| Franklin in McCain remembered aloud the day he and his fellow classmates entered a Greensboro, North Carolina, Woolworth Five and Dime Store with intent. The four students, each from the all-black North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College walked into the Drug Store determined to order a meal and dine at the "whites only" lunch counter.
In 1960, such an act was unthinkable. Black Americans knew their place, and it was not near pinkish people. To consider being physically close, or to question the authority of the Anglos in power, was cause for a near certain death sentence. Nonetheless, after centuries of oppression, the descendants of slaves felt it was time to assert them selves, to peacefully stand strong in support of equal and civil rights.
The young men strode into the store, made a few purchases, and then moved toward the stools at the luncheonette. Each understood that this act was not allowed. Local laws, regulation imposed by retailers, or societal standards prohibited such an action.
McCain remembers the anxiety he felt when he went to the store that Monday afternoon, the plan he and his friends had devised to launch their protest and how he felt when he sat down on that stool.
"Fifteen seconds after ... I had the most wonderful feeling. I had a feeling of liberation, restored manhood. I had a natural high. And I truly felt almost invincible. Mind you, [I was] just sitting on a dumb stool and not having asked for service yet," McCain says.
"It's a feeling that I don't think that I'll ever be able to have again. It's the kind of thing that people pray for . . . and wish for all their lives and never experience it. And I felt as though I wouldn't have been cheated out of life had that been the end of my life at that second or that moment."
The waitress behind the counter refused to serve the four gentle men any food. The young chaps informed the woman that they had been waited on only moments earlier. The fellows, Franklin McCain, Joseph McNeil, Billy Smith, and Clarence Henderson had procured wares in the store before they took seats at the food bar. The students questioned why could they buy goods, and yet not pay for, and then eat the fodder available for sale in the store restaurant. Befuddled, the server called her supervisor.
The retail manager approached the students and told them to leave. He said the young men could have a meal at the stand-up counter in the basement, but not in the more visible "For Whites Only" luncheon area. The Executive proclaimed corporate headquarters mandated the policy. [Later, the four scholars would learn this was not true.]
After a five-minute dialogue, the manager threw his hands up in dismay and walked back into the kitchen. Moments passed and a police entered the store. The law-officer paced back and forth, near the four young men. He glared and stared at the fellows. None of the college men were combative. They remained calm. Then, the policeman pulled out his nightstick. The law-enforcer slapped the stick in the palm of his hand repeatedly.
The then academic realized the lawman did not know what to do. McCain recalls the zeal he felt. The deputy did not sense what he could or could not do. The bureaucrat was befuddled. The four college men were not disturbing the peace; indeed, the gents were tranquil and composed.
A older white woman watched the entire incident. In a southern town such as Greensboro, North Carolina, circa 1960, one could assume the thoughts of a little old lady were not good. The female, probably a product of the segregated South stared at the lads throughout the affair. Franklin McCain imagined she was suspicious and distrustful of the four young men. His thought was the lady was scornful. He imagined, were she to speak, she would say, "Shame on you" to the Black "boys" at the counter.
Eventually, she finished her doughnut and coffee. And she walked behind McNeil and McCain - and put her hands on their shoulders.
"She said in a very calm voice, 'Boys, I am so proud of you. I only regret that you didn't do this 10 years ago.'" McCain recalls.
"What I learned from that little incident was ... don't you ever, ever stereotype anybody in this life until you at least experience them and have the opportunity to talk to them. I'm even more cognizant of that today - situations like that - and I'm always open to people who speak differently, who look differently, and who come from different places," he says.
Two score and eight years later, many people believe they are as Franklin McCain now is, free from stereotypes. Throughout this territory, citizens of the United States claim to be colorblind. The accepted conviction is, that in America, life has changed. White Americans like to think racism is a obsession long past. Historians turn to accounts such as the tale of the Greensboro four and state, the civil rights movement was a success.
Journalist Michele Norris expressed as many would, "If you stop somewhere today for a cup of coffee and maybe a tuna sandwich, you probably saw other people at that establishment of a different race. Today, 'No big deal;' Back in 1960, in the America south, that scene would have been a very big deal." In conclusion, the broadcaster stated . . .
On that first day, Feb. 1, the four men stayed at the lunch counter until closing. The next day, they came back with 15 other students. By the third day, 300 joined in; later, 1,000.
