The Black Calhouns

by Gail Lumet Buckley

  I love and miss my mother, but I do not mourn her. Her life should be celebrated—not mourned. She had a beautiful funeral Mass at the church she had attended every Easter that she could. She was not really a Mass-goer, but she liked priests—especially slightly elderly music-loving Jesuits who liked martinis. Audra McDonald sang “This Little Light of Mine,” the spiritual Lena sang in 1963 at Medgar Evers’ last voting rights rally in Mississippi. A delegation of former Tuskegee Airmen were also in the church to salute their World War II “sweetheart”—they were applauded by the congregation.

  A family truth was revealed in Richard Corliss’ Time magazine obituary, “A Great Lady Makes Her Exit”:

  [Lena Horne] fashioned one of the 20th century’s most exemplary and poignant show-business careers … Performing into her 80s, she remained a beacon for black performers, a divinity to audiences of all colors and a lingering, stinging reproach to the attitudes that had robbed her of her Hollywood prime … Horne had the fine features, soprano stylings and genteel comic touch of, say, an Irene Dunne. Except Horne wasn’t Caucasian. Like other black performers who might have been top stars—like Paul Robeson and Nina Mae McKinney and Josephine Baker … she was part of a great generation lost to a crippling national prejudice … [W]hen stars her age were moldering in retirement … Horne, still impossibly radiant, continued to flourish, tacking on to the end of her career the renown that should have been hers at the beginning … The anger she had repressed in her youth came out forcefully but smoothly, in anecdotes and epigrams, and was carefully modulated into irony or nostalgia.

  That was the voice of Horne the entertainer. She wanted to instruct her ‘80s audiences, not indict them. As a child, she had wanted to be a schoolteacher, and onstage or in the talk-show-guest chair, that’s what she so superbly was: the professor and the lesson, an inspiring example of outliving prejudice, turning stormy weather into blue skies and beauty into truth.

  Richard Corliss made it clear that the battle for Lena’s heart and mind was won by Cora, thank goodness, and not poor Edna. Yes, my mother was a teacher. I sat on her lap, and she taught me to read. She taught me “Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.” She taught me to sing “The Owl and the Pussycat.” And she gave me my first civics lesson when I was six or seven, when she sat me down to say that she had just been with an American soldier whose mother and father were Japanese, who had lost both his legs and come home to find his house burned down. She told me that she sang “America the Beautiful,” and the soldier cried, and she cried.

  Like her grandmother, Lena did not believe in age-inappropriate activities. My mother always entered my world—she never brought me into hers. Like her grandmother, my mother never really approved of show business. I did not enter her world, except under controlled circumstances, until I was probably fourteen or fifteen, when I could hang around the dressing room, see celebrities, and stay up for late supper. That’s when I saw the world of Lena Horne. I realize now that through most of my life, I never knew “Lena Horne.” I knew someone called “Mom,” but I never really knew “Lena.” I caught a glimpse of her perhaps, watching her in the mirror when she put her makeup on—a fascinating exercise. She covered her light beige face, sprinkled with freckles, with dark brown pancake makeup (under the lights it was not so dark) the way she had been taught at MGM—where she was given modified Joan Crawford lips. She liked glamour. She liked haute couture fashion, Paris, and breakfast at 3 P.M. She read until dawn.

  Despite doing the New York Times crosswords daily, and reading volume after volume of French history, my mother was always pleading her “dumbness”—mostly because she left school at sixteen, and also because most of her friends were very smart people. I was surprised at how articulate and psychologically astute she was. Edna can be forgiven much for giving Lena books instead of toys and dolls (where she could not compete with Ted Horne). Cora was also a great book-giver. Books saved Lena’s spirit as well as her mind.

  My mother and I discussed everything under the sun, except politics and sex. I knew we were Democrats. As far as my mother was concerned Eleanor Roosevelt walked on water—as for FDR, she had romantic dreams about him. We never discussed the facts of life. She left a book on my bed called The Stork Didn’t Bring You. Books, in fact, were one of our great bonds. She talked about books she loved as a child (they were usually about orphans) and gave me volume after volume of Dr. Dolittle and Nancy Drew. Mom and I loved to read while traveling. We exchanged Penguin mysteries on trains and ships. Such was our quest for wonderful books that when I arrived at our London hotel, traveling alone, at age sixteen, from school in upstate New York, I had barely walked in the door before she said, “You’ve got to read this,” and thrust into my hand the first James Bond book.

