Stand Up Straight and Sing!

by Jessye Norman

  Of course, everyone was excited by the prospect of the Reverend Dr. King gracing Tabernacle’s pulpit. But my family’s excitement reached beyond that proverbial fever pitch with the knowledge that my brother Silas, then a student at Paine College and president of the Augusta Youth Chapter of the NAACP, would actually be in the company of Dr. King on this momentous occasion. On the afternoon of the speech to be delivered that evening, the pastor of the church, Rev. C. S. Hamilton, and my brother Silas escorted Dr. King across Gwinnett Street (now Lucy Laney Boulevard) as they made their way from a visit to the church and back over to the pastor’s home. Reverend Hamilton’s wife, a public school teacher, had been one of my teachers in elementary school, and both she and Reverend Hamilton were prized members of the community, so it was of no surprise that they hosted Dr. King in their home. I watched from a respectful distance as these three men crossed the street in the middle of the block, not bothering to cross at the light. I remember thinking to myself that my brother and Dr. King resembled one another. Or perhaps I imagined it. I was mesmerized by the sight.

  At Tabernacle Baptist on the evening of the speech, the church was packed: there was not a space on a pew to be found. White visitors were also present at this gathering, as was typical when Dr. King spoke, and all was peaceful, with an understanding of the importance of the moment.

  Dr. King’s voice rang out as always, challenging the status quo and exhorting one and all to go forth in the spirit of Gandhi, in the spirit of nonviolent resistance, to that promised land of equality for all. Tabernacle Church was more than its edifice that evening; the sanctuary was filled with a spirit of unity, of recommitment to the struggle. Indeed, it was a proud moment for all of Augusta.

  But there were dangerous moments as well, even for us children. As a teenager, I joined other young people in my community to help integrate S. H. Kress, Woolworth’s, and H. L. Green, the five-and-dime stores in our city. We seated ourselves in the areas where we knew we were not invited to sit, and we ordered food, daring the staff not to serve us. The NAACP supported us in this effort, providing the money with which to purchase the meals. It was not a matter of having lunch, of course; we were fighting for equal treatment. Much tension accompanied these protests, because many of the workers at these lunch counters were African Americans and they worried both about losing their jobs if they served us, and for our safety, the children they loved. They certainly did not want to see us suffer bodily harm as a result of our actions—a threat that was ever present. But it was a risk that we, even as children, understood and were prepared to take—one that each of us in the movement understood.

  On one occasion, the prospect of physical harm almost became reality for some of us. We were marching against a supermarket that, at the time, sat squarely in the African American section of town but refused to hire African Americans for anything other than menial jobs. The demonstration was very organized: the police were present, and all the required permits had been obtained, so no one was expecting trouble. Still, as we took part in the march, a scream suddenly rang out behind us. Were it not for that scream, I am not sure I would be here today, as it alerted us to a car careening down the street. The car had jumped the curb, and the driver was heading straight for us. We were able to disperse, and no one was hurt.

  This incident surely frightened every last one of us. Still, we had to keep moving, through the fear and through the danger. It was hard for us to understand the level of hatred that would bring someone to contemplate such an evil act—to run down young people marching on a sidewalk. Or in other cases, to set trained dogs on peaceful protesters, or use powerful water hoses against fellow citizens. Where was humanity in all of this?

  This is a question that would resonate among my fellow students one evening toward the end of my academic years at the University of Michigan School of Music. It is the norm to find schools and conservatories offering up presentations of student accomplishment, and this was the case on this particular day, as the opera department featured several of us performing singularly and in operatic ensembles. The preparations consumed most of the day, which meant rehearsals in the morning, a break for lunch, and further preparations in the afternoon for the evening’s concert in Hill Auditorium.

  I was unaware of anything happening outside of that space, although I noticed my friend from the orchestra stopping into the quarters I had appropriated as my dressing room rather frequently. I assumed he thought I was nervous about my upcoming performance, and I took this solicitous behavior as in keeping with his gentle personality and his always-loyal friendship.

  The concert was well received, and only after all was completed did my friend reappear in my little space to ask me to sit, as he wished to say something to me. He went on to tell me that he hoped he had made the correct decision in keeping this information from me, as the news of the day was again very sad. “They have done it again,” he said. “They have taken the life of an American prophet today: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated.” He added again: “I hope I did the right thing in not allowing anyone to tell you.”

  We sat together for a short while. Without either of us saying very much, we put my things together and joined the others at our usual table at a nearby student restaurant, where we all talked, finally, of this latest tragedy and all the similar acts of notorious violence that had transpired during our study years—beginning, of course, with the death of President John F. Kennedy while some at our table were yet in high school, and of Medgar Evers. We talked, too, of those horrors committed against the many unnamed and unheralded civil rights activists whose lives were taken in hate: James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, those our own age, killed in Philadelphia, Mississippi. I recounted how Vice President Humphrey had introduced me to the then-junior Senator from Massachusetts, Ted Kennedy, just months prior to this, when I sang in Washington at a service dedicated to the memory of slain civil rights leaders and workers.

