Jackson Free Press

Forty years ago—October 1963—I was a tenth-grader at Provine High School. Never in my wildest imaginings would I have believed where I would be and who I would be with four decades later.

Thursday, Oct. 16, I was at the Eudora Welty Library, attending a forum on Ernest J. Gaines' book, "A Lesson Before Dying." The multi-faceted theme of the evening was reminiscences and viewpoints from various lives from different backgrounds. For me, it turned out to be very true.

On the panel were Frank Garrison, Eric Stringfellow, Dr. Monique Guillory, and Rabbi Debra Kassof. Donna Ladd served as moderator. In the audience were blacks and whites, young and old, but that didn't matter so much. They were really people who obviously relished the chance to hear what others thought about the book chosen for Jackson's "One Jackson One Book" campaign. Many took the opportunity to express themselves, too, once the panel had opened with their comments.

Jackson Public Schools were integrated in 1966 when I was a senior at Provine. My daddy, God love him, told me that if he found out I had talked to one of them, I'd be in big trouble with him. I wasn't sure how he'd find out, but I believed him, so I sort of drifted through my classes that year where I got my first exposure to black people my own age. It wasn't until I was a freshman at Mississippi State that I first spoke. He was the person who had successfully and quietly integrated the university, and we were walking towards the Cow Barn when he asked me if I was on my way to genetics class. "Yes," I replied. The earth didn't open up and swallow me whole.

I sat quietly, assimilating what the panelists said, the comments from the audience, processing their spoken words and my memories, coming to realize by the end of the evening that I had witnessed a miracle in my hometown. For me the most moving moments of exchange came when, first, a 17-year-old black young man spoke up, identifying himself only as a student from Murrah High School. His father, born in 1942, remembered vividly the effects of racial prejudice in his life. The student had seen his father in tears when movies awakened memories of that racism. Reading the book just after his son brought it home had his father in tears again. The student, almost in tears himself by the end of the book, said it left him feeling hopeless, but realizing "I'm coming up in a better day, but how much better?"

Ray Carter, a Jackson death penalty attorney, responded, saying, "There is hope. Forty years ago if I'd gone in for a young black man, I'd have had to worry about getting out alive, just like my client." Carter believes he can read racism in the faces of some jurors, but he also sees them touched, changed as the trial goes on, understanding finally that the taking of a human's life is at stake. So there is hope. The young man responded, "I believe there is hope, [but] everyone in this room, take five seconds to put yourself where I am today as a person, think about your reactions to people of opposite races or your own race."

Now, all these years later, I work at an all-black middle school where I am one of two white people on the staff. Off and on over the twelve years I've been teaching, white people have said to me—assuming because I am white that I'll agree with them—that surely all of my troubles at school are with black students. I'm sick of that assumption. What is it going to take to do away with it?

Hopefully events like the forum at Eudora Welty are a good start. Someone alluded to the fact that it was a small event, sort of dismissing it because it was just talking and not many people were there, not a mandate or call to action. I knew that wasn't true. It was a miracle to be in a room in the center of Jackson, Mississippi, with whites and blacks openly discussing race, calmly and respectfully, with coming together and making this city better on their minds. And all because of a book campaign.

The pen is mightier than the sword.