history

REMEMBERENCE

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As we pause to recognize those who paid the ultimate price for our freedom this Memorial Day I am troubled over some of the reactions to President Obama’s visit to Japan and the site of the first nuclear bomb drop at Hiroshima. This goes beyond the rumors that he might apologize for an act that he characterized as evil. It was the reaction to his characterization that troubles me and not the reaction to a rumor that did not take place.

War is evil and yet we glorify it. I grew up in an age not far removed from World War Two and spent many hours during my childhood playing “war.” I see nothing wrong with it but I never pretended to be Paul Tibbits in the Enola Gay either. I was glorifying the men who stormed the beaches at Normandy, Sicily, and too many islands in the Pacific. I glorify all of the men and women who have served in all of our wars, especially those who gave the ultimate price and believe that our lawmakers have abandoned many of our vets. I glorify our men and women who serve but I will never glorify the act of war. War is evil and shows the worst that humanity has to offer even when it is a necessary evil and you are on the side of “God.”

One of those worsts acts was the use of the nuclear bomb, a truly evil action, even by President Truman’s admission. A truly NECESSARY evil action that Truman was justified in making to end a war that had already ended too many lives. I can’t imagine the personal deliberation Mr. Truman wrestled with coming to the discussion to use the A Bomb but agree with its use. Evil defeating evil…how bizarre.

I don’t know how anyone would not want a nuclear free world? It isn’t going to happen, nor is there going to be world peace. Should we not strive for it though? Should turning the Middle East into a parking lot be the FIRST OBJECTIVE…or even the last. Those of us in the Baby Boomer generation grew up with the fear of “massive retaliation” and “preemptive first strikes.” Alerts were issued cautioning us to not eat snow cream or root vegetables because of high levels of radiation caused by too many nuclear tests. Teachers attempting to convince us that we could survive a nuclear attack by sitting under a desk with a book over our heads. Is this a necessary evil? Until everyone beats their “swords into ploughshares” I would say yes but I still do not support the evil.

We should never apologize but we should never forget it any more than we should forget the price our military paid to end World War Two or any other war. “A Bomb Dome” in Hiroshima should always be a symbol of the evil of war as should the ovens at Auschwitz or the redoubts at Vicksburg. Hiroshima should always be a symbol for the destructive power of nuclear weapons and a reminder of the cost of their use. We should also read what President Obama said, it was a long time needing to be said.

More nonfiction by Don Miller is available at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

7/10/2015 – Heritage and Hate

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WHY BLACK LIVES MATTER (TOO) me

Why would an old…well… “seasoned”, Southern, white guy come out in support of Black Lives Matter? Shouldn’t I be the “flag-waving” rebel who really ain’t racist because I once knew a black guy back in the eighth grade? After spending my life trying to fly under “the radar” of controversy why would I risk alienation of friends, family, and racist from all walks of life? “BLM is more racist than the KKK!” after all. Because it is time to “poop” or get off of the can and admit to my own cognitive dissonance.

I wasn’t paying attention. I was too busy flying under the radar, comfortably settling into retirement and confident that I wasn’t a racist…at least not overtly. I didn’t laugh at racist jokes…but I didn’t take people to task over them either. I just made a point to distance myself from the offender…but I kept quiet. If “white folk” commented that President Obama had done more to disunify the nation I snickered under my breath and thought “Yeah right, only because he is the first Black President and exactly what was more?”

When a former teaching friend, former as in teaching and friend, shared a meme depicting a nude, strung out prostitute as President Obama’s mother, I was both appalled and silent. I am ashamed that we didn’t part company at that moment instead of later when I alienated him over another post…one I had made defending the removal of the Confederate Battle Flag from our statehouse grounds and the original impetus behind my quest for awareness.

The deaths of nine innocents at Mother Emmanuel hit me on a personal level and the firestorm over the flag removal made me recognize the huge riff still existing between races. It became apparent “our racism” had simply been covered in the same way my kitty covers her business in her litter box. Most importantly it made me ask myself questions and search for the truth. THE TRUTH, not your truth or my truth but the actual truth. It would appear real truth is quite elusive.

I was a history and science teacher. I was not a historian any more than I was a scientist but the love for both spurred me to look for the truth. The pain I was feeling over Mother Emmanuel and the flag spurred me to write about it and the history teacher in me wrote from a historical perspective. The following will probably be included in the second chapter of a short compilation of I hope to publish on the anniversary of the massacre.

