King-size Reflections

{Sigh} This post is not easy for me to write, but I've wanted to tell it for 2 years now around this time of year and haven't yet, so I'm just gonna type it and blame it on the D/B/Sh/Care thing.

I may be White and pretty segregated in my daily life and surroundings, but in my own way, I've been touched by the legacy of Martin Luther King and what he stood for. I was born in 1956 in a segregated world and I can remember America as it lurched and heaved and turned toward racial justice. It was a long time ago and, although those times have been greatly romanticized, I can tell you, they were not pretty.

When Hillary Clinton said that it took LBJ to help MLK's dream come true, I knew exactly what she was saying and she was right. LBJ was the last of the old school strong-arm Congressional power brokers. He could blackmail or cajole almost more people than FBI Chief J Edgar Hoover, and that's exactly how he got Civil Rights legislation passed. Why spend that much political currency and destroy his political party as he knew it? Because there was an American Ghandi in the person of MLK to inspire him to do it. And because he had parents who'd taught him it was the right thing to do.

Some folks nowadays like to think that all whites were against desegregation, but that is so not true. My father, for example, grew up in a small college town in Central Arkansas during the Depression in a nice middle class home wanting for nothing as so many others around him had very little. His father was the Postmaster and my Dad remembers his Dad routinely put half his wages into savings every payday...that's how comfortable their life was. Yet, their good Methodist faith compelled them to help those less fortunate throughout those years.

My Dad's first year in college was lived still at home and financed by his many odd and part time jobs, one of which was delivering mail. His Dad made sure this hiring was above reproach by assigning my Dad to deliver the mail out to the Colored community on the outskirts of town. He told my Dad sternly, though, that he was to treat all his customers as well as if they were his own kin or he'd have hell to pay.

My paternal Grandfather was made of that old-time stock of men who considered public service a sacred trust and earned every penny with a smile and then some. My Dad was raised in a home where the N word was never allowed to be spoken. It was considered a cuss word, among the worst. One time my grandmother washed the mouth of my dad's little friend out with lye soap because he'd uttered it after being read the house rules.

So, my Dad carried that mail cheerfully and loyally and punctually to all the people of color in the community that year. In return, my Dad said, he never ever needed a cold drink or a chair to sit a spell in for rest, nor a clean, crisp handerchief to wipe his brow. Ice was meticulously saved for him for an offered glass of water at almost every house. He was always greeted and cared about. We're talking 30-40 people every day, offering him food and drink, just for delivering their mail to them with respect and courtesy. My Dad never forgot that. You wouldn't forget it either.

A few years later, my parents having met and moved to my Mother's hometown to teach school, it was a different and uglier world, still in Arkansas but on the eastern side. My Mother's parents were raised to be racist and were very good decent people, just raised to *know* that whites were the superior race and that the good whites among us took the responsibility to look out for and counsel the Negro. And they did use the *N* word, all the time, like any other word.

My Dad hated it. Hated hearing it. It really wore on him, especially after I was born. He began wishing for me a world without all that racism. Without hearing that *N* word all the time, at the very least.

So, even though my parents had it good where they were, as my Mom's parents were quite wealthy and provided whatever was needed or wanted, they set out to move to a place less racist and nasty, so that I could have a chance to grow up without all that influence toward continuing racism, and my parents could quit hearing that word and could quit being urged by society to be racist. It's probably up to a higher power than me to say whether my parents were successful, but I think they were.

And they weren't alone. They were many many whites who were ashamed of their fellow whites, ashamed of the double standard, ashamed of the fear and denial imposed by segregation and racism. These folks were all waiting for MLK to meetup with LBJ and do the deal. Without these folks, not even LBJ could have gotten that bill passed, or admonish the nation to act charitably and humbly about it, as he did.

That part of this history gets forgotten, especially by those who weren't even alive to remember it. But it's every bit as crucial to King's legacy as anything else. Because those whites were touched and empowered by King's words to do what was in their hearts. Including a nice teacher couple from Arkansas who just wanted a life for their daughter free from racism.

So yeah, that's what I always reflect upon on this holiday. Thanks, Mom and Dad. And LBJ. And Martin Luther King.