  I was fascinated to discover that the song “Now” was not only remembered, but also not just an American phenomenon. In 1964 the Cuban Santiago Álvarez made a five-minute political film, also called “Now.” It was a montage of civil rights pictures with Lena’s voice the only sound track. It was rediscovered some fifty years later by the young left. I was touched by comments on the Web. This was from a young woman named “Jane”:

  Some folks think that Lena Horne’s signature song is “Stormy Weather” but her real signature is “NOW.” For her politics, Lena Horne was blacklisted; she was dedicated to justice, and “Now” is probably the song she cared for most. The great filmmaker, Cuba’s Santiago Alvarez, captured the essence of Lena Horne’s “NOW” … as a virtual anthem. If anyone questions why so many people at the time became revolutionaries, here is the answer.

  A young man named “Adam” remembered it as “a call to arms for those who would stand against injustice”:

  I first saw “Now” in college and it’s stuck with me ever since, to the point that I keep a copy of it on my phone at all times. Horne made plenty of other contributions in entertainment’s long history, but this is my personal memory of her … R.I.P. Lena … you will be missed.

  I am pretty sure that Lena never ever heard of Santiago Álvarez or his film. She certainly never mentioned it to me. Despite her long-ago detested stepfather, Cuba was not really on her radar. But she would have been very pleased.

  CODA/1980s

  Honors/South

  DR. HOMER E. NASH

  IN MARCH 1981, the same month that saw Lena’s triumphant return to Broadway, Atlanta greatly mourned the death of black Calhoun Dr. Homer Nash Sr., aged ninety-four, the patriarch of the Nash family and the father of cousins Catherine, Harriet, Helen, and Homer. In contrast to Lena’s sadness, the 1970s had been all about honors for Dr. Nash. The tall, elegant old man, white-haired and brown-skinned, was truly beloved in the black community of Atlanta. He had become an Atlanta icon, like his father-in-law, Antoine Graves Sr., who had been so adamant about Dr. Nash not marrying his daughter Marie until he had established himself. The father of two more doctors, and the grandfather of one, Dr. Nash practiced medicine in Atlanta for seventy years. He was honored as the oldest practicing black doctor in Georgia, as well as the longest-practicing doctor of any race in Atlanta. The black Calhouns, North and South, never stopped bringing honor to the family.

  A 1972 newspaper interview, published when Dr. Nash was eighty-six and had been practicing in Atlanta for sixty-three years, was titled “Meet Dr. Homer Nash”:

  He was the son of a common laborer and a maid; he worked his way through Meharry Medical College (class of 1910); he manned a World War I field hospital with 41 ambulances, and, for 33 years has persuaded mothers to immunize their children at a Fulton County clinic, while at the same time being available to his own patients at 239 Auburn Ave. NE.

  In 1973 a special Father’s Day recognition was reported—Marie and Homer Nash, with daughter Harriet and her husband, Dr. Charles “Chiz” Chisholm, and their daughter, Cheryl, with her husband, Charles Hobson, were all photographed:

  Dr. Homer E. Nash, a pioneer citizen of Atlanta, was honored by the First Congregational Church … as the Father
of the Year and an eminent senior citizen who has rendered outstanding services to both his church and community …

  The honors continued. In December 1976 Dr. Nash, aged eighty-nine, became the first recipient of the W. E. B. Du Bois Award of the Du Bois Institute of Atlanta University. And in February 1978 the Atlanta Daily World observed Dr. and Mrs. Nash’s sixtieth wedding anniversary with an interview with Marie Graves Nash:

  Despite inclinations to believe that their story is one of the classic “love at first sight” romances, Mrs. Nash says that actually the opposite is true. She had known and dated Dr. Nash five years before they were finally married. “We used to go to a lot of different parties together. I think that was around 1914 and 1915,” she said, meticulously careful to keep the years straight. “Yes, it had to be around then because I remember I had just graduated from Atlanta University.”

