken,” it seems to me that … well, let me put it this way … I may not be all that I ought to be, but I like the part of me that I learned from the likes of my dad, and Jerry Shepherd, and Frank Boykin, and … yes … from that old man, the first negro who was registered to vote in Washington County Alabama. Yes, I like that part of me.
posted by Benedict S. at 9:50 AM
8 Comments:
Stories like this could make a real book. Ever thought of that?
Yes, think about it a lot ... but I'm too busy wasting my time on "weightier" matters.
Mouse, great point, Miss FF is right on again, you are a good story-teller, your stories are like great paintings, makes one want to jump in and live the part with you. You bring your stories to life..
I find it strange that one would compliment himself merely for doing what is right.Is the world so jaded that we should stand up and applaud those who do what they ought?
It is true that the environment outside your immediate family was corrupt, but a corrupt environment is no excuse for embracing corruption.For that matter, can you really say with all honesty that you have lived past 42 and you do not harbor any prejudices? Maybe you don't, in which case I will applaud you myself; or maybe you do, in which case I wonder how you find a way to rationalize your particular prejudice.
Then again, it is possible that I have misunderstood the intent of your essay.Perhaps your intent was to compliment your father for living as he ought in the midst of a corrupt society, the fact that he passed this attitude down to you is noble indeed, his legacy points to the reality of how actions really do speak louder than words.
Good points, Thierry, especially the one about complimenting oneself for doing the right thing. I thought that in writing the piece I was honestly trying to explain to myself how I got this way, but as you imply, and as common sense suggests, self-analysis through the smokescreen of self love is practically impossible. Maybe that's one of the things we have lost in a world that has become more and more populated by impersonal "acquaintances" rather than friends. There're fewer people we know and trust who can tell us what we seem to be to other people. Of course, our friends' opinions may also be wrong, but at least they would create a dialogue of contrasting views.
I dunno. Just sounding off there.
The internet does provide a level of anonymity that, by protecting the speakers, provides the opportunity for something like an honest exchange of views. But the net, as an exchange of ideas, suffers from two (and maybe more) faults. One, we never really do get to know people if all we are exposed to is what they put in writing, and two, anonymity also breeds the temptation to be false, even to ourselves. So maybe we still need the closeness of "the good old days," friends we can speak the truth to (the truth as we see it) and who speak the truth to us.
Thanks for your thoughts.
Perhaps it is not as much what is said but how what is said.We live in a world where perception has taken dominion over intent, and style has taken dominion over substance. Even the second clause of the sentence I just wrote was unneccesary if my goal was merely to communicate my feelings. It was thrown in there for balance, to flush the sentence out, to make it look and sound good. Style over substance, maybe that is the great downfall of American culture; perhaps we prefer the triffling over the weightier matters of life.
As to my points , after much introspection I think that perhaps I was aiming for that raw nerve that I struck.There may have been some substance to what I said, but for the most part those points would have been better off left unsaid. For in reality it does take a great deal of grace to do what is right when everyone else is doing what is wrong , it does take a great deal of courage to do what is right when corruption is all around you even when doing what is right means simply treating one another with respect and dignity.Take the school yard bully as an example, it is hard to stand up against him, but all it takes is one person to do just that and his house of cards comes tumbling down and his power to do harm is taken away from him.There have been studies that have shown that if someone is in distress among a crowd of individuals until and unless one person steps forward to help everyone in that crowd will stand apart leaving the victim to fend for himself; but once that one person steps forward the crowd of individuals becomes a group bent on offering assistance. So I suppose that perhaps the only way we have come even so far as we have come, and we still have a long way to go in race relations, is by men like your father and you having the courage to do what you ought. And for doing what you ought Monsieur Mouse, you do indeed deserve to be commended.
As for the faults of the internet, I think chief among them is that individuals tend to
over-personalize the issues they are discussing. What is a disagreement often becomes a personal attack, and the writer's humanity becomes obscured behind what he is writing. In real life these issues are not continually being hashed and rehashed, in real life individuals(out of necessity) find a way to agree to disagree.In real life people are seen as fathers, and daughters, and brothers, and mothers. They are seen as men and women struggling to survive, doing what they can to make the world a better place, treating others with kindness and dignity despite thier differences.I have come to the conclusion that it is not so much that the internet emboldens individuals to say what is really on thier minds as it devalues the writer's worth down from human being to a position or an idea.
Perhaps some choose to be anonymous because they believe that it is the best way to be heard
since any perception of who is speaking is hidden in anonymity.
Another point, M. Beauchamp, is that people who grew up in the Southern U.S. at the time that the souris and I did, have a difficult time being understood by our peers who did not have that upbringing. It was so different that it is not difficult even to remember, much less explain. Our black friends were kept at a distance; the adults were complicit; and we were on our own to sort it all out.
I have trouble believing that Congressman Boykin, not being known to be sensitive to the problems of the black community, actually meant the story in the way that the mouse took it. But something in the boy refused to accept it any other way, and he grew up ready to accept the change that came, where others resisted it. I would say his father's relationship was the more valid influence. I never heard a black man called "Mr." until I moved to New York City in 1962.
Oops. In the newspaper business I learned to be careful of using the word "now" because it too often appears in the paper with the typo of a "t" for the "w" -- this happened in my previous comment.
"It is NOW difficult to remember" -- not "NOT difficult to remember."
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