Being Stupid

I can never remember anyone calling me stupid. Nevertheless, I have to freely admit that in my youth I did a couple of things of which I am now ashamed. To set the stage for these confessions, let me explain the social background I came from. My people were what I have heard referred to as "the proud poor". A famous North Carolina newspaper man, author of the "Lost Colony" pageant, Paul Greene wrote about the blacks during Martin Luther King's fight for civil rights, "No matter how low a white man sinks, there is always someone who has to call him 'Mister' "

There were many black families in Lenoir County and the whole state for that matter, and I had regular contact with them. It never occurred to me to ask where, or if they went to school. I knew where the Negro churches were, and maybe there were grammar school classes held in those buildings. If any of them were literate, I was unaware of it. I might have been one of the first children to ride a school bus to a modern school. The black children were totally ignored.

In second grade we moved into a tobacco farming neighborhood 15 miles from a town. I walked by a house where a nice black family lived to catch the bus. A girl about my age was always in the yard, so in the afternoon I would stop and talk with her. Charity was the only child in the family. She invited me into her house to meet her parents where I was fascinated to see a large picture in an ornate gold frame of Charity and two other girls looking exactly like her, same pose. same dress, same height. Her mother must have seen the look of wonder on my face, because she explained that when Charity was born, she had given birth to two other girls at the same time who looked exactly like her. She named the other girls Faith and Hope. It was evident that they all still suffered from the loss of the girls who died shortly after their birth. Each year on Charity's birthday they took her to a photographer who took a picture in triplicate to replace the one they had looked at all year. I thought it was the sweetest thing. I was also impressed at how clean the house was. The parents slept on a bed flufffier than any we had, and it was covered with a satin bedspread instead of a homemade quilt like all of our beds.

I could not wait to tell my parents of the experience, and I looked forward to visiting with my new friend often, but I was quickly aprised that it would not be appropriate, nor allowed. I was not told to be rude, just say nothing, but hurry home. It wasn't that I didn't know of the taboo. Comments heard around all the whites left an image of dirty conditions, "don't care" attitudes, and as I grew older, immorality in addition to the slovenliness. I still think about Charity a lot.
We sometimes went into town to hire day workers when the cotton was ready to pick, but for tobacco harvesting we swapped work with other farmers in the neighborhood, going to a different farm each day of the week, except the day our tobacco was being harvested. That six or seven week period in July and August was the most intense labor I have ever been exposed to.

Uncle Jim occasionally had a black boy about twenty stay with them, sleeping outside under some sort of shelter. After the day's work was done he was sometimes allowed to come inside the house and play their piano. He played by ear, and we had never heard anyone better. Of course he always ate after the family had finished. Only the men talked with him. It would have been very improper for me to have entered the conversation.

One evening we finished early, and Uncle Jim asked if any of the men would like to go into town to a wild west movie. The women were not invited, and only three men were going, so he invited the black boy, asking him how soon he could be ready. He answered that he was ready. "Aren't you going to take a bath?", my uncle asked.

"I powders", he replied. Maybe that was the reason black people had a strong odor different from whites, I thought..

Later, in my teaching career, I had an occasion to visit a new modern red brick high school in the city where I taught. Passing the boy's locker room, it definitely was much different from the one in my school. I am sure we ate about the same diet (soul food is still my favorite). many years later when was teaching in a prestigious Chinese university, I was amused when a student asked me why westerners smell so bad. Later I learned Chinese have almost no body hair and no sweat glands. Deodorant was not even sold there, as unless they neglected to bathe for days on end, they had no problem, even with physical exercise.

The black students I have taught, some of whom became favorites of mine, have always been immaculate. My attitude changed when I moved from the south, but the two events I mentioned earlier occurred in high school and in my first job.

My cousin and I went on a bus trip. There was another cousin with us who was closer her age, so I ended up in a seat alone. A couple got on the bus to find that only two seats were left, the one beside me, and one directly behind me beside a black woman. The man asked if I would move back beside the black woman so he could sit with his wife. I refused, without any explanation. He needed no explanation. Everyone knew blacks had to sit in the back of the bus. I simply said "No", and let it go at that. He sailed into me with a lecture I will never forget. Of course all the white people were on my side. They were proud of me!

There were no black students at my college, but when I graduated and started work at Duke University, I was thrown into the 50/50 ratio of employees. Nearly all of the cooks I supervised were black, and as they had a reputation for having a pretty wild life, I had to watch them carefully when they were using machinery that could cut off an arm. Charles, a very handsome man, came in very early to juice two crates of fresh oranges, usually smelling like alcohol. I was always relieved to see him come in. If he didn't make it, the job fell to me.

The blacks had their own dining room, their own bathroom, all in the basement, and a lower quality in every way. Occasionally I had to go in there to retrieve a worker. The conversation was always base, and I was convinced they had a very loose morality. I was glad all food handlers were required to have blood drawn each month or so for a Wasserman test which detects venereal disease. Each time we had to fire several. Many were students from the Negro college in Durham. I was glad they did not use our bathrooms. One day I saw a very pretty black registered nurse, so clean and neat, using our bathroom. I asked her if she were aware that she was supposed to use the one downstairs. I shall never forget the look she gave me, not exactly superior, but certainly not submissive. She did not change her facial expression, just stared me in the eyes , threw her shoulders back and walked out.

Two years later I was teaching in Southern Pines High School when, at the end of the year the US Supreme Court favored Brown versus the Board of Education. The final faculty meeting was devoted to all the rumors about the local attitudes of the blacks. Nobody was afraid, but the blacks on the street were euphoric. They fully expected to be able to enroll in our school the next year. Our superintendent just laughed as he assured us that he had full jurisdiction, and if he had to put each home with blacks in a different zone, he could still tell them where they had to go to school. I left the next month, and never knew how he handled it, but all schools eventually were mixed, black and white evenly. With a costly busing system and many private schools sprang up all over the south.