Me and Emmett Till
and others affecting life of David L Lewis -- and you
Emmett Louis Till was 14 year old boy abducted, tortured, and lynched in Mississippi in after being accused of offending a white woman. If you never heard of this him, stop now and look him up. His highly publicized open casket funeral was called the ‘spark’ of a fire that changed world in which you now live.
Emmett Till’s mother said he simply did not understand a world in which someone could be hated because of skin color or ancestry, and naive about being judged by what people are and not by who they are. Though we born with white skin will never completely know what it means to live in black skin, do think I can appreciate the naivete Emmett’s mother described.
My ignorance about such things probably began about age six. I have a very vivid memory of first person encountered with black skin. He was driving a horse-draw wagon down our alley (yes, I’m that old). Asked my mother about his skin color. She explained God had made some people black, some red, some yellow, and some white. God just chose to give him black skin, and he was otherwise no different from me. When you’re six years old you take your mother’s word for stuff, it becomes part of the gravitational pull of childhood and we go on with life.
If my parents held any prejudice based on race, creed, or gender (there were only two sexes back then), I am to this day unaware of what those prejudices may have been. If they had, I would have certainly picked them up and adopted any worldview they advocated. This is why I simply did not appreciate the importance of the Civil Rights Movement which came to the forefront after death of Emmett Till; I had neither experience with hating nor with being hated because of my race.
Looking back these 70+ years do regret I did nothing significant to help make our world the better place it became. Better because of those who were willing to lay down their lives to make it so.
My moment of what British called “doing my bit” came in 1960. I was restaurant's ‘fountain boy’. These were the days when Civil Rights Movement was gaining momentum. A Public Accommodations Law had passed which decreed restaurants could not discriminate in either hiring or serving. And our restaurant got it’s one and only sit-in.
The couple who came in were well-dressed, articulate and polite. As the sign said to do, they seated themselves. None of the waitresses were willing to be the first to waitress them. I picked up a menu, and treated them the way a good waiter does who hopes to get a good tip from customers who are well-dressed, articulate and polite. Neither they nor I were disappointed by the outcome.
Nothing traumatic happened. No one got arrested. Civil people were treated in a civil manner. The manager shook the man’s hand, thanked them for coming and hoped they would soon return. Only one thing changed -- waiting on customers because of race was never again an issue at that restaurant. The picketers went up the street.
Suppose I could be content with having done my bit. But, I only did what civil people do. To those who did so very much more, I apologize.
People sometimes say we have not gone far enough. Those folks are right, wherever we are going we’re not there yet. Do think, though, we of the post World War II generation – of all colors -- can be proud of what we left this generation on which to build. Certainly we handed them a better balanced world than when a black man drove a horse-drawn wagon down an alley.
Just saying in hopes some future generation won’t know what I was talking about,
theDaddy!
from ‘South Pacific’ by Rogers & Hammerstein
You've got to be taught to hate and fear,
You've got to be taught from year to year,
It's got to be drummed in your dear little ear
You've got to be carefully taught.
You've got to be taught to be afraid
Of people whose eyes are oddly made,
And people whose skin is a diff'rent shade,
You've got to be carefully taught.
You've got to be taught before it's too late,
Before you are six or seven or eight,
To hate all the people your relatives hate,
You've got to be carefully taught!
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