Whenever I hear a politician say, "this is not a racist country," two things happen. First I wonder who they might be (usually a Republican) to make such a ridiculous statement. Either they never studied US history, or they have lived an incredibly sheltered life.
My first 20 years on this planet were spent in relatively all-white neighborhoods. I was aware of other nationalities through the Latino, Black, and Asian populations that surrounded my neighborhood. To be sure we had diverse groups in my school and community, but for the most part, everyone and everything was white. I idolized Black baseball players as a kid, but even then I had little knowledge of the context in which they played and the unwritten rules they were subject to.
In college I studied US history and because of the zeitgeist of the late 1960s, I ended up majoring in African American history. Reading books about the brutality of slavery and the autobiographies of enslaved people, I learned of a reality that never entered my jr. High and High School history books.
So there I was in 1969, fresh out of college with a newly minted history degree boarding a plane for Texas. Within a month of that landing, I had witnessed racism first hand. I bore witness to what some folks can never acknowledge.
During my training as a VISTA Volunteer, I was sent with two other trainees to Temple, Texas. We were to spend a weekend in this small town south of Austin, and file a report on what we noticed with respect to the poverty and the social structure. In a shabby hotel room that first night I found a small phone book. It was about half the size of normal phone books with both white page and yellow page sections. My partners and I used the phone book to determine which groups of people lived where so that we could determine what kinds of services were available, for whom. In the yellow pages, certain businesses were labeled (colored) so that the residents of Temple could know where their business was welcome and where it was not.
Within hours, I went back in time. At least my time. A second reality check was awaiting in a small tavern. My colleagues and i soon realized we might be easily observed as strangers in this town. So, while walking around, we stopped at a Goodwill store. There we found a well used cowboy hat that we purchased and took turns wearing for the next two days. Perhaps this little gesture would help preserve our invisibility?
That afternoon, when the temperature reached 100 degrees and the humidity was almost as high, we took a break and stopped in a small downtown bar for a cold beer. As we sat in the dimly lit little booth, there were a few regulars sitting at the bar watching ABC's Wide World of Sports. I could hear the voice of Howard Cossell and figured it must be a boxing match they were watching. Sure enough it was a title fight between Joe Frazier and Jerry Quarry. I knew about Quarry because like me, he was from LA and often referred to as the "white hope." That term had refused to die, especially in this time of Muhammad Ali"s dominance. Ali had been stripped of his title because he refused to go to Vietnam and kill people. "No Vietnamese ever called me Nigger," was his oft repeated statement on the matter. The stillness of the environment we were in was abruptly broken when the fight ended with a knockout win by Frazier. The post fight interview with Joe was too much for the locals. One guy jumped up and violently snapped the TYV off. "The can run, and jump, and play football, but when they get to flappin' those lips, I can't take it anymore." He decided that preserving his racist views was much preferable to letting anyone near him what Frazier had to say. Intolerance to the max.
The following week, before my cohort left Austin for Houston I was given a little tour of the University of Texas campus by one of the VISTA lawyers. Brock had been a student there and offered to show some of us around before we were off for other places. Again, a very hot and muggy day, so we stopped into the student union for a cool drink. Brock said there was a water fountain there. Like everything in Texas, the University student union was big and the water fountain was all the way across on the other side of the building. When we got there I noticed that there were two water fountains almost side by side. I asked Brock why hadn't the put one on each side of the room instead of two next to each other. "You obviously didn't grow up in Texas, Bruce," was his reply. "It wasn't all that long ago that they took the signs off those water fountains." Naive little me had failed to spot a vestige of Jim Crow.
A short week later another event played out before me that solidified the racism I was now surrounded by. I was riding a bus in Houston early one morning when an elderly black woman attempted to board at a local stop. She held a cane in one hand and with the other gripped the hand rail of the boarding ramp. Quite suddenly she fell to her knees and had obviously difficulty in standing up. Nobody on the bus moved despite everyone seeing this. The driver remained motionless. After an agonizing minute or so, I leaped up, helped her to her feet, and escorted her to a nearby seat. She thanked me and assured me that she was OK. The bus remained silent and soon resumed its route. After about another two minutes, the bus driver reached over his shoulder, without taking his eyes off the road, and handed me a small card.
The card read, "Incident Report." It had a small space to write a brief description of what was witnessed, and a return address. The silent ride continued. Later that day, I told one of my supervisors what I had experienced. Miles Simmons was one of the leaders of VISTA training, a Houstonian, and a minister. He said it was fine if I returned the card and expressed my outrage. "Nothing is going to happen," he added.
I never heard anything from the transit authority, nor did I expect to. That day the weather seemed even more enervating than usual.
3 days in Texan, 1969. I know things have changed since then. Sometimes, I wonder, but please don't tell me that this has not been a racist country when I know differently. Before that year was over, more evidence followed with less surprise.
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