The sit-ins spread to lunch counters across the country -- and changed history.
However, life for an African-American in 2008 is still riddled with racism. The difference is the design is more subtle. We remember Rosa Parks, the woman who stood up for freedom. This African-American woman was tired of giving up her seat and her rights to racist whites who believed they were better than she. When asked to stand or move to the back of a bus, Rosa Parks refused. In a trolley filled with whites, many witnessed what would not occur today.
Blacks need not forfeit their place on the bus bench to an Anglo. Perchance, in part, because few whites use public transportation. Anglo Americans own automobiles.
African-American and Latino households are much less likely than white families to own a car, leaving us with those indelible images of people of color crying out from the rooftops [in 2005, during Hurricane Katrina.]
A great deal of attention in the last two decades has been focused on the "digital divide," the concern that unequal access to new forms of technology such as the Internet are leaving people behind based on their class and race. But Hurricane Katrina exposed the "internal combustion engine" divide, the alarming disparity in car ownership that literally was the difference between life and death for many Gulf Coast residents.
A recent report on racial disparities in car ownership reveals that one in four Black households (24 percent) and one in six Latino households (17 percent) does not own a car. This is compared to one in fourteen white households (7 percent) who are car-less. In the eleven coastal counties with the highest incidence and future risk of hurricanes, people without cars are disproportionately people of color. These include counties in Houston, Providence, New Orleans, Tampa, New York City, and Miami. In Orleans Parish New Orleans, for example, over 35 percent of African-Americans, 26 percent of Native Americans, and 27 percent of Latinos don't own a car, compared to 15 percent of whites.
Persons with pale complexions are not restricted in their travel; nor are they denied entry to a place of business. Black individuals are. Light skinned persons are not relegated to the wrong side of the railroad tracks. White persons do not worry when they wish to move into a neighborhood. Sundown Towns do exclude Anglos. A Caucasian can take residence wherever he or she chooses, with few exceptions. Only poor credit might lessen the opportunities afforded to a white man or woman. Early in the Twentieth Century, segregation was blatant.
Whites simply passed ordinances forbidding black people from buying or renting homes and, in some cases, even appearing on the street after sundown. To advertise their actions, the towns sometimes posted sundown signs on the highway or in the railroad station.
"There was a contagion of ordinances," says Loewen. "Many small towns expelled the black population or decreed a policy of not allowing any blacks." . . .
In 1968, Congress passed the Fair Housing Act, banning discrimination in housing, and the Supreme Court ruled in Jones v. Mayer that housing discrimination was unconstitutional. Since then, Loewen says, "sundown towns have been in retreat."
But, he's quick to add, "there are still hundreds of towns where blacks would risk their mental well-being as well as their physical well-being by living in them."
Certainly, Caucasian Americans would like to believe this is not true. Countless offer evidence. People point to the Civil Rights Act 1964. White Americans, embarrassed by their history tried to make amends. An aspect of compensation and atonement was the popular practice of colorblindness. People who profess not see the color of a persons' flesh act as though they have great insight. The bigoted belch, 'We do not discriminate.' Then, the tolerant insulate themselves.
Prejudiced persons isolate those whose skin is a shade thought less desirable. Ghettos are hidden from view. Highway walls seal "us" off from the slums. Americans acknowledge the city streets are not safe. Thankfully, the suburbs are. At times, one of "them" slips through the cracks. Barriers are broken. These fissures are filled with letters and threats of lynching.
Bridget Ward, whose recent move to a White neighborhood in Philadelphia was greeted with insults painted on her front door, told reporters outside her home in Bridesburg, "I am going to move. Y'all got your neighborhood. You can have it."
The 32-year-old single mother said she will abandon her rented row house in the working-class neighborhood in northeast Philadelphia as soon as she can.
"The letter is a very serious thing," said Kevin Vaughan, executive director of the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations. "Bridget has two small kids--very, very good kids--and their safety weighed heavily on her mind."
The letter said Ms. Ward's daughters, Jasmine, 3, and Jamilla, 9, would die if the family stayed in the home, according to police. Agent Bob Norton said the FBI had entered the case.
The author of the death threat also boasted of having used a homemade bomb to drive a Black woman out of another White neighborhood.
Neither police nor Vaughan would quote directly from the letter except to say it referred to a group called "the posse."
