My First Close View of Racism

I grew up in the south. I have lived in the south for most of my life and I lived through the civil rights battles of the sixties in the south. Even though I was very young at the time, I remember those times and how they affected me and my family.

My grandmother was a racist. I don't mean she was a member of the Klan and burned crosses in people's yard but she was definitely a racist. I discovered this when I was seven years old and it shocked me quite a bit. In those days in the south, it was not at all an uncommon thing. The N word was in common usage; I heard it used daily and it was most definitely a term of derision and ridicule. My father was adamantly opposed to any such terminology but beyond that; he was even more opposed to the ideology of judging people's character by the color of their skin. Maybe that's why I had such trouble recognizing it in other people.

After my grandfather died, my father moved my grandmother from Birmingham to Huntsville where we lived in order to take care of her. She lived a few blocks away from us and most weekends either my brother or I would spend the night on Friday and Saturday night at Mimi's house. Mimi loved us dearly of course and we were at first very happy to get some alone time with her as well. She was a very proper southern lady, but she was also terrified of many, many things. I didn't realize this at first. Her admonitions to wear a hat or you'll get the cancer or put on a jacket so you don't get the pneumonia were kind of funny at first but I soon realized there was a deep mortal fear attached to each of them. They weren't just things to say, they were a kind of overwhelming fear that seemed to dominate her life.

Mimi lived in a small two bedroom house but slept on a pullout sofa right next to the front door in case the house caught on fire. She took old tomato cans and tied them together with string to make trip wires that would clang the cans around if an intruder came into the house. She slept with a .38 pistol under her pillow. One night the wind blew through an open window hard enough to blow them over and woke us both up. She immediately sat up in bed with that big pistol pointing at the noise and announced "I have a gun and I WILL use it." I was afraid to move for fear that she would shoot the next movement and there was a long, uncomfortable pause as we both listened to the wind blow before she leaned over and turned the light beside the bed on. After she searched the house and closed all the windows, it was stifling in the house but she kept vigil sitting in a rocking chair beside the bed with the big pistol in her lap the rest of the night. I didn't sleep very much after that either but I can still remember waking up sweating and seeing her sitting there peering around the room telling me to go back to sleep.

On Saturdays we would ride a bus into the old downtown of Huntsville that was known as Twickenham. She would go to the drug store and buy incidentals enough to fill up one bag. We would also usually go to Belk Hudson's store and she would insist on buying me a belt or a pair of dress pants. I had very little use for dress pants and often told her so but she would insist and tell me that just because my mother dressed me like a ragamuffin that didn't mean she had to. When we started out on Saturday she would make me take a bath and clean up while she shined my shoes and ironed my clothes. For her part, no matter how hot it was she would put on a Sunday dress complete with matching hat and long elbow length lacy gloves. Sometimes the hat would have a black veil that would cover most of her face but I didn't get the import of that for quite a while.

We would walk to the corner to catch the bus. If it was sunny, she would carry a parasol and insist that we both stay under it to keep the cancer off of us. I wasn't allowed to examine rocks, catch insects, or follow any of my normal instincts when I was with her. I was to "act like a young gentleman" and try to curb my curiosity about most things. My dad had told me that when I was in her care I was to live by her rules. My dad didn't say things to hear himself talk and I was smart enough to try to follow his directions without argument. The bus driver knew Mimi by name and would always smile and greet us with "How are you today Miz McLeroy?". She would just barely perceptively nod in return as she put her token in the box and he would usually kid me about what kind of candy I was going to get at the drug store. He always called me "young master McLeroy" which I thought was overdoing it a little but he was unalterably cheerful and smiling every time we caught his bus.

The best part of our Saturdays in Twickenham were that we would always eat out. Our family never ate out. We couldn't afford to for one thing but since there were five kids of varying ages, it was also quite an ordeal to get everyone dressed and ready. Saturday with Mimi meant we either ate at the Rexall Drug Store counter or at Britling's Cafeteria. I was partial to the drug store counter because they had those little round orange stools that would spin around if I was lucky enough to catch Mimi not looking for a minute. They also served a little cheeseburger and Mimi would let me have a whole order of fries by myself so Rexall was always my choice. Britling's Cafeteria was the old kind of cafeteria where all the food was displayed and you would make your choices as you went through the line. The only odd thing about Britling's was that they didn't serve you a plate at the end of the line, they just wrote down what you picked out from the sample line and then had waiters that brought the food to you after you found a seat.

