Pace Network Home Page
email royj(AT)webster.edu (Replace the (AT) with @)

See related article "Richard Pace and the First Blacks"

A White Man's Journey through Black History

by Roy Johnson

I am white, born in 1933, and have had an interest in race relations and African-American history since my college days at Drury College (Springfield, MO) in the early 1950s when I joined in interracial discussions sponsored by the Student Christian Association and learned of the horrible racial conditions that existed. Blacks could not attend Drury, but we met with blacks from local churches.

My own personal background had already brought me in contact with some important Missouri African American history. I lived between Neosho and Granby in southwest Missouri, near George Washington Carver's birthplace. When Dr. Carver was a boy in Neosho, he lived with a lady known as Aunt Mariah Watkins. In the books on Dr. Carver, the story is told of how Aunt Maria, a popular local midwife, delivered triplets to "a poor white family", and how that was quite a sensation in that area. They were the first triplets born in Newton County. Those babies were my father's siblings, Bessie, Jessie, and Lessie Johnson. The last of them died a few years ago. Our family history contains the story of that delivery and some anecdotes about Aunt Maria, provided by one of my aunts who was a girl at the time. One interesting practice that she had was to put an axe under the bed to "cut the pain" during delivery of "her" children. Many of the residents of Neosho, Missouri, were "Aunt Mariah's children."

How I wish I knew more about some of the black folk that I remember! I was raised in a relatively (emphasis on the relatively) unprejudiced environment. My father worked with blacks on the railroad and had lots of black friends. He and a black man were a spike-driving team, and when one holds the spike and the other swings the hammer (they switched off), there has to be trust. Croquet played on a sand court was popular in our area among blacks and some whites, and my father built one of the best courts in the area on our farm. Every Sunday afternoon, our yard was full of blacks and a few whites playing croquet.

Here are some of the African-Americans that I remember:

There was "Uncle Green" Emory, our neighbor on the next farm, a former slave who accompanied his white master as a drummer boy in the Confederate army when he was 13 years old. (He is probably one of the "black confederate soldiers" which the apologists for the southern cause list on their web sites.) He died when I was about five or six, but I remember him driving up in our driveway in his Model T Ford, sometimes with his wife and daughter, "Birdie". His dignified appearance with his deep black skin and snow white hair made quite an impression on this little white boy. His favorite saying: "There's no such thing as a "civil" war." Today, I can hardly believe my life touched the life of a former slave. I wish there were some way to learn more about him. What a story that would make!

There was Calvin "Cal" Jefferson, owner of a livery stable in Granby in the early part of the century, living on a small farm when I knew him. Cal was a boyhood playmate of George Washington Carver and remained a close friend. Cal's livery stable had been the main employer for the small black community of Granby.

Cal was also a superb musician, especially on the mandolin. My mother played piano for the silent movies in the 1920s and she said he would sometimes come into the movie theater with his mandolin, sit in the front row, and accompany her. When I wanted to learn the mandolin, my father took me to visit Cal, and he showed me how to hold it. He was very advanced in years and could no longer play, so unfortunately I never heard him.

After Cal Jefferson died, his widow moved from the farm back into Granby. A short time after she moved into town, one of the Baptist ladies who knew her realized she had no place to worship (there was formerly a black church in Granby) and went and got her and brought her to church. By that time, she was the only black person in the town, and she attended our otherwise all white Southern Baptist church and sat down front with the other ladies. (Most of the men sat together in the "Amen corner"). I never heard anyone object. Her children and their families sometimes visited and also attended. This was in the 1940s. I didn't realize how unusual that was until I went away to college. I knew there were separate black churches but I just assumed a black person who was traveling and wanted to worship would be welcomed in most white churches outside the "deep south". Boy, was I wrong, as I found out later.