7/10/2015 – Heritage and Hate

Word came to me that our General Assembly had voted to remove the flag from the capitol grounds and place it in the Confederate Relic Room with its own area for those who believe in its heritage can give it the reverence they think it deserves. For those who believed that it flew in the “face” of a large portion of the population and represented hate and racism, kidnapped or not, it is out of sight, if not out of mind. That short journey began at 10:10 this morning and, thankfully, was over in the blink of an eye, although what it all means will continue to be debated ad nauseam, including, I hope, this set of stories.

In the year 2000 I felt the flag should have been removed but, unlike now, I was too timid to say so. Despite feeling one wrong has been righted, I am thankful those who want to celebrate their heritage still have the opportunity to do so…in any way they so desire, provided it is not illegal and doesn’t infringe on the rights of others. Infringement on rights might be the fly in the ointment or, maybe worse, the “Baby Ruth” in the swimming pool.

I have always questioned where my rights ended and others began. You want to play your music loud, louder and loudest and employ woofers that could create a sonic wave strong enough to knock a fighter jet out of the sky. At what point do I get to ask you to turn it down? More to my point – as I have viewed and read the comments on social media or had discussions with friends, I have been both shocked and appalled at some people’s venom when it comes to OTHER people’s rights. “Some people,” along with everyone else, have those pesky First Amendment rights whether we agree with the “connerie” people might be spouting or not. They have the right to say anything hurtful short of “Fire” in a crowded theater, I guess. They do have the right to call me a stupid asshole just like I have the right to unfriend them on social media which I didn’t but probably should have. One question I have not answered is why if you have the same rights as I have, why does it remove my rights if you are insured of your rights?

As the debate over “rights” raged, I am thankful for the grace shown by the families of the “Emmanuel Nine” and for most of South Carolina. Dylann Roof was definitely one of those “Baby Ruths” in the pool. He has given us an opportunity to examine how dirty and polluted the “societal” water was before he climbed into the pool. I hope it will give us the opportunity to drain his pool and fill it with clear and pure water. I would settle for just potable.
It is true that the Battle Flag of the Army of Northern Virginia did not pull the trigger that took those nine lives. Dylann Roof killed them and we do not need to place the blame on “that flag” nor should we place it on the gun he did it with or the fact that gays have the right to a civil marriage or that I must have the right to go deer hunting with an AK47. (Sorry, I could not help myself!) We do, however, need to place the blame on those who hijacked the Battle Flag and turned it into a symbol of hate and created a fertile garden of prejudice and racism for Roof to grow in. That would be people just like me.

I was born in South Carolina in 1950 and was taught both the heritage and the hate. I was born just two years after Strom Thurmond’s bid for the presidency running as a Dixiecrat, the party of segregation. The Dixiecrats might have been the first to hijack the flag as they rallied round the Battle Flag while playing “Dixie” during their convention. Prior to that time, for over eighty years, the Battle Flag had rarely been seen, used only at parades or memorials and the like, in other words, just as it should have been, the way Robert E. Lee would have wanted and not a symbol of racial hatred. After 1948 it became much more than a symbol of heritage and I lived through it all, seeing the efforts to keep African-Americans segregated after Brown replaced Plessey in 1954. I saw it all on my little black and white with Walter Cronkite. I heard it in church and in school but, fortunately, I did not hear it at my parent’s knee. I saw it in “Whites Only” restaurants or restrooms. I saw the burning of crosses and Freedom Rider buses, The Little Rock Nine, The Greensboro Four, “Bombingham,” fire hoses and police dogs in Selma and an assassination or ten.

Thankfully none of this occurred in my part of South Carolina but then I might just be suffering from the disease of cranial rectitus that goes with the color of my skin. I do remember being taught that one did not call “coloreds” mister, “birds of a feather flock together” so much so you never expect to see redbirds with crows. In a history class I learned that the familiar statement “All men are created equal” was not true because you had those people born “lame, retarded and colored.” Unfortunately, too many times these occurrences were accompanied by both Confederate and US flags and none of my friends or family attempted to rescue them. We simply must recognize what our Southern history stood for and admit to ourselves that it was as much about hate as it was about heritage.

