To me, my great-grandmother’s words were distant echoes from a nearly forgotten past. She died at the age of eighty-nine in November 1980, when I was a teenager, that tumultuous year of the Arthur McDuffie riots, but I don’t remember asking her about family history again. Her daughter, my grandmother Lucille, died in 1992. My father’s great-great Aunt Melva Richardson died in 2001 at the age of 112, but I hadn’t seen her in years.
As close as I was to Mother, my maternal grandmother who died at the end of 2000, I can think of a million questions I never thought to ask her. What did she think of the changes she’d seen in her eighty years of life? What was her happiest memory as a child? Whom did she most admire in her lifetime? My grandmother’s death has taught me that no matter how many hours I have spent with my mother in interviews and conversations, there will be only a roaring abyss left behind once she is gone, too. And my father. That’s the only time we realize how much we never knew. How much we never asked.
The story my father told me about Lyles Station when I was eleven was exactly what I’d hoped to hear. I wrote my report and my parents helped me build a large plywood display, which I adorned with family photographs and ink-pen sketches my father had drawn for me: a black man driving a wagon with a horsewhip, the desperate battle inside the round house. I worked harder on that project than I’d worked on anything up until then. Somehow, it mattered more than anything I’d ever done for school.
I concluded the “My Own Roots” report with earnest zeal. Some of your relatives may know of their history. Do they sometimes sit around and tell stories the way Alex Haley’s grandmother did? If they do, listen!
I couldn’t express that thought any better today.
Thirteen
PATRICIA STEPHENS DUE
Where is the Jim Crow section
On this merry-go-round,
Mister, ’cause I want to ride?
Down South where I come from
White and colored
Can’t sit side by side.
Down South on the train
There’s a Jim Crow car.
On the bus we’re put in back—
But there ain’t no back
To a merry-go-round!
Where’s the horse
For a kid that’s black?
—Langstom Hughes
“Merry Go Round”
I left FAMU’s campus and went back to Fort Myers to be with Mother in early 1961, and there was more stress waiting for me because she and Mr. Sears, her new husband, were already having problems. Mr. Sears was a very respected businessman in the local community and shared Mother’s belief in the importance of civic involvement, but they also had serious conflicts, and I was not happy with her new situation. I felt that Mr. Sears was an intruder in Mother’s life, and in turn in mine, especially since she had left Daddy Marion for him. After staying with them for a short time and seeing how often they argued, I resented their marriage even more. Mother had sacrificed a great deal to raise her children, and I wanted her to be happy in her own life now that we were adults. But one thing I appreciated was the way Mother talked to me like a confidante instead of a daughter while I was there, and our relationship began to shift into the cherished friendship it would remain for the next forty years, until she died. Despite Mother’s anxious state regarding Mr. Sears, I enjoyed being with her, away from school and the civil rights movement.
My respite from Tallahassee didn’t last long. One day in March, I got a call from Priscilla, who had taken the lead of Tallahassee CORE. During that time, for whatever reason, Tallahassee CORE’s membership had become more limited to students, with less input from the adults in the community. “Pat,” my sister said in her breathless, enthusiastic way, “you just have to come back here. We need you for demonstrations.”
I flatly told her no. “I need a break from all that,” I said.
“But we need you!” she said. Because she was my sister, Priscilla probably was the only person who could have persuaded me to come, and that did take some persuading. Finally, I agreed to go back to the battlefront.
I arrived in Tallahassee expecting to find Priscilla ready to direct me, but she was nowhere to be found. She had a class she didn’t want to miss, which annoyed me, but I learned there were to be lunch counter demonstrations at Sears & Roebuck, McCrory’s, and Neisner’s. Only five of us had volunteered to take part. This was a far cry from the days when we’d had dozens of protesters, but we decided to press on. On March 4, our small group visited the stores one by one. We arrived at McCrory’s at 11:45 A.M., and after we sat down we were asked to leave, which we did in an orderly way. At Sears, the management had a much more hostile attitude to our presence; instead of asking us to leave the snack bar, management emptied it by sending both employees and diners away, then they locked us inside—but not before turning up the heat as high as they could. It was March, which is technically winter, but Tallahassee’s weather is mild, so it wasn’t long before all of us felt like we were suffocating in that stifling heat. We were trapped inside for nearly three hours, until police finally brought us out at about 3:00 P.M. We were held for a time, but we were not arrested and were soon released.