The few black residents (and a lot of whites as well) had left Granby seeking better economic opportunities by the time I was in school, but older residents have told me stories. Former Granby resident Harry Thomlinson (at this time living in Fairview) told me some tales about Granby blacks and whites, including a tale of Cal Jefferson.  Harry told me that he grew up playing baseball with both blacks and whites in Granby, and that after a game, they would pile into Gray's Drug Store for ten cent hamburgers and five cent cokes, sitting at the counter or in a booth with no hint of segregation.  Granby was an unusual place; that wouldn't happen everywhere. But back to his story about Cal.

One day Harry and some other boys "played hooky" from school and went down to the creek.  Cal lived on a hill above the creek and had a boat tied to a tree in the creek. The boys took the boat out into the creek.  It was a chilly day, and they decided to build a fire in the boat, thinking that the water under the boat would keep the fire from burning through.  Of course the fire burned through and the boys were soaked.

When the wet boys got home, of course they had to tell their story. Their parents got together and took them to Cal's house and made them apologize and offer to pay for the boat, out of their allowances or working in his stables, or whatever conditions Cal set. Harry quotes Cal as saying, "Well, I was powerful upset with you boys, but the boat won't be hard to fix." He accepted their apology and did not ask payment.

I find this incident unusual for the time. In many locales, the parents would have laughed. Granby wasn't perfect, but it wasn't Selma, Alabama.

I always wondered why so many black folks came to the movies in Granby in the 1940s. Later, I learned that it was the only non-segregated movie theater in Southwest Missouri. Unfortunately they had to bear with the terrible stereotypes of blacks in the movies of that era, including one of their own race, "Step'N Fetchit", with his horrible parody of black behavior. Too bad there weren't more black actors like Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, who could bring dignity even to his role as butler to the child star Shirley Temple. (However, I later learned that blacks also laughed at Step'N Fetchit; they recognized that his act as a "stupid n......" was what was called "putting on the white man"; acting as if he was too dumb to accomplish a task until the white man would give up and say, "Oh, well, I'll just do it myself."

It was a Granby native, Richard Pilant, who started pushing for a national monument to Dr. Carver some time in the 1930s and who kept pestering the politicians until the time was ripe (with Missourian Harry Truman as president) and got it done. The Carver monument is the only national monument to a black person. The Pilant-Carver story belongs in the annals of Missouri black history. Pilant was considered the town "odd ball" with his thick glasses and bookish ways, and had been the butt of jokes since his childhood, which may have given him a sympathetic feeling toward others who were persecuted.

There were other names as well -- Bill Marshall, a ball player whom some said was of major league quality had he been white -- Sterling Gage of Neosho, whose daughter was elected chairman of the Neosho Chamber of Commerce some time about the 1970s -- and a host of others whose names I do not remember.

Of course the racial situation was far from ideal. Mrs. Jefferson attended our church but had there been more blacks, the Baptists would have encouraged them to form their own church (with a "love offering" collection to help them).  I was taught the doctrine of "separate but equal" and there were "rules" that were followed in black-white behavior.  Our vocabulary was replete with racist terminology, which we used without even thinking that we were insulting our black friends--terms such as "nigger rich" and "niggertoes" (Brazil nuts).  I was taken aback recently when I found an essay that I wrote at age 14 referring to "niggerheads" (the only name I had ever heard for Black-Eyed Susans).  It was not so much that as a 14 year old I used the term I had been taught, but what was appalling was the failure of my teacher to flag or correct the term.   

But I was also taught to respect people as people, no matter what the race.  My parents insisted that i respect my elders, whether black or white, and there was to be no "first-naming" of black adults when I was a child--they were Mr. or Mrs. so-and-so, and my mother emphasized that blacks were just as good as whites and there should be no condescension.  And the opportunities that I had to know African-Americans as humans, rather than as stereotypes, helped me in later years to rid myself of much of the racism that our society implanted in all of us.

As I stated, it was when I left my home to attend Drury College in Springfield, Missouri that I first became active in race relations projects. The discussions that we had with local blacks brought home to me the full scale of discrimination. Springfield was the scene of riots and lynchings in the early 20th century and the legacy remained. I was appalled at what I learned. I have been involved in some type of inter-racial activity throughout most of my life since then.