On a Sunday afternoon in 1970 I stopped in a small upstate “nameless” town on my way back to Newberry for a milkshake that was, in fact, vanilla. As I sat at a concrete picnic table I heard cheers and yelling from behind a stand of trees and privet hedge. Being of a curious nature I decided to wander down a path and see what was going on. As I broke into the clearing the smell of kerosene became strong as a six-foot-tall cross burst into flames with a gigantic “Whoosh!” It was a small cross but there were plenty of white sheets and Confederate flags to go with the fifty or so people in attendance who were cheering the festivities on and shouting about the n@$$%^& bucks who would be raping our daughters during the upcoming school year. Looking a little like a Jewish banker, I remembered that “Curiosity killed the cat!” and made a hasty retreat instead of rescuing the flags.

Activities such as this or the Klan rally that took place on the statehouse grounds after the flag removal should not define our culture as Southerners in general nor should it define South Carolinians specifically. It also doesn’t explain racism and prejudice in other parts of our land or why we think certain groups of people should just “get over it.” We must accept that our racism is as much a part of our heritage as the flag. So are the heritages of the others who live here and don’t look like me. I applaud our diversity and love it. Dutch Fork BBQ, Blues, and Blue Grass, Shrimp and Grits, Seagrass baskets, the Gullah language, Catawba pottery, the people who created them along with an Indian-American governor named Haley – just to name a few things that came from someone else’s culture. I also thank the people who made my re-education possible – those teachers, parents and students whose cultures were different than mine…and yet the same.

WHY BLACK LIVES MATTER (TOO) A Revolutionary Call to Action will be on sale June 19th. All proceeds will benefit The Sentencing Project, a leader in the effort to bring national attention to disturbing trends and inequities in the criminal justice system through the publication of groundbreaking research, aggressive media campaigns and strategic advocacy for policy reform. Our gift to the organization will support their efforts to promote reforms in sentencing policy, address unjust racial disparities and practices, and advocate for alternatives to incarceration.

Don Miller has also written three books which may be purchased or downloaded at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

STRONG WOMEN

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I love strong women and that is not a chauvinist statement. I am a chauvinist…much in the same way that I am a racist. Like many I have swum in a culture both chauvinist and racist and like many folks, don’t seem to recognize it. I recognize my culture but do not allow my chauvinist and racist leanings color my thinking…until it does, DAMMIT! I have been surrounded by strong women throughout my life. From my grandmother and mother to my wife and in between, there have been few “damsels in distress.”

The first time I attempted matrimony I married a woman “just like the girl that married dear old Dad.” It was a mistake but not because she was not strong but rather because I wasn’t strong enough. The second Mrs. Miller was also strong, maybe too much, but she is the mother of my daughter, also a strong woman and mother. The third time being the charm, I married a woman nearly thirty years ago whose outlook more and more reminds me of my grandmother.

My grandmother, Addie, was born in 1901. She would not vote in her first election until 1922, three years after her marriage to my grandfather. During my lifetime she ALWAYS took her hard won constitutional right to vote very seriously and NEVER missed an election. Her early life was hard and she would have been perfectly at home riding or walking along side of a covered wagon had my grandparents been pioneers heading to parts west. Instead she joined my grandfather on a sixty-acre tract of land trying to scratch out a living on soil that was not actually from the river bottoms. It was a hard life. When I asked her how bad life was during the depression I was told, “We were so poor before the depression hit we didn’t notice it.” Those were the days when they farmed “on the lien.” While my grandparents had land and the tools to till it with, like many southern farmers, they did not have two nickels to rub together. Seed and fertilizer cost money – something in short supply after the “War of Northern Aggression” and during the depression. A system was worked out to avoid the need for money at the primary level – the growing, cutting, digging and picking level. Sharecropping, tenant farming and farming on the lien, or even mixtures of all three, were used. In my grandparent’s case, seed and fertilizer were “loaned” to them and a lien or loan was taken out against the crop, in most cases cotton, to be paid back after the harvest. It was a system that worked but one that kept most white farmers poor and black farmers in a type of “post-slavery” servitude. Springs Industries would change the culture with textile mills and at some point PawPaw abandoned the life of existing on the institution of farming and went to work for Springs. He did not quit farming but it was no longer “farming on the lien.” My grandmother did not abandon farming until she was in her nineties.