Britling's was quite a plush place. The carpet was a deep red and black patterned carpet that was absolutely noiseless as you walked on it. The tables were all covered with pristine white tablecloths with a nice little flower arrangement on each. The chairs and tables were heavy oak burnished almost black with careful polishing. There was a stainless steel handrail all down the food line perfect for discharging the heavy static charge I could accumulate by dragging my leather soled shoes on the carpet and slowly pushing my finger toward the handrail. Over several steps I could generate a charge loud enough to make an audible pop and see the small arc of electricity that resulted. Of course Mimi would instantly remind me this was uncouth behavior whenever she caught me but I could usually do it a couple of times before she noticed.

Once we placed our order we would find a nice table and Mimi would wait for one of the waiters to pull her chair back so she could sit down. I tried to do it for her one day but she told me that was the waiter's job and had me stand by while we waited. She wouldn't say anything of course or look at the waiter, it was simply their job to see she was ready to be seated and respond. The waiters were all black in Britling's. They wore high waisted black pants with a black velvet stripe down the leg and bright red velvet vests. Their shirts were starched white with stiff collars and a black tie tucked neatly down inside their red velvet vests. When they saw her waiting they would hurriedly step over and pull her chair back with a kind of slight bow and nod of the head. A soft "ma'am" would escape their lips as they pulled the chair back. When she was seated they would softly maneuver the chair in place as she lifted herself just slightly enough so that three little moves were necessary to get her under the table properly. It was quite a practiced ordeal, this getting the chair under the table with her in it but they had it down to a science. "Will there be anything else Ma'am?" always followed.

"No thank you," she would say without looking at them. I would always scramble into my chair while this was going on because I found it slighly embarrassing in some way and was always anxious she was going to make me go through the same actions to be seated but she never did. I suppose she settled for what little order she could impose on me without trying to train me completely.

One particular Saturday I was lobbying hard for the Rexall lunch but she overruled me. I was having a hard time with her rules that day as I knew my brother was off playing ball with our friends and I had a new baseball mitt and I had traded some army men and a bunch of good baseball cards to get. Every time she scolded me for slouching or dragging my feet that day was a fresh reminder that I wasn't where I wanted to be. I felt a little bad for being put out with her but it was still in my mind when we got to Britling's. I hadn't exactly argued for Rexall but she knew I was out of sorts to begin with so I suppose she was trying to explain her choice when this happened. After we placed our order and the waiter went through the elaborate seating routine she said, "That's why I like this place. These people know their place here."

It took me a minute to understand what she was saying. The waiter was still standing there when she said it. Once I caught her meaning a red flush of embarrassment washed over me. I looked at the waiter but he pretended not to hear what she said. "Will there be anything else, ma'am?" he said without a touch of any resentment. His eyes met mine for just a second after he said it and I could see something flicker across them. I couldn't tell if it was anger or pity for me because he could see I was flushed red and completely embarrassed. I scrambled into my chair and tried not to look at him again. I was ashamed. I was ashamed of what she had said and I was ashamed of my reaction. I wanted to apologize to him but I knew I couldn't. I wanted to tell her how wrong what she had just done was but I couldn't do that either. All I could do was sit there and be embarrassed for all of us.

A lot of things became clear to me in the next few minutes of thought. Mimi was a racist. Her refusal to acknowledge the bus driver's greetings, her refusal to look at the waiters at Britling's except to make sure their eyes were downcast as they addressed her. It all made sense to me and it shamed me. Mimi came from a long line of privileged wealthy people. The wealth had dwindled by the time she met my grandfather but the expectation of privilege never did. The loss of her wealth was hard on her but the idea of racial equality was completely foreign to her and she both feared and hated it. I noticed a lot of things after that with Mimi but I can still remember that moment quite clearly. The moment I first saw racism in its naked ignorant ugliness.