  We talked through the night. I thanked my friend for his sensitivity to me and assured him that all was surely well in our friendship, our mutual respect and our caring.

  The reaction across the country to this latest assault on the spirit of a nation would be visited upon city after city. Fire!

  There were those who believed that the plight of African Americans, all we had endured, from the slave ships to the plantations and cotton fields, from the limbs of southern oaks bearing their “strange fruit” to the bloodstained roads leading to Selma, would break the spirit of our people. Yet these horrors did not accomplish their goal. And any time that I have a chance to speak on this subject, I do, because it is vitally important that those who did not live through that period of our nation’s history learn about it and understand it. See it through the eyes of those who did live through it. Know that there is still work to be done. As a people, we have stood tall in faith, in determination, and in knowing that the light that guided our forefathers and foremothers is the same light that must guide this world to tolerance, to mutual acceptance, and, indeed, to the fellowship of humankind.

  This is certainly what I had in mind many years later when I stood in the Capitol Rotunda to witness Miss Rosa Parks, a woman who taught the world the power of quiet resistance and self-determination, receive her due. On that day, the mother of the civil rights movement was awarded the Congressional Gold Medal from the President of the United States, President Bill Clinton. The Rotunda was filled with those whose hearts would sing out with the true meaning of democracy: justice and freedom—a celebration of the best of humankind.

  As Miss Rosa Parks was honored, she honored every single one of us with her serene presence.

  How does one begin to offer an appropriate degree of thanks to an American icon—a person who helped to lead this country into the light of political and social change by deciding to take a seat on a city bus and remaining there? We know now that her early work with the NAACP in and around her community had prepared her for that moment. It was nothin
g so prosaic as a woman taking the first seat available to her at the end of a long workday, but rather an act of true protest, motivated by the sure knowledge that the unalienable rights belonging to all American citizens, belonged to her, too. She deserved to be feted over and over again—for her bravery and for her commitment to truth.

  The Rotunda was packed to the brim: the President lauded her, the Reverend Jesse Jackson spoke stirringly of her place in our nation’s history, the civil rights activist Dorothy Height was present, in one of her fabulous hats—I always loved her hats—and the ceremony was made all the more moving when the choir from my undergraduate school, Howard University, sang one of the Spirituals that I, too, had sung when I was a member of that very choir: “Done Made My Vow.”

  Done made my vow to the Lord

  And I never will turn back.

  I will go

  I shall go

  To see what the end will be.

  Done opened my mouth to the Lord

  And I never will turn back.

  I will go

  I shall go

  To see what the end will be.

  When I was a young mourner just like you,

  I prayed and prayed ’till I came through.

  I was beyond thrilled to have been asked to sing for Miss Parks, and was seated on the right-hand side of the dais, facing the hundreds assembled. When we all sang “The Star-Spangled Banner,” I happened to be standing directly in front of Senator Patrick Leahy, who was seated in the first row of guests. He commented to me at the conclusion of the song, “Now, that was something else,” or something to that effect. I admit it: I sang with as much gusto as I have ever put into our national anthem on that day! Miss Parks, our President, the Capitol Rotunda, the nation’s highest civilian award being offered to an icon I admired, making her one of a relatively small number of citizens to be honored in this way dating back to the Revolutionary War: all of it was magical.

  And for me, “America, the Beautiful” had seldom been truer to its words. For a country that would recognize in this important manner the magnitude of Miss Parks, while she was living, while she, too, could marvel at the distance traveled from Montgomery forty-five years prior to this national embrace, my heart was full. Miss Parks allowed us the privilege of thanking her, and it was done in a fashion befitting a true American hero.

  MY SIBLINGS AND I, except for Elaine and George, attended segregated schools. I would say that this experience, being taught by African American teachers who were totally devoted to the outcome that they sought, which was our success, was in many ways a blessing. We were not lost in great big schools where no one knew our names, where no one paid any attention to what was happening with us, but rather had teachers who, should we have had the courage (or the poor sense) to do something against the regulations, were on the phone personally to our parents. Those teachers gave us extra work because they knew that we had to learn to handle extra work. They gave us their time, even after school hours, because they wanted to—because they deemed us important and worth the effort.

  There were hundreds of students in my elementary school, spanning the first to the eighth grades. Yet we were addressed by our names, because the teachers knew us. I received a first-rate education, one that made me stand out as an undergraduate student when taking those early examinations at Howard University. For example, due to the extraordinary English teachers I had all through school, I did not have to take freshman English. And it was because of one of my favorite teachers, Mrs. Viola Evans, who insisted in her eleventh-grade English class that we learn and recite a new poem every week that I had such good practice with memorization, which would serve me so well, later.