Many mornings as I stare across my computer screen while attempting to write, I can see my backyard framed like a photograph through the French doors leading out to our, for lack of a better word, patio. My wife has turned our backyard into a cluttered and jammed wildlife preserve–accent on WILD—and it is inevitable I would think of my grandmother. Her “rock garden” was just as jammed with flowers of all types and sometimes with wildlife, too. All were thrown together in a helter-skelter manner. My favorite flowers were her tall and colorful hollyhocks. I have tried to grow them but with not nearly the same success. Her backyard was just as tangled with privet hedge that had grown so high it had formed a canopy which seemed to form secret rooms. I consider myself very lucky to have had her for as long as I did – forty-nine years as she died just a few weeks past my forty-ninth birthday. I’m also greedy because I would have liked to have had her even longer.

As jammed as her rock garden was, her vegetable garden was not. Every morning she went out to the garden to chop down any weed before it could get a foothold or to hand-pick any critter that might chew on a leaf. This devotion is something I have a high regard for as I have moved toward organic gardening. Everything was quite orderly but her flowers were not. This difference was just one of several contradictions. One of the wisest and most well-read people I have ever known, she attended public school only until the eighth grade. She seemed to crave information but only if it didn’t interfere with time better spent in her garden. Even then, on rainy days, I would catch her gazing wishfully out the window. Most of her reading material revolved around her “Classics” plant catalogs, crossword puzzles and religious materials including, but not limited to, the Bible. Despite being one of the most religious people I have ever known, she rarely set foot inside of a church and I wish I had taken the time to ask why. For some reason a belief the church might be filled with hypocrisy comes to my mind but could this be my own cynicism showing? It might have been she just didn’t like being cooped up. When we “stayed the night” due to our parent’s work schedule, she did not tell stories to put my brother and me to sleep. Instead, we played “finish the Bible verse.” To this day when I hear a parent tell a child to “Be Still”, I have to add, “…and know that I am God.”

It is spring and I have begun to plant my garden. Much too big, I really try to grow food out of respect for and in memory of my grandmother. I am not very good at it and probably could buy more food than I raise with what I pay for seed and fertilizer. I am always hopeful and it is a way to stay connected to her and what she was. Every time my hoe clinks on a rock or sweat runs down my nose as I pick beans, I see her in her fields or rock garden. My favorite mental picture is of a woman in a dress “repurposed” from cotton feed sacks leaning on her hoe, big straw hat firmly in place. She is gazing across the hill to where my grandfather’s corn field was located. I wonder if she is thinking of times past…I know I am.

If you enjoyed this remembrance, please take time to “Like” my author’s page at https://www.facebook.com/cigarman501/?ref=aymt_homepage_panel

Don Miller has written three books which may be purchased at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

CHIEF BLUE OF THE CATAWBA

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Growing up on the banks of the Catawba I became well versed on the history of our Native American brothers living across the river bearing their name. Sure! I was well versed in what I had been taught watching too many cowboy and Indian episodes on my black and white TV. The Lone Ranger, Roy Rogers, Rin Tin Tin and the local Fred Kirby Show were almost a daily fare with certain movie reruns thrown in for emphasis. Like most kids of my era I believed this “was really the way it was.”

TV wasn’t my only outlet. I heard stories from my grandparents and great grandparents of arrowheads being found in fields and on the riverbank, collected from long ago battles fought between the Catawba and the nearby tribes, mostly the Cherokee from across the Broad River which was rumored to be the border between the two enemies. I was also told stories of contact with either the Spanish conquistador Hernando de Soto or Juan Pardo on their failed search for gold. Later I would learn how the Catawba made friends with the pale English speaking visitors that ventured above the fall line or down from Virginia or Pennsylvania in hopes of finding fertile land to settle on. The Scots-Irish were successful in their venture and I am a product of those efforts. It was easy for the five or six-year old me to visualize buckskin clad warriors battling each other to the death using bows and arrows, stone axes and spears, usually from the backs of their small but spirited horses. This is, after all, how I saw Native Americans on my television. I wondered if these natives had made contact with John Wayne or maybe Jimmy Stewart. Where was Fort Apache?