My first teaching job (1955-56) was at the small town of Strafford, Missouri,  near Springfield. I taught Speech, History, and Civics. The 1954 Supreme Court desegregation decision was recent, and I introduced it as a topic for the public discussion unit in my speech class. I suggested to the class that we needed black participation so I contacted one of the black ministers that I had met in our Drury discussions. He and his congregation were eager to participate. The superintendent thought it was an excellent idea and asked if the minister would address the student body. My speech class organized the assembly and made the introduction. It may have been the first time the young people of that little town had ever heard an articulate, intelligent black man speak.

I went into the army, returned, and taught for three years in Valparaiso, Indiana, an all white town. Our church had its annual "race relations Sunday" and invited a black minister and choir from neighboring Gary. The minister invited us to attend his church at any time.

My wife was visiting her parents in Missouri, and I got up the next Sunday morning and decided to take him up on his offer. I drove to Gary and attended the worship service.

You would have thought I was the President of the United States. Everyone in the congregation had to shake my hand and thank me for coming. The minister said, "we've been coming to your 'race relations Sundays' for years now, and we have always invited your congregation to come to our church. You are the first one to ever darken our door." What a sad commentary on those times! I was humbled that such a simple gesture on my part met with this kind of reaction. This was in the early 1960s.

My wife and I wanted to move a little closer to home (and away from the snow and ice) so I found a teaching job in Ladue, Missouri, a suburb of St. Louis. This wealthy all white school had at first only a handful of blacks, children of professionals who were indistinguishable from the whites in their culture and outlook. Then gradually a middle class area of the district began to fill up with blacks migrating out from the central city, and the desegregation program brought blacks from the inner city. A young black teacher formed a "Black Image" club to promote black awareness. It was not advertised as an all black club but only a few whites joined. I attended some of their meetings and the sponsor asked me if I would co-sponsor the club. I told him I would if the students wanted me and asked for a secret ballot vote. It was unanimous and I became the co-sponsor. We sponsored school assemblies with black drama and dance groups. Miss Julia Davis, a leader in St. Louis Black History often led discussions or spoke. (She lived to be over 100 and was a feisty no-nonsense lady until her death.)

I was assigned to teach World History, not American History. I became aware of how incorrect our understanding of "Jungle Africa" actually was. I found books on the ancient civilizations which amazed me-Kush, ancient Ghana, Mali, Songhai-black civilizations more advanced than Europe in that day. When our curriculum was revised, I asked for and got the assignment to write the African History unit. I created filmstrips and visuals and wrote many of the materials myself. After I retired, I heard that they were still using my materials many years later. I believe this is an important part of eradicating prejudice. It helps us to understand that these rich black civilizations made important contributions to American culture.

In 1971 there came a "trial by fire" for me. I lived in an integrated area of south Kirkwood, another St. Louis suburb. Nearby was an area called Meacham Park, an all black unincorporated area between three municipalities, none of which was eager to take them in. There were no sewers and in some cases no indoor plumbing. A nearby shopping center caused runoff of rain water that sometimes surrounded some of the houses, and the people were powerless to do anything about it. Trash haulers pulled into the area and dumped trash on the vacant lots. No one could stop them, and the blacks were then blamed for not keeping the area up. The area was isolated by highways and roads with only a few entrances. The residents were bitter against the outside world-whites especially, but other blacks also. I didn't know this at the time and didn't know what I was getting into when I was asked to participate in a federally funded black pride project to include blacks from Meacham Park, Webster Groves, and Kirkwood.

My postman, Bill Jones, lived in the Meacham Park area and was a leader in improvement projects. We chatted and he became aware of my black culture activities. When the federal government sponsored a project in the area to promote black pride, he recommended me for a summer position. I was the only applicant with a degree in history and a track record in Black History, so I was made head of the Black History department.