  One of the people I met my second day at Howard had come from a high school in Little Rock; when she told me this, I just hugged her and we had a good cry. I knew what had happened at Little Rock; I sympathized, I empathized, and we became friends forever.

  My parents expected the best from us, and this was no less true for our friends.

  I knew instinctively which boys would be welcomed at home and which ones would probably not be. It was easy to see this from watching my father. He really did reveal the utmost dignity, respect, and manhood in his interactions with my mother. By watching this and many other such niceties, I learned how men of a certain generation wished to deport themselves in the presence of the women in their lives; providing such care and support seemed to come to them as naturally as breathing. On the odd occasions when the car door was opened for me as a child, I would sit up properly in the seat, feeling and looking more grown-up, since that was how I was being treated.

  I learned, too, about the ways of men through fascinating conversations with my older brother’s friends. I suppose I was more than a little flattered that they would sit still for a conversation with me. I was interested, genuinely, in what they were doing in high school, in the high school band, and on their travels with the band! I wished to know all, and I was so very happy that Charlie and Ronnie seemed to enjoy our little chats; it did not matter that maybe they were just being polite out of respect for their pal, my brother Silas. But those fascinating conversations, and my relationship with my father, made it so that, even to this day, I have the ability to have uncomplicated relationships with boys and men.

  Of course, this knowledge did not come without its missteps when I was younger.

  I knew, for instance, that a boy who was, like me, in the college prep track at school would be well received at home, and I usually adhered to those expectations. Except for when it came time for the senior prom. I worried for two weeks before telling my parents that my date was a budding basketball player who was not exactly a stellar student. I offered the news one evening over dinner, but only after my mother prompted me by asking, “Has anyone invited you to the prom?”

  “Yes,” I answered nervously.

  “Oh, well, that’s nice,” she said. Understand: Mama said “that’s nice” about most things. “Is it that nice boy that was over here studying with you that time?”

  “Oh, no,” I said. “It’s not that boy.”

  “Oh, but I thought you liked him,” she said.

  “I like him fine, but he is not the one who invited me to the prom.” And so I blurted out the boy’s name and silently hoped for the best.

  My mother gave me a quizzical look. “I don’t think I know him.”

  I summoned my courage and out it all came—who he was, that he played basketball, that he was the cousin of my best friend, Ernestine. I had hoped that this detail would make him an acceptable date for the prom. My parents did not say much at that dinner, but I knew that I would need to coach this young man—let’s call him “John,” to preserve his privacy, poor darling—about how to behave when he came to my home to pick me up for the prom. He could not afford to get it wrong—not with my parents. I told him at least a thousand times: “You must bring a corsage in a little box and you will hand it to my mother so that she can pin it on my dress,” I insisted. “Now, if you want to make sure we never get out of the house, just start toward my chest with that corsage in your hands. Don’t even think about it.”

  John was fifteen minutes late picking me up, which earned a stern “Why are you late, young man?” from my mother before he could even get into the living room. He managed the matter of the corsage very well, but he missed the mark when my father asked him an extremely important question—a question my father reserved for anybody who was more than ten years old: “Young man, what are your plans?” Now, if you were going to be in Silas and Janie Norman’s house, you needed to have a good answer to that question. Saying “I hope to have a job over at Kelly’s filling station for the summer,” as John did, was not really a plan. Not for my parents. A plan was that you would be working hard all summer because you were starting college in September and you needed to save your money for books and fees. Needless to say, John did not stand a chance. He was probably not at all distressed that our friendship did not stand the t
est of time, which in high school is about three weeks.

  These standards, set so long ago, influence my life today: be conscious of one’s choices, resolute in one’s beliefs, and always maintain integrity and a work ethic that demands concentration and focus. To this day, my parents’ charge inspires me to “get on with it.”

  This is one of the many reasons that I do not sing in a language that I do not speak or that I have not studied. Not just the pronunciation of words, but the actual language, its verbs and modifiers and subjunctive case. In preparing new compositions for my repertoire, it is important that I know how I feel about a new piece of music, and have become well acquainted with it prior to rehearsals with my piano accompanist or with the conductor. This time spent on my own facilitates a real collaboration.

  I am also inspired by the community in which I grew up and from the examples of the adults in that community, including my own parents, to lend a hand in service to others, particularly children interested in the arts. When I was a youngster, arts education was simply part of public school education. In recent years, though, we have allowed this to fall out of the public education curriculum, which is unfair to children and reflects a lack of understanding of the value of the arts in the growth of our young people. Every study of the rewards of arts education shows that regardless of the socioeconomic standing of the family, a child with arts education as a part of their studies performs better in all other subjects. One of the reasons for this is that through the arts, children learn a very basic tenet, a vital thing: the benefit of repetition. Whether you are learning the capital of every state, or the C major scale on the piano, if you practice over and over again, you become better at it.