Early in my memories, foggy memories at that, I think I met my first Catawba Indian on the old ferry that ran across the river near Van Wych. I did not know it at the time and was too young to tell the difference between one “white” man in working cloths and an “Indian” in working cloths. I probably could not tell the difference today. What I do remember was how scary the trip was. Driving onto the rickety old wooden ferry was scary enough but the “hundred” mile trip across the river was terrifying. If stories are true, or my memory accurate, the operator of the ferry was a Catawba. Very soon a bridge would be built and the river crossing would become much shorter and less scary. The ferry would be no more, along with the revenues the crossings generated. As I got older I remember trips to Rock Hill past the old landing with its ferry rotting away on dry land as the years scrolled past. I am not sure I could find the spot again with a gun held to my head.

In the winter of my sixth year I would have one of my “first life bubbles” burst. I could hardly control my excitement as I waited for the end of school and my parents to return home from work at Springs Mills. They would bathe, change cloths and as a family we would return to Fort Mill for the annual Christmas Parade. This was going to be a special parade. Always exciting with bands, homecoming queens waving from convertibles, clowns, homemade floats, venders barking out their wares and the little elf dressed in red riding on top of a firetruck this one was going to be even more exciting. Today I was here not to see Santa Claus but to see Chief Samuel Taylor Blue, newly elected chief of the Catawba Indian Nation. He was to be the grand marshal and in my mind’s eye I saw him riding majestically on his painted horse, clad in buckskins decorated to show his station. I wondered if he would be in war paint and how big a headdress he might be wearing. I was so excited I was afraid that I might not be able to hold my water.

As I thought about whatever six year olds think about my reverie was disturbed as yelling and applause erupted. The parade had started and I scanned down the parade route on Tom Hall Street and saw nothing but a black convertible. In the back seat was an old white haired man in his seventies or eighties dressed in wide lapelled gray stripped black suit. In his hand, a dark fedora was being waved to the cheering crowd. He had a smile as wide as the lapels on his suit. A hand lettered sign had been taped to the door that read Chief Blue. What? No horse, no bow and arrows, no buckskins or war paint. My disappointment was great to say the least.

Despite his age and his lack of buckskins or hatchets, I have found out that Chief Blue was quite the warrior…as an activist and politician. Twice elected chief, he often spoke in front of our General Assembly and was a key figure in working toward settling land claims with South Carolina and York County, gaining citizenship for himself and the members of his nation, something not done in South Carolina until 1944, and gaining federal recognition for the Catawba as a tribe accomplished earlier in 1941. An advocate of Native American arts, his was called the “last native speaker” of the Catawba language. The Catawba are known world-wide for their pottery and woven baskets.

A practicing Mormon, Blue was considered a hero who helped protect missionaries from mobs in the early Twentieth Century. He and his wife would travel to the Great Salt Lake in 1950 and speak in front of the General Conference. Chief Blue died in 1959 after a lifetime serving his tribe and his church. Despite my youthful preconceptions I would say that he died a true Native American Warrior…with or without his buckskins.

In the picture, I understand Chief Blue is sitting on the right holding the child in the middle row.

Don Miller has written three books which may be purchased at http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM
Inspirational true stories in WINNING WAS NEVER THE ONLY THING can be downloaded for $1.99.
“STUPID MAN TRICKS” explained in FLOPPY PARTS for $.99.
“Southern Stories of the Fifties and Sixties…” in PATHWAYS for $3.99.
All may be purchased in paperback.

CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY-PEPSI COLA

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This is an excerpt from the book PATHWAYS entitled “Pepsi Cola.” Because of “Separate but equal” and “With all deliberate speed” I had very few opportunities to interact with African-Americans until I graduated from college. Pepsi Cola would be the first African-American adult male that I would have the opportunity to meet and observe. I have heard it said that it was easy to fear what you don’t understand, meeting Pepsi Cola would provide the opportunity for one of those first steps toward understanding. Please note, I attempted to write this from the stand point of an eight-year old mind and in the language of the period.

“While I had seen African-American males I would not meet my first African- American adult male until the very late fifties when we remodeled our house. A black brick mason with the interesting name of “Pepsi Cola” Mobley was hired to add the brick veneer to our original home along with the two new rooms added onto each end. Not only would he add layers of brick to my home, he would add layers to my thinking and understanding.