That left one more store: Neisner’s. By then it was late in the day, and the only other student remaining with me was a FAMU political science major named Benjamin Cowins, a thin, energetic young man in black-rimmed eyeglasses who had grown up in a Negro neighborhood in Miami known as Bunche Park. Ben had first come to the campus in the wake of the FAMU student’s rape in the late 1950s, so he had become politicized right away. At his home neighborhood in Miami, he recalls, he had everything he needed at his fingertips: a movie theater, a shopping center, everything. There was no need to venture into white neighborhoods to be subjected to the insult of a WHITE ONLY sign, so he’d been very sheltered, except he’d noticed how his grandmother corrected anyone, Negro or white, who tried to call her “girl.”
Tallahassee was different, he says. Negroes had to patronize the white downtown area because Frenchtown, the hub of Negro life in Tallahassee, did not offer nearly the same range of goods and services. Also, he says, because he studied political science, he was that much more aware of the unconstitutional oppressiveness of Jim Crow. “Those of us who had the strength, who had the guts, simply volunteered to become a part of all of that,” he says, although he admits he’d “probably think twice today, because I remember being in churches at CORE meetings and at CORE functions when white folks were riding around the church. I recall being downtown participating in sit-ins when there were whites standing around with sticks and with guns and rifles, you know, on their trucks, in their cars, and we were just nonviolent. We had been taught to be nonviolent.”1
At the time, he recalls, he was particularly annoyed with the Negro student athletes who had so much power to raise excitement on the football field and other sports venues, but who refused to get involved with civil rights activities. Their coach discouraged it, he says. And it really irritated him that women were so enamored of those athletes. “I didn’t think very much of the kind of relationships they had with some of those guys who would not even come down and stand around to provide somewhat of a protective atmosphere,” says Cowins, who is today an educator with a doctorate who still lives in Miami. “The young ladies who were participating in the demonstrations at that time sometimes would be spat upon, sometimes would be pushed, sometimes would be hit by the hecklers who were always there. And I felt that the least those guys could do was come and observe.”
That Saturday in Tallahassee, Ben and I were alone, without the protection of athletes or anyone else, as we walked into Neisner’s for the last attempt of the day. The lunch counter was empty, and we sat down to be served. I’m sure we were wondering what was in store for us next, and we didn’t have to wait long to find out. Just like in the earliest sit-ins at Woolworth, a crowd began to gather. “What are you niggers doing in here?” whites shouted at us, mostly young men. “Niggers can’t eat
here!”
Two police officers arrived quickly and stood behind us for a while, but they left. Ben and I decided to leave, too. Suddenly the hecklers, who had been tugging on our clothing, got more violent, probably because the police had already come and gone. Hands grabbed at us and pulled us from the stools. One man challenged Ben to a fight, and he was thrown roughly to the ground by two men, who began punching him, knocking off his glasses. Ben, of course, had been through CORE’s workshop on nonviolence, but apparently he’d succumbed to his anger and self-protective instincts, because he began punching back in the face of the uneven attack. The police returned and stopped the fight right away.
Ben was arrested for fighting. I was arrested because there was a broken glass at the scene of the skirmish and I was “in a position to have thrown a glass,” a charge that was pure fabrication. A very large crowd, perhaps 200 people, had gathered outside of Neisner’s by then, and they all jeered at me and Ben as we were led away by the police. Apparently, one of the white assailants and his two sisters also attacked one of the police officers.2 I know of no whites who were arrested, however.