This mob of maligners is not unique. In truth, racism has simply gone underground. African-Americans are not run out on the rail, as they once were. Anglo Americans have become more refined. In 1982, in America the practice of intentional exclusion was ruled legal. Private clubs restrict persons of color and do not limit membership for those whose skin is light.
More recently, in November 2006, a Whites Only Scholarship, was offered to students. The Endowment created outrage; nonetheless, the policy and practice are still thought reasonable enough to initiate.
Lest we forget the most recent Supreme slight. Jurists in the highest Court of the land ruled that schools in the "United" States can re-segregate. In Parents Involved In Community Schools v. Seattle School District Number 1 Et. Al. . . . Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the plurality opinion that "The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race."
In essence, the Judiciary Branch of our government concluded, racial balance cannot be achieved by artificial means. If citizens intentionally integrate then color will remain an issue. Hence, by law it is decreed, the people in this nation must be colorblind and colormute. Citizens can only hope that naturally mankind will decide to mix and mingle voluntarily, although rarely have they or will they as long as racism remains intact.
For African-Americans equality, while granted by the Constitution, is but a dream. Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King Junior spoke of the shared hope in a speech delivered 28 August 1963, at the Lincoln Memorial, Washington District of Columbia. While a large crowd listened to the eloquent speaker and cheered, millions more were not moved or changed.
Appearances may have been altered; however essentially, racism is alive and well in white America. For the most part, a pinkish person is honored unless or until that Caucasian gives someone reason to react to his or her presence. If a white man commits murder or a Anglo woman neglects her children, people may gossip or scorn that individual. Certainly, as a group, Caucasians will not be defined by the indiscretion of one individual.
In the United States teachers, bank tellers, taxi cab drivers, retailers, and even the most reasonable among us, may look at a Black person, a dark-skinned individual and assume the person is lazy, less than brilliant, lacking in awareness, lower in social status than any other person might be. Sadly, in the United States, some supposed scholars present pseudo science as reason to support such ghastly and inaccurate stereotypes.
Sadly, or happily, few Americans experience as Franklin McCain did in the dawn of the Civil Rights movement. Perhaps, if we each worked against the status quo, sat, or stood for equality, a little old lady, a sage of sorts, would approach us. With her hands resting gently on our shoulders, this wise woman would say, in the most unexpected manner, "I am so proud of you. I only regret that you didn't do this 10 years ago.'"
Americans, we can wait no longer. Rather than recount the history of Blacks in America, let us all make history. May we finally begin to act on principles, embrace our brethren each and every day. Holidays do not heal a heart. Hurts do not fade with pomp and circumstance. Change does not come when we deem ourselves different. If we, as a country are to truly revere our brothers and sisters, be they black, brown, yellow, or pink, we must not rely on words. Deeds tell the tale that Franklin McCain recalls.
Resources for Racism . . .
- The Woolworth Sit-In That Launched a Movement, By Michele Norris. All Things Considered. February 1, 2008
- When Signs Said 'Get Out,' In 'Sundown Towns,' Racism in the Rearview Mirror. By Peter Carlson. Washington Post.?Tuesday, February 21, 2006; C01
- Threats drive black woman out of neighborhood. Jet. May 20, 1996
- northern Visions of Race, Region, and Reform. Curated by Lucia Z. Knoles, Professor of English, Assumption College. An American Antiquarian Society Online Exhibition.
- Rosa Parks; Standing Up for Freedom.. Academy of Achievement.
- Around the Nation; Club's White-Only Policy Termed Legal in Alabama. Associated Press. The New York Times. May 27, 1982
- The Wrong Side(s) of the Tracks Estimating the Causal Effects of Racial Segregation on City Outcomes, By Elizabeth Oltmans Ananat. National Bureau of Economic Research. August 2007
- Whites Only Scholarship Creates Outrage, College Republicans Say Scholarship Was Created to Spark Debate, By Anne-Marie Dorning. ABC News. November 22, 2006
- Racism Resurgent, How Media Let The Bell Curve's Pseudo-Science Define the Agenda on Race. By Jim Naureckas. Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. February 1995
- Parents Involved In Community Schools v. Seattle School District Number 1 Et. Al. Supreme Court of the United States of America.
- The Oyez Project, Parents Involved in Community Schools v. Seattle School District No. 1, 551 U.S. Supreme court Media.
- Sorority Evictions Raise Issue of Looks and Bias, By Sam Dillon. The New York Times. February 25, 2007
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