America Behind the Color Line

by Henry Louis Gates

  Lura

  My mother grew up in the 1950s through the 1970s in North Carolina. Her senior year in high school, in 1969, was spent in a small town on the coast. There was a big Ku Klux Klan presence in the town. The Black Panthers were coming to power nationally. The town had been integrated a year. On their way to class one day, the principal directed the students to go to the auditorium, instead of class, for a memorial to Martin Luther King. She remembers there was a student speaker. A few minutes into his speech, several white boys came down the aisle carrying a Rebel flag and mouthing off. Fighting ensued, and a white boy next to her—the sheriff ’s son—helped her get out the side exit, where they found that bedlam had enveloped the school.

  A wheelbarrow full of empty soda bottles had been abandoned and became ammunition for the angry crowd. Someone threw a bottle at my mother and the sheriff’s son pushed her out of the way, taking the bottle in the face. She dragged him, moaning and bleeding, with fighting all around, to the teachers’ lounge for help and went to search for her younger sister. No one had seen her sister, and it was not safe to go into the classrooms. Black girls were in the hallways with razor blades between their fingers, slapping and hitting white girls. Black boys were wielding chains and knives. There was screaming and crying, and sirens were wailing. The state police had been called in to deal with the melee.

  They later found her sister. The students had been locked in their classroom without explanation by the teacher. Black boys had started climbing in through the windows, attacking the white students. A boy had lunged at my mom with a knife, and a friend of hers, a black boy, shoved her over, desk and all. She escaped through a window, bruised but unharmed. Many students were hurt seriously, and many were scarred for life.

  It was later learned that the rioting was incited by nonstudents. The parents—black and white—in these small towns were still afraid of integration. There were a lot of outsiders on the school campus the day of the riot. Whether they handed out the weapons is unknown. To this day, nobody who’s talking knows the answers.

  This story is one of the very first life lessons I remember getting from my mom. Her family moved all over the United States, and she was raised in parochial schools with very liberal views. But in the town where she lived for her senior year in high school, race was a big deal no matter what she thought.

  I’m grateful that I didn’t grow up then. I do not have to always look over my shoulder and wonder who will help me. The stares I get when I’m with Chris are nothing compared to what my mom went through.

  My mom told me another story, this one about her eighteenth birthday. She was having a few friends over to celebrate, and she had also invited her family’s parish priest. He was very active with the youth at the church and highly respected by her family. It turned out to be a very nice evening complete with cake, ice cream, and even some dancing.

  The next day, her father approached her and asked her what had she been thinking. She did not have a clue what he was talking about. As the conversation continued, he made it clear he was upset that my mom had invited their priest to the house. This made no sense to her. Her dad continued, pointing out that their priest was biracial and that blacks were not welcome in their neighborhood. She argued that what their neighbors thought was not right and she didn’t see how it affected them. Her dad pointed out that not only did they have to continue to live in the neighborhood, but that she may have put the priest in harm’s way by inviting him to their home, and it might even have an effect on her father’s business. Her parents taught her to be “color-blind” and then told her that the rest of our society wasn’t—and that she had to accept it.

  Thirty years ago, everybody had a completely different idea or perspective. I’m grateful for finding my true love and for being born in a time when we can live openly and free. It is sad to think of how many great loves were lost or never given a chance because of the color of someone’s skin.

  I tend to think there are no 100 percent black people or 100 percent white people, or very few. Chris may be black and I may be white, but within us are many colors, races, and nationalities. Being racist usually means denying a part of yourself. Somewhere in everyone’s history is someone different and often someone we might not approve of, but you cannot deny your history. When the census comes around, I mark “other” before I mark “white.” I pray that in ten, fifteen, or maybe a hundred years, you’re not even going to be able to tell the difference, so we might as well start getting used to it.

  Our daughter, Aria, is never going to have to worry about a tan and she’s never going to be too pale. Her hair is not too kinky or too straight. She’s smart. She has the best of both worlds. On Aria’s first Christmas, Chris’s grandmother sent us books about Kwanza. The most I knew about Kwanza was that in high school the one black teacher we had put Kwanza decorations on her door during Christmas. Now I’m a little bit more educated. Hopefully, I’ll learn from Chris and he’ll learn from me, because I don’t believe that either race is better, only different. God made people different for a reason. How could we possibly learn or improve if everyone was exactly the same?

  I usually shrink from confrontation. I walk away and figure, whatever you want to be mad about, you be mad about it in your corner and I’m going to be happy in my corner. I am happy when I go home. Whether I have a conversation with a concerned family member who has questions, or walk by a person on the street who wants to stare, I’m still coming home, and I’m still happy when I get home. I don’t have to worry about what the rest of the world thinks. If I stay right with God, then he will lead me, and the world I come in contact with, on the right path.