Once again, I would spend the night in jail. Since I hadn’t eaten in several hours, I called John Due right away and asked him to bring me a sandwich. “Patricia, what are you doing here? I didn’t even know you were in town,” he said, and I told him what had happened. He was concerned I was in jail, but he sounded happy to hear from me.
On the men’s side of the jail, Ben says he was determined not to be locked up even overnight. “I remember stating to a jailer or policeman that I thought I had glass in my eye, and I was elated because I thought I would be taken to the doctor and I would get out of jail that night,” he says. “The policeman took me out back to a water fountain and said, ‘Nigger, wash your eye.’ Then I went back to jail.”3
Ben was arrested on a Saturday and apparently spent three days in jail. The entire time, he was still wearing the neat suit he had worn during the demonstration. On Monday morning, he says, he was rounded up with the other Negro prisoners and led to a truck to be taken to the rock quarry to work. “I was not going to participate in any foolishness like that, carrying rocks or busting rocks, and this made the driver very, very angry,” Cowins says. “He had a lot of things to say to me about what he was going to do to me if I did not participate. He [said] was going to beat me upside the head with a stick. Anyway, he ended up having to drive me back to jail, and he didn’t like that. But he took me back to jail, and I’m almost sure I was placed in a very, very small cell, in isolation. But I was not about to get my suit dirty on that particular day.” He spent only about a day in that isolation cell before his court date.
In court, Ben and I were found guilty of disorderly conduct and fighting. Because of my previous record, I suppose, I was sentenced to 120 days in jail, while Ben was sentenced to thirty. We both stayed out of jail on appeal, but in October the court upheld Ben’s conviction. (Mine was thrown out for lack of evidence). Ben was ordered to begin serving his jail sentence, and he was immediately suspended from school.
Ben’s misfortune helped galvanize Tallahassee’s Negro community again. Although he had been dismissed from FAMU’s faculty, Richard Haley continued to be active on behalf of Tallahassee CORE. Mr. Haley wrote letters complaining about Ben’s treatment to both FAMU President George W. Gore and the national CORE leadership. Eventually, Mr. Haley’s efforts resulted in an article about Ben in the St. Petersburg Times. On November 12, Rev. R. N. Gooden and St. Mary’s Primitive Baptist Church hosted a community-wide “Ben Cowins Day” to raise money for Ben’s expenses and court fines. Several organizations also joined their voices: CORE, the NAACP, the Inter-Civic Council, and a new organization called the Non-Partisan Voter’s Crusade sent an open letter rallying teachers to stop being called “gutless invertebrates” and join the Movement.4 Because so many middle-class Negroes were educators, their absence on the civil rights front was marked and critical.
Daisy Young and former professor Richard Haley were stalwart supporters, as was Dr. James Hudson, the college chaplain and a professor of philosophy. Make no mistake, we were visited and supported by FAMU faculty during our forty-nine days in jail, too.
For example, a FAMU physical education instructor and long-time family friend, Carrie “Tot” Meek, was one of our most faithful visitors with her mother, Mrs. Carrie Pittman. They often came to see how we were, bringing books and gifts. I also received a very kind letter from Anita P. Stewart, an instructor who assured us that we were in her prayers each night. Dr. William Howard, who taught a course on contemporary Africa, was very understanding when I had to miss classes because of my civil rights activities; Priscilla tells me that he also assured her she shouldn’t worry about the school time she missed during the 1960 jail-in. Dr. Howard recalls sending William Larkins schoolwork to help him keep up with his studies in 1960. Priscilla reminds me that art professor Herman Bailey was also very supportive. And sociology professor Victoria Warner was active in another interracial organization to which I belonged, the Tallahassee Committee, which was also dedicated to change.
Some FAMU faculty members seemed to resent our push for civil rights. Those professors went so far as to ridicule us in class, which was very painful. It was one thing to hear insults from outsiders, but from your own?
Ben Cowins remembers Professor Bonds, the political science department head, who told students involved in the demonstrations, “Whatever those white hecklers are doing to you out there, you deserve that and more.” Imagine! These students were risking their lives and safety in the demonstrations, and they had to hear that. Ben dreaded going to Professor Bonds’s class because of the verbal abuse he would suffer, but those classes were impossible to avoid because they were germane to Ben’s major.