“Pepsi Cola” was impressive, as were his two sons who served as helpers and apprentice brick layers. It was their responsibility to carry the bricks and “mud” to their father as he did the placing of the brick runs. I found the whole endeavor to be interesting but not nearly as interesting as the “colored” folk who were carrying out the tasks. The acorns did not fall far from the tree! Close-cropped “steel wool” hair over clear ebony skin; they possessed the whitest of stereotypical teeth below broad flat noses and wide cheekbones. They looked nothing like my friend Maw, who, though tall, had an almost delicate look compared to them. All three were powerfully built with muscles bulging and glistening with sweat from handling and placing the bricks. “Pepsi Cola’s” decades of brick work had given him shoulders so wide I doubted his ability to walk through a door without turning sideways along with hands beaten, scarred and as rough as the slabs on the side of my grandparent’s barn. All three started the day in tattered yet clean tees and denim pants that had patches patched over patches. As the heat of the day intensified, shirts would be discarded exposing broad, powerful chests that were covered in tight black curly hair. Curiously, whenever my grandmother or mother stepped outside, there was a bit of a scramble to put their shirts back on. “Pepsi” was gregarious, singing Negro hymns and laughing his way through the day or “holding court” for anyone nearby, which was usually the eight or nine-year old “little man” that was me. I found him to have the most interesting accent to go along with a lot of words that began with “dees” and ended in “esses.” His sons were the exact opposite – quiet and, I would say, somewhat sullen. In hindsight, my guess is that there was little way to wedge a word in edgewise with “Pepsi Cola” around.

I learned a lesson of the times during the course of the remodeling. Sent to carry a jug of water out to the workers, I asked Mr. Mobley, “Mr. Mobley, would you like some water?” “Eyes do, Eyes do, indeeds, Little Man,” he answered with his best grin. In turn, I gave the sons water and returned to my grandmother who informed me of my grievous faux pas, “You don’t refer to ‘coloreds’ by mister unless you use their first name.” Okay, “Mister Pepsi Cola!” “

If you would be interested in reading the complete selection “Pepsi Cola” and the book Pathways, you may purchase a paperback or downloaded a version using the following link: http://www.amazon.com/Don-Miller/e/B018IT38GM

TRIPPING OVER A ROOT WITH ESTERLEEN

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As I have gotten older I tend to view my past through, at the very least, a guise of humor. My own form of historical “rose colored glasses.” It was not always that way when the past was just too near the present. My wife hates it when I try to hide behind present day humor. In fact, seconds ago I got the “Your humor is inappropriate” speech. Geez I feel like a slug. I often wonder if there are some subjects that viewing with humor should be a taboo? My interactions with the opposite sex, including my wife? Yes, we still interact and I did write a book entitled “Floppy Parts.” My heart attack? There is little humor in an elephant sitting on your chest. Race Relations? I am always unsure about joking about race relations.

By 1977, seven years after complete desegregation came to the state of South Carolina, tensions were still raw but at least they were being kept in check…and mostly under wraps. Then came the miniseries “Roots” and LeVar Burton’s debut as Kunta Kinte. My little classroom world suddenly became a little less calm. As a faculty, we were warned that this television production based upon Alex Haley’s book of the same name, might cause ill will and the trouble associated with it. We were instructed to be ever vigilant and try to defuse any situation that might arise from the unrest. Enter Esterleen Hill.

Esterleen could cause unrest on the calmest day. It was just her way. She was impressive in size, not fat, just very healthy especially in the areas that men like for women to be healthy. She had a healthy grin and laugh to go with her healthy size and tended to wear her ”healthy” feelings on her sleeve for all to see…and hear if you were blind. While seemingly mature beyond her years, she was not likely to let her feelings go unheard by anyone willing to listen. Actually you were going to know her feelings whether you were willing to listen or not. Outspoken? You bet. Using the vernacular of the times, she was also just a tad bit militant when it came to race relations. I am not saying she had Black Panther posters pasted to the inside of her locker but if given the choice between an autograph from Huey Newton or Martin Luther King, Esterleen would have picked Huey’s. She told me many times, “Just go on and leave me alone! I didn’t ask to be here anyway.” Here would be the recently desegregated Mauldin High School.