  Chris and I are getting married soon, on August 3. In Alabama, you can get married at seventeen without a parent’s consent, but it is still illegal, on the books, for a black man to marry a white woman. I’ve asked a teacher why they won’t change the law. They call it “dead law” or something like that. Another law has overridden it, so the legislature considers it a waste of time to repeal the written law. Within the past year or two, they brought the issue to a vote. There was an initiative to get the law off the books altogether. But not enough people voted to get rid of it. I wasn’t old enough to vote then. I’d like to know who wrote the law and who voted against taking it off. I am getting married! It will be technically legal; the state will see us as married. It’s just that the statute remains on the books. By being a biracial couple in a state where most of the people refused to strike down an antimiscegenation law, I believe that Chris and I are making a statement about civil rights. I don’t care what it says on a piece of paper. Love is love and love is blind, even if justice is not.

  Chris’s black girlfriends gave me a hard time in the beginning. They didn’t say to me, how can you steal a good black man from us? But that was the feeling. They were mad at him for leaving behind all the great black women he grew up with, as if it was a slam against them. I think I was fairly ignorant until that happened. I didn’t know how to take it, but I was almost as upset with him as I was with the girls, because they were still friends of his. I did not understand how he could like somebody that has such a racial opinion about me. Some of the girls after a while got to know me for who I am and said, okay, she really isn’t that bad a girl. I’m not out to steal black men in America. I just found my soulmate and was not going to let anyone keep me from him.

  My parents didn’t care that we were dating. They knew I liked him, so they gave him the chance they would give any decent person. After some of my skeptical friends got to know Chris, they realized he’s a great guy. He wasn’t the stereotypical bad black boy in the neighborhood they grew up hearing about in the South. My parents said, just be aware that some people aren’t going to agree with your decision. I’m aware of that more than I used to be, but I don’t let it bother me.

  The worst experience I’ve encountered with racism occurred in high school, when I was dating a biracial guy named Daniel. He and I went to get gas in a ru
ral part of Birmingham. The man at the gas station was a tall old white guy with a long beard, overalls, and a shotgun by his side—straight from a classic country movie. We saw a truck get gas and leave, then pulled up to the tank. “Our pump’s not working,” the old man said. But I had watched the trucker. There was only one pump, and the old guy hadn’t been pumping air. Daniel was afraid for his life and sank down in his seat. I was still ignorant then. I was sixteen and didn’t understand why, in the year 2000, someone would refuse to fill my car with gas because a biracial friend was sitting next to me in the front seat.

  Well, I got a little scared because we were twenty minutes from the highway with no gas in our car. We rode around and eventually found a Texaco, a more modern place, and got gas with no trouble. Up the street from the gas station, we pulled off to the side of the road and a white man pulled over next to us. That’s the first time I think I was scared at the sight of a white person. But he pulled over to say do you need help? Not everybody on the same block has the same attitude.

  When Chris and I are out together, we get stares from both white and black people. It’s the same uneducated, scared-of-change look from both sides. I grew up in a mostly white society. I always went to private Catholic schools. In high school I was active in an organization called the National Coalition Building Institute—NCBI. We would go into predominantly black and predominantly white high schools and teach students how to confront racist questions and comments. The group was a way of recognizing and conquering that bit of racism in all of us.

  I don’t know if you could say my family was against it when I got pregnant, but it wasn’t their favorite thing; not because Chris is black, but because I was twenty years old and in college. Some people think we are doing our daughter a disservice because she is biracial. I think that as long as we raise her the same way I was raised about race, she’ll be okay. Race is not an issue in your life choices. Chris and I were both raised with good values that will help us raise Aria. Chris’s mother is a wonderful woman. I love her to death, but honestly, a white woman was not her first choice for her son. But she put aside her views and her history, opened her heart, and was willing to get to know me. Now she loves me!

  When I’m out with the baby, most people just say she’s beautiful. I’ve only had one person ask, is her father black? That was a nurse, when Aria was getting her shots. She was a black nurse. She didn’t ask in a derogatory way, but she’s the only person that asked in a straightforward way: her dad must be black, right? Yep, he is. Others will point out that Aria is darker than me, as if that’s a negative thing. The fact that Aria is black does not hurt my feelings, and the question doesn’t hurt my feelings. I am proud of all of her history.

  We made a conscious decision not to raise our children in Birmingham, mainly because of the school system. I want to live where my children will get a good education, whether I’m making a lot of money or not at the time. Money for the school system comes from the tax base in the community, and the resources in all-black or predominantly black schools don’t match the resources in the white schools. You can say it has to do more with class than race, but in Birmingham, class is race. The white man is assumed to be rich and the black man poor. Ideally, when Chris and I have to pick a school for our little girl, the resources in all schools will be equal.

  Chris and I hope we are contributing to a color-blind society. I think the key to having a successful life is how you bring up your children. If we raise our child in a bad way and she grows up to be racist, no matter what else we’ve accomplished, we’ve done something wrong. We have to find a way to keep our daughter color-blind. Kids will play with kids regardless of race unless the adults around them push the other way. Whether it’s in the South or not, we’ll keep Aria where she’s wanted, because I don’t think she should have to fight for her friends. I don’t want her to grow up deciding, okay, I’m black, or I’m white. Being the best black or white girl she can be will not be good enough. I want her to grow up deciding it’s okay to just be Aria. She doesn’t have to choose a side. There are no sides in America, or there shouldn’t be!