Yes, Professor Bonds had a very sharp tongue. I know male students always rushed from the demonstrations to get to his classes because he seemed to delight in embarrassing the young men if they came in late. But when it came to me, Professor Bonds always said, “Good afternoon, Miss Stephens,” and that was the end of it. Meanwhile, if a male activist came in with me, Professor Bonds would roar at him, “And where have you been?” To this day, I’m puzzled by the disparity.
Sociological studies show that oppressed people will often take on the characteristics of their oppressors, a phenomenon evident in this country during the days of slavery, with Negro overseers behaving as badly as, or worse than, the white ones. I definitely believe some of that was at work during my days at Florida A&M, but as I’ve gotten older, I’ve also learned to appreciate that the Negroes in “authority” were in a very delicate position in the 1960s, because there was truly no such thing as Negroes in authority. They were beholden to the white power structure—the white power structure giveth, and the white power structure taketh away. In the course of researching this book and interviewing former students, I have heard surprising stories of generosity and support involving faculty members who did not seem supportive on the surface.
Ben Cowins told me one such story about FAMU’s director of student activities, a minister named Rev. Moses G. Miles, who had a reputation for being very conservative and trying to dissuade students from getting involved in the Movement. After Ben served his jail sentence, the university apparently began receiving telephone calls from the all-white Board of Control, inquiring whether or not Ben was still enrolled at FAMU, which he was. Then the word came down: Cowins must be suspended, the Board of Control said. Rev. Miles was the one who called Ben into his office, and he looked grieved. “The white folks have called to see if you’re in school, and you’re being suspended for the rest of the semester,” Rev. Miles told him. “I regret being the bearer of bad news, but I promise I will assist you in returning.”
When Ben was ready to return to classes for the new semester, Rev. Miles’s church congregation took up a collection. “They paid the tuition,” Cowins says.
Yes, it was frustrating to have to fight so many of your o
wn. But it was also that much more gratifying when help came from unexpected places.
I remember sitting with John Due on the porch of Daisy Young’s house at 1314 Pinellas Street in Tallahassee, not long after my arrest with Ben Cowins at Neisner’s. Miss Young’s home had become a gathering place for student activists, a place to plan strategies, socialize, or simply rest. Miss Young was folksy and warmhearted, and she was also fiercely intelligent, with a sharp memory. I had met her when we first began organizing the Tallahassee CORE chapter, and we had become very close.
It was nearly summer, and I had decided I was not going to Mother’s house in Fort Myers because of the ongoing stress between her and her husband. I decided to attend summer classes at Howard University, so I accepted an invitation from good friends, Wendolyn Johnson and her husband, former FAMU professor Dr. Randy Johnson, to stay with them and their three children in the Washington, D.C., area. I was going to leave Tallahassee soon, and I was telling Black John all about my plans for the future with White John. Black John had already written me little notes about how he wasn’t the marrying type and how he wanted to dedicate his life to the freedom struggle, but I think I wanted him to try to stop me from leaving. I wanted a sign that he cared about me the way John B. did.
John Due was sitting on a chair on the porch, and I was sitting on his lap. “We’re moving to England for at least three years,” I told him. “John is going to be teaching there.”
“That’s great,” he said in a very dull tone. “It’s good to travel.”
“And John is such a planner, he’s already planning our entire family. He says he’d like to have two-and-a-half children. That’s how he puts it, you know. We’re both trying to imagine what they’ll be like.”
“Don’t go.”
The words came so suddenly, so unexpectedly, that I thought I had heard wrong at first. I gave him a very confused look. “Don’t go,” he said again, gazing into my eyes in a way he never had. He definitely did not look like we were just friends anymore. “We can make it here at school. We both have scholarship money. We could live in Polkinghorne Village together. Marry me, Patricia.”
Freedom in the Family Page 18