For reasons that escape me, Esterleen and I connected although at times the connection would be strained. Because of our connection, when a “good old boy” attempted to stir the racial pot by saying, “I don’t know why God made n@#$%^s!” I took it upon myself to try and defuse the situation and steered Esterleen and her half dozen or so minions into my room. My intent was to utilize what is called a “teachable moment” and have them participate in a “healthy” discussion. First, I had to get control of the situation which at this moment was controlled by Esterleen. With her voice at its highest volume setting she proclaimed that she was not going to let that “honky son of a bitch get away with that shit!” I fixed her with one of my “teacher” stares and in my best authoritarian voice instructed her to “BE QUIET AND SHIT RIGHT THERE!” Did I just say that? Judging from the look on Esterleen’s face, I guess I did. In a somewhat less authoritarian voice I said, “I mean sit! Sit right here!” Judging from the laughter that had exploded and the bodies rolling on the floor I guessed that I had “defused” the situation. Teachable moment? Healthy discussion? No just laughter…and the calm that followed.

CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY-RON MCNAIR

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I remember walking into the office at Greenville High School after a Driver’s Education class and being told the space shuttle Challenger had disintegrated. I felt immediate loss for the crew and their families and a special connection to Christa McAuliffe because she was a teacher. It would be later that I would put the name and face of Ronald McNair together with the same young man I had heard speak at a science convention some years earlier. Ronald was a NASA astronaut and a son of South Carolina.

Years before he had received his PHD from MIT and had become a leader in the field of laser physics and years before he was selected to be a NASA astronaut, he was just Ron McNair THE CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST. Growing up in Lake City, the nine-year-old McNair refused to leave the segregated public library until he was allowed to check out his book. After his mother and the police were called…Ronald got his book. The library is now named after him…as is the McNair Building at MIT.

Ronald McNair was the second African-American to fly in space and the first of the Baha’i faith. A saxophonist, McNair was to record a solo as a part of Jean Michael Jarre’s album “Renedez-Vous” that was to be fed live from space during a concert. That dream ended when the flight broke up after just seventy-three seconds over the Atlantic Ocean. The last selection from the “Renedez-Vous” is simply named “Ron’s Piece.” Carl McNair, Ronald’s brother, has written a book about Ronald named aptly, IN THE SPIRIT OF A LEGEND.

CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY: 1951 SAN FRANCISCO DON’S FOOTBALL TEAM

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I was motivated to do a bit of research on the 1951 San Francisco Don’s football team after seeing a piece on CBS prior to the Super Bowl. It was as good as the game was bad so I decided to share.

After 40 years of football mediocracy, the 1951 San Francisco Dons finished their season 9-0. The team would produce four NFL hall of famers, Gino Marchetti, Bob St. Clair, Ollie Matson and their sports information director Pete Rozelle who would spend thirty years as the Commissioner of the NFL despite never actually playing it. The Dons were considered for bowl bids to the Sugar, Orange and Gator Bowls and offered by the Orange but only if they left their African-American players Matson and Bob Toler at home. This of course was due to the prevailing attitude of segregation that existed in the South during those days. Despite being in severe financial straits and needing the bowl money badly, the team refused to participate without their team mates. Because of their financial situation it would be USF’s last year as a Division I program. They would eventually discontinue football totally in 1982 after participating as a Division II school.

Matson would go on to win a bronze medal in the 400 meters during the 1952 Olympics and have a very successful NFL career as a running back. He would be selected to the Pro Bowl six times and was named an All-Pro five times. Ollie Matson would be named to the NFL All Decade team for the 1950s before being selected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1972.

Toler, an offensive lineman, could have join Matson in the NFL had he not injured a knee. He would instead give up playing football totally and complete his degree in science and become the first African-American game official in the NFL.

The 2008 Fiesta Bowl honored the Dons and they were a subject of the documentary “’51 DONS.”

TODAY IN BLACK HISTORY: HENRY “HANK” AARON

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Henry Aaron was born today, eighty-two years ago in Mobile, Alabama. Known forever as the man who broke Babe Ruth’s career homerun record, a record he held for thirty-three years and a record I believe he would still hold had baseball not entered a period of illegal steroid use. He was much more that a homerun hitter or a baseball player for that matter. In addition to his career seven hundred and fifty-five home runs, he finished his career with over three thousand hits, a career .305 batting average, and major league records in runs-batted-in, extra base hits and total bases. He is also very proud of three Gold Gloves earned playing right field. In 1963, Henry came within a “whisker” of winning a Triple Crown. He led the league in homeruns (44), runs-batted-in (130) but finished third in batting average, hitting .323. Henry also became only the third person to hit over thirty homeruns and steal thirty bases.