  It seems to me that interracial couples are pretty common here in Birmingham. I wonder if that is true or if I am only more aware as I get older. We have a biracial couple a block away. They walk by the house every day and they’re friendly as can be. But I don’t know many biracial couples personally.

  I want to work at a school with underprivileged kids, whether they’re white or black. I am ready for the day when someone will ask, why do you want to go on this “black” school and make it perfect? I just want to give these kids what nobody else will or can give them; that’s going to be my goal. If someone stands in my way and despite all my efforts I can’t get there, then I’m not meant to be there, and I’ll go somewhere else where they want me to make a difference. There is a place for everyone to make a mark, and I will make mine.

  I think it’s possible that within our lifetime race won’t matter. I’m sure Martin Luther King, Jr., hoped that day would come. Most people hope for world peace, but if people don’t take steps to make it happen, it’s not going to come any closer. Everyone can take small steps toward that goal. When I started dating Chris, he got me into gospel music. I didn’t have the grades or the time for sorority, but I wanted to do something fun and important in college. So I thought to myself, I’m a singer. I can join the gospel choir. But I was afraid that everybody would wonder what I was doing there. It was a low point in my life when I almost let race keep me from doing something I love.

  I think some people did have race on their mind when I went to sign up. But people came over to me and asked me my name and what I was studying in school. I told them, I’m a music major. I like to sing. I love Jesus and that’s why I’m here.

  The first semester I was in the choir, I sang a duet. It was the most rewarding part of my singing career so far. If I hadn’t joined the choir, I bet you the rest of my life I would have gone on thinking they wouldn’t let me in, and that since I was white I might as well not even try. I didn’t join the gospel choir to make a statement. I was just doing what I wanted to do. More white people have joined the choir since then. Maybe that’s because they saw me up there. I took an opportunity to sing for God, and in return I was blessed.

  Chris played saxophone at an all-black church once when we were looking for a church to join, and I said, why don’t we join there? He had to tell me he didn’t think they wanted us there. We weren’t looking to make an issue. We wanted to sit in church and do what we wanted to do. Chris thought that joining wouldn’t necessarily be bad from our point of view, because by and large nobody was going to come up and tell me, you don’t belong here. It was almost for the benefit of the other parishioners that we didn’t join. Chris felt he didn’t want anybody to be distracted because we were there.

  Chris isn’t the best black saxophone player of Montevallo; he’s the best. The teachers call on him, the staff calls on him. He’s a performer. He takes pride and I take pride in his talent. There’s not anybody in front of him, and that’s what matters. When he was going to a church in Montevallo and playing the saxophone down there, a guy came to church with his white girlfriend and it was disruptive. Everybody was talking about it. We felt that even if nobody was bothering us directly, we would just feel uncomfortable with the whispers and the stares. I guess that in time, they’d be all right with me. But we’d rather start out on a better foot than that.

  When we did find a church to join, I was a pregnant, unmarried girl in an interracial relationship. Right before Aria was born, the entire church threw us a baby shower. We were so blessed. It was great to feel welcomed, especially in a Baptist church. I grew up believing that Baptists thought Catholics are going to hell. But in South Side Baptist Church, we don’t have to worry about being judged. Finding our place in it was another lesson in acceptance. If only others could close their eyes and open their hearts!

  Chris

  I grew up in a pr
edominantly black community and learned about the history and struggles of African Americans and about the Civil Rights Movement. I felt fortunate to have experiences that taught me a person doesn’t necessarily love me because they’re black. And I had other experiences that taught me a person doesn’t necessarily hate me because they’re white. So it’s humbling to think that once upon a time, someone would have come and gotten me and dragged me out of my house and lynched me for living with a white woman. What offsets that is knowing that even today if I’m in the wrong black neighborhood, I might be dragged out of my house or out of my car, whether I’m by myself or with someone. So I tend not to get into that argument about race.

  What does get to me is that at times I don’t think we’re very far removed from that mind-set. When I was in college, before I met Lura, there was an older woman, a white woman, who had come back to school to finish her degree. She had a daughter about my age. The woman and I were in the hallway and I made some comment about her daughter, like, she sure is pretty; I wonder if she’d like to go out sometime. When I mentioned that, the woman’s whole mood changed. This woman had never had one ugly word to say to me, but now all of a sudden she had a different perspective. And this was the year 2000. She looked at me and said, why would you do that to yourself? From her perspective, she was giving me motherly advice by saying, don’t do that to yourself. Why would you put yourself in a position for your family to be hated, and for your children to catch a tough time because they’re biracial? Why would you do that to my daughter and me, when you could just as easily stay with your own kind and find somebody and be as happy as a bump on a log?