  Theirs had neither been an early marriage of child bride and bridegroom. Mrs. Nash admitted she was twenty five years old when they were joined together … When queried on the matter of divorce, Mrs. Nash became almost indignant. “Divorce? I never gave it a thought. After I had my babies, I said even then ‘there’ll be no leaving around here,’” Mrs. Nash said with a short but endearing laugh …

  Certain “choices” like divorce or adultery, which seemed so easily available in the North, rarely occured to the Atlanta branch of the family. Homer Nash, unlike Frank Horne, for example, was not a reluctant man of medicine. And Marie Nash, unlike Cora Horne, was not an unhappy or neglected wife. Possibly because the world outside the family unit was so potentially dangerous, Southern blacks who were lucky enough to have happy family lives and rewarding work cherished them all the more.

  Another 1979 newspaper article celebrated Dr. Nash’s long practice:

  “There was a time when I wasn’t the only doctor on Auburn Avenue, there used to be at least 20 doctors practicing on this street. But as opportunities opened up for Blacks all over the city,” he said, “they left Auburn Avenue.”

  In July 1979 Dr. Nash’s granddaughter, Cousin Catherine’s daughter, Karen Marie Harris, married Stanley Reynolds in Milwaukee’s Central United Methodist Church. Karen had graduated from Tufts University in Massachusetts in 1974 and received a certificate from the state of Georgia to teach early elementary grades K–3. Sherry Nash, daughter of Homer Jr., was a bridesmaid, and Hallie Hobson, daughter of Cheryl Chisholm, was flower girl. The bride was employed by the Internal Revenue Service in Atlanta. The bridegroom, a housing code inspector for the city of Atlanta, attended Indiana State University and the Art Institute of Chicago.

  In 1980 there was a proclamation from the city of Atlanta by Maynard Jackson, elected in 1973 as the first black mayor of a major Southern city. (In 1959 his mother had been the first Negro to receive a card from the Atlanta Public Library.) He now honored Homer Nash:

  WHEREAS Dr. Homer E. Nash has practiced medicine actively in Atlanta for 69 years; and

  WHEREAS Dr. Nash has served as president of the Georgia State Medical Association and the Atlanta Medical Association; and

  WHEREAS Dr. Nash has also been named Physician of the Year by the Georgia State Medical Association and the Atlanta Medical Association; and

  WHEREAS the Atlanta Medical Association has honored Dr. Nash for his outstanding achievements by creating the Nash-Carter Award:

  NOW, THEREFORE, I, Maynard Jackson, Mayor of the City of Atlanta, hereby do proclaim Saturday, January 19, 1980 as

  HOMER NASH DAY

  In Atlanta, and urge our citizens to recognize this day …

  Homer E. Nash’s March 1981 funeral was, of course, at First Congregational Church. The white Atlanta Constitution recognized him under the headline “Dr. Homer Nash’s Death Ends an Era for Atlanta”:

  He and his wife, Marie Graves, who were married for 63 years, had five children, two of whom—Homer Jr. and Helen Nash Abernathy—are pediatricians practicing in St. Louis. And in June, Homer Jr.’s daughter Alison is due to become a third-generation physician when she graduates from the Baylor University School of Medicine.

  Alison attended Howard University before medical school and completed her pediatric residency at the Oakland Naval Hospital. She married Clarence Dula in 1979 and had two daughters. She joined the U.S. Navy in 1981, reaching the rank of lieutenant commander as a navy doctor. She later went into practice with her father.

  When her husband, John Harris, died in 1984, Cousin Catherine moved back to Atlanta from Milwaukee. Wonder of wonders, in 1991 she married her childhood sweetheart, Joseph Page Frye, the “Joe” of her cousin Kathryn’s doggerel, a widower who retired as a supervisor with the U.S. Postal Service. Catherine now joined her husband’s church, St. Paul’s Episcopal. Joe was a member of the St. Paul’s Men’s Club as well as the Tuesday Bridge Club. And Catherine volunteered at the Atlanta Public Library. Once again, Catherine’s activities and concerns were typical of middle-class black Atlanta life—community, church, bridge, and, especially, family. Karen Harris Reynolds wrote about her mother’s remarriage:

  My dad’s illness was long and emotionally draining, but I don’t think she would have remarried if she hadn’t been here and having social contact with Joe Frye. He went out of his way to convince her it was a good idea. He treated us like we were his children, and we grew to love him too. So I don’t think there was a big young love story between them like Harriet who gave up Spelman for her Chiz but they were a great end of life love story and although I miss her horribly I am always glad she was, for her last four years, extremely happy and in love. When she died Joe was devastated and carried on with us as if he had actually fathered me. He was a very nice man …

  In June 1993 the Calhoun family reunion was held in Atlanta. Cousin Catherine was editor/author of the memorial book The Calhoun Connection. As Catherine wrote in the reunion book:

  To our ancestors we would like to give praise and thanks for who and what they were. We have become who and what we are because of the strengths, determination, sense of self and pride that you bequeathed to us. We are determined to do the same for the generations following us. This family will continue to grow, working hard to become loving and compassionate people and to develop whatever talents have been given to us.

  In its appreciation of Dr. Nash, the Atlanta Constitution mentioned the “end of an era.” Sad to say, despite great black individual achievements, in the decades following Dr. Nash’s death the vicious circle of racism, whose effects move a society in a backward direction, was dragging the South back to, say, sometime before the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment. By the 1990s lynching had returned to the South. And black Southerners suddenly faced a very old enemy: twenty-first-century Republicans were secretly nineteenth-century Democrats. Ostensibly in order to thwart citizenship for the children of illegal immigrants, the Republican Party of 2010 seriously debated the idea of amending or repealing the Fourteenth Amendment. In 2011 Texas Republicans talked about seceding from the Union. In 2012 the National Republican Party was busy finding ways of getting around the Fifteenth Amendment in order to, yet again, deny blacks voting rights. It used to be said of Frederick Douglass, “If only he were white, he could be president.” With Barack Obama, the first black president, it might be said, “If he were only white, they would let him be president.” From the moment he was elected, Republicans began trying to bring him down, to the costly neglect of every other issue affecting the American people. And just as their nineteenth-century Democratic counterparts began to destroy the black vote the minute the first ballots were counted, twenty-first century Republicans tried to topple the first black president by slyly invoking the sacred cause of white supremacy, which seemed to be stronger than God or patriotism—but as proved through the ages, never stronger than love and courage. In freedom as in slavery, white supremacy by definition crushed the hopes and dreams of all but the most fearless and tenacious of black achievers. The black Calhouns were both fearless and tenacious. Thank goodness they were also bighearted a
nd generous with their family gifts, serving not only their communities but also their country.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I have many people to thank—especially my earliest reader, Kevin Buckley, for his encouragement; Lynn Nesbit, my wonderful and supportive agent and friend; and my brilliant editor and friend Joan Bingham, at Grove Atlantic, who made everything better. I also want to thank Joan’s Grove Atlantic colleagues—especially Amy Vreeland for her guiding hand, Charles Woods for his art direction, and Morgan Entrekin, Judy Hottensen, and Deb Seager for their enthusiasm and publishing expertise. And special thanks to Nancy Tan for her copyediting.

  I want to thank Henry Foner, John Merony, and Ramona Brewer Moloski for enlightening me on the Blacklist days. My thanks also go to Ken Gregory in Atlanta for his knowledge of the Ezzard family. And special thanks to Patrick Callihan for his research assistance.

  And of course this book could not have been written without the help and support of my Calhoun cousins: Catherine Nash Harris, Karen Harris Reynolds, Harriet Nash Chisholm, Cheryl Chisholm, Hallie Hobson, and Christopher Lee.

  With gratitude to all.

  SOURCES CITED

  Atlanta Historical Bulletin: A Salute to Atlanta’s Black Heritage. Volume XXI. Atlanta, GA: Historical Society, Spring 1977.

  Bacote, Clarence A. The Story of Atlanta University: A Century of Service, 1865–1965. Atlanta, GA: Atlanta University, 1969.

  Baker, Ray Stannard. Following the Color Line: An Account of Negro Citizenship in the American Democracy. Williamstown, MA: Corner House Publishers, 1973 (originally published New York: Doubleday, Page & Company, 1908).