I was assigned four very militant young assistants from the Meacham Park area, who took one look at me and said "We ain't working with no white dude!" I had no means of power or control over them. They took off on their own version of "black history", which consisted mainly of tirades against the white world and the "when the revolution comes" type of talk that was popular in that radical age. The Meacham Park attitudes toward whites contrasted sharply with the attitudes of my black neighbors, with whom my wife and I had formed some close friendships. The young black children who were my neighbors asked me if I couldn't stop the radicals with their hate messages, but it seemed as if there wasn't much I could do; I could not hire and fire.. Things were tough in other ways too. Some days were okay but on other days the bitterness that had built up against the white world came bubbling over and it was "hate whitey" day. Unfortunately, I the only "whitey" around and much of the animosity was directed toward me. Or they might forget I was white and vent their hostility as if I wasn't there. It was the first time I had ever heard the true depths of black anger. I could understand the reasons, but it was still emotionally wrenching for me. I was on the receiving end of prejudice for the first time, and it didn't feel good at all.

However, there were small victories, and they began to add up. One little boy of about ten came up to me one day and said, "Charlie says all whites hate blacks. If that's so, why are you here?" I said, "I'm here because I care about you."

"That's what I thought," he said and ambled off. There were other instances of this type, and it was the younger children of Meacham Park who were the first to accept me for myself and forget about my white face.

What a learning experience that was for me! I became aware for the first time of how racism had created deep divisions not just among blacks and whites, but also within the black community. When I mentioned to one of my black Ladue students that I was working in Meacham park for the summer, he said, "Mr. Johnson, you better stay out of Meacham Park. There's some mean niggers there." I was so taken aback that I didn't know what to say. As I began work with the program, I found that the director, Linda Green, was an "outsider," from East St. Louis, and there was bitterness against her (they called her "black bourgeois"). At one point I was ready to quit, thinking I was not accomplishing anything. My radical assistants who had rejected everything I wanted to do astounded me. "If you quit, we're quitting too. Linda will just get some Uncle Tom in here to do your job. At least you're from this area." One of them said, "I don't like most white people, but you're okay." So I was making progress.

I also found that young blacks were just as brainwashed about the African past as whites, and I encountered resistance in teaching about Africa. It was and is my belief that we need to know and appreciate our heritage as a part of really knowing who we are. A boy of about ten said "I hate Africans."  This is tragic.  How can you hate your ancestors without hating yourself a little? If a young black child believes his ancestors were savages, what does that do to his concept of himself? They didn't want to hear about Africa.

Finally, I hit on an idea. I play and sing country-western music. So I went home and wrote some songs about African kings and civilizations. The next day, I took my guitar and sang them. I wondered how they would react. This was not the type of music they liked or sang, either in their secular music or in their churches.

I got a surprise. They went for it. They were really impressed that a white man would write songs about their ancestors. The songs had good rhythm and they would sing along on the chorus-especially the one about "Great King Kashta from the Kingdom of Kush", in which the refrain went "He was black, he was black, and he wouldn't step back." Maybe it helped some of them to have confidence that they, too, did not need to step back.

The songs were not necessarily good, but I am willing to bet that they are the only country songs in the world with black African kingdoms as their subject. After I sang the songs, they were willing to listen to stories about the great African kingdoms. We sang the songs together in the performance at the end of the program.

Even so, the program seemed to have so many problems that I wondered if it was worthwhile. Then, years later, a young black woman came up to me and asked if I remembered her. I did not; she had changed from the girl of twelve or so who was in the program. She was a schoolteacher. I asked her if the program had any lasting effect. "Yes, it did," she said, "You made a difference."

It was a gut-wrenching experience for me, but I wouldn't want to have missed it-not for the world.

I am now semi-retired, teaching computer applications part time at Webster University in Webster Groves. I have some involvement still in inter-racial groups through the Peacemakers, a local organization promoting peace at home through racial harmony. We hold seminars and visit one another's churches.  It's not a big project but just one of the on-going things we need to keep doing.