Henry was much more than a baseball player. He was a great ambassador for his sport, his race and “human-kind.” Quiet to the point of being stoic, Henry was only known as “Hank” or “Hammering Hank” to the media or “Bad Henry” to opposing pitchers. For a man squarely in the limelight, it was illumination that he did not want. He only wanted to play the game well, something he did for nearly a quarter of a century. In 1973 and early 1974 no one other than Jackie Robinson had come under more racial pressure in sports than Henry Aaron as he approached Babe Ruth’s career homerun record. Henry broke it early in 1974.

Henry received a plaque from the US Postal Service for receiving nearly one million pieces of mail in 1973. Unfortunately, much of it was hate mail as a black man neared a white man’s record. There were also verbal taunts and death threats. Outwardly, Henry was a rock, mostly calm and quiet. Internally I’m sure he seethed. Sometimes it is what you don’t say that tells a story. In a 1974 interview, a visibly tired Aaron said, “I can’t recall a day, this year or last, when I did not hear the name Babe Ruth.”

Late in his career, I went to Fulton County Stadium to take in a double header. The woefully bad Braves were playing the woefully bad Mets but I didn’t care. I would see “Hammering Hank” and another Hall of Famer to be, “Say Hey” Willie Mays. Except I didn’t. Both Aaron and Mays got the day off and the only homeruns were hit by pitchers. “Story of my life!” At least Mays got to pinch hit late in the game. Happy Birthday Henry.

CELEBRATING BLACK HISTORY: JACKIE AND PEE WEE

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“I do not care if the guy is yellow or black, or if he has stripes like a fuckin’ zebra. I’m the manager of this team, and I say he plays. What’s more, I say he can make us all rich. And if any of you cannot use the money, I will see that you are all traded.” Short speech by Leo “the lip” Durocher, manager of the 1947 Brooklyn Dodgers, letting his team know that Jackie Robinson was in the “Bigs” to stay…with or without them.

April 15, 1947 Jackie Robinson became the first African-American to break the major league baseball “color line” since 1880. Normally a middle infielder, he started at first base that day because of All Stars Eddie Stanky playing second and Pee Wee Reese playing shortstop. While not getting a hit he did walk and scored a run. Facing ALMOST universal racial prejudice, Jackie finished his initial season hitting .297 in one hundred and fifty-one games.

I was too young to care much about Jackie Robinson the player and his trials and tribulations. Much later, the old newsreel films I watched incessantly proved him worthy of six all-star appearances and a league MVP award. Today I celebrate the manner in which he revolutionized the game and the trail he blazed for the stars of my own youth and for those who followed. I cannot fathom what baseball might have been like without the likes of Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Bob Gibson, Hank Aaron, Ozzie Smith…you get the idea. Today I am also aware of his many trials and tribulations.

When I said almost universal prejudice there were a few opposing players and teammates who came to Robinson’s defense. One who did became one of my all-time favorites as a broadcaster. He was Robinson’s former teammate and Dizzy Dean’s “Little Partner” Pee Wee Reese. Many of my youthful Saturdays were spent sitting with my father watching the CBS Game of the Week with Dizzy and Ree Wee bring the play-by-play. During the trailblazing 1947 season Reese was quoted as saying, “You can hate a man for many reasons. Color is not one of them.” Pretty profound for a white guy from Kentucky in 1947. During the Dodgers first road trip as Robinson was being heckled during pre-game infield, Reese, the captain of the team, went over to Robinson, engaged him in conversation, and put his arm around his shoulder in a gesture of support which silenced the crowd. An eight foot bronze statue located at the Brooklyn Cyclones’ stadium commemorates that moment. A plaque states:

“This monument honors Jackie Robinson and Pee Wee Reese: teammates, friends, and men of courage and conviction. Robinson broke the color barrier in Major League Baseball, Reese supported him, and together they made history. In May 1947, on Cincinnati’s Crosley Field, Robinson endured racist taunts, jeers, and death threats that would have broken the spirit of a lesser man. Reese, captain of the Brooklyn Dodgers, walked over to his teammate Robinson and stood by his side, silencing the taunts of the crowd. This simple gesture challenged prejudice and created a powerful and enduring friendship.”

Sometimes a bit of kindness and understanding will overcome hate…a lesson we should all learn and attempt to apply.