Incidentally, Webster University with its 100 campuses awards more Master's degrees to African Americans than any college or university in the United States.  That fact makes me proud to teach at Webster.

When I see inter-racial couples with no one giving so much as a second glance, and young black students moving forward with confidence that a good job awaits them if they do well in school, I am gratified at how far we have come.

But when I hear racial remarks and terms like "nigger rich" still being used and note the contrasting attitudes of blacks and whites in the OJ Simpson trial, I realize how far we have yet to go.

--------------------------

A post script:  My take on the teaching of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn in the schools: --  a stand that may surprise you

Anyone familiar with Mark Twain's life and work knows that he was not a racist.  He was simply holding a mirror up to a racist society and reflecting back the ugliness that he saw there.  Most thoughtful African-Americans are aware of this.  Nonetheless, some oppose the mandatory study of this book in high school classrooms.

While I was involved in the summer project in the Meacham Park community, one of my assistants came up with the idea of dramatizing the trial of Dred Scott.  There was not a lot of time for rehearsal, but we mustered our facts as well as we could, and it was impromptu.  I was asked to take the role of Dred Scott's master.

I played the role as best I could, portraying the master as a man who believed himself to be benevolent toward his slaves and was incredulous that Scott should sue.  I used the vocabulary of the time, referring to slaves as "niggers" as I felt Scott's master would do.

After the "trial", the young students filed out silently, some of them eyeing me a bit suspiciously and obviously drawing a bit away.  It was obvious they were stung by my words even though I was acting in a play. The director of the project told me later that I "should have used another word."

It took me awhile to figure out why.  The scars of slavery and segregation have cut so deeply into the psyche of African Americans, particularly those who have faced as much white discrimination as the citizens of Meacham Park had, that the very sound of the "n" word coming from a white mouth even in role playing is like a knife scraping a scab on a wound.

An article in the Post Dispatch by black writer Sylvester Brown sums it up well: "When I hear ugly words from black rappers and other blacks, it offends me but does not frighten me. It makes a difference whose mouth the ugly words are coming out of.  It just does."

Therefore, I do not believe Twain's Huckleberry Finn should be read aloud or made mandatory in most mixed race classrooms, especially with white teachers.  Without some trained and sensitive guidance, high school age students are not mature enough to see Twain's deeper meanings, and unless a white teacher had been through what I went through that summer or had other qualifying background, it would be a very difficult assignment. An exceptional teacher might be able to carry it off.  An average teacher probably would not.

However, I do believe students should be introduced to the book and encouraged to read it after a thorough introduction explaining what Twain was trying to do and what his message was.  The book is quite subtle, and when I read it as a youngster, I did not see its real meaning at all.  It has to be brought out that the reader is seeing the world through the eyes of Huck, not those of Mark Twain.  Huck starts out believing the stereotypes that he has been taught and of course he uses the vocabulary of his day in referring to blacks. But little by little, on a raft in the middle of the Mississippi, he begins to see Jim as a human being.  

The ending shows Twain's true meaning.  Huck has been taught, and truly believes, that if he allows Jim to escape to freedom (as he plans to do) in nearby Illinois, he will burn in Hell for eternity.  So he does his duty and writes a letter turning Jim in.

Then he tears the letter up and decides that he will just burn in Hell rather than betray his friend.  One has to be brought up (as I was) in a fundamentalist faith that really believes in those eternal fires of Hell to appreciate the depth of that sacrifice.

With that background, students can then be given some excerpts from the book and can discuss their meaning.  They can then be encouraged to read the book and write a book report.  But I do not believe they should be required to do so.  From the experience that I had that summer, for some students the experience only scrape the scab off the wounds of racism that still have not healed in our society.  The choice should be theirs.

Your comments invited.

Roy Johnson royj(AT)webster.edu

(The email address has been edited to avoid spam. Obviously you must replace (AT) with @ before sending.