Multi-Racial Read #19: Notes of a White Black Woman by Judy Scales-Trent- Part I

Congratulations to Cat Michaels who won Leonardo the Florentine from last week's blog. 

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I purchased NOTE OF A WHITE BLACK WOMAN several years ago and recently found it while unpacking. I'm glad I did! Judy Scales-Trent provides amazing insights into racial identity as she reveals her thoughts and emotions as a "white black woman." As I often do when reviewing a book like this, I'm going to quote different sections that particularly hit me and which will inform Half-Truths. Since there is much that I want to quote, I will intersperse blog posts from NOTES OF A WHITE BLACK WOMAN with other book reviews and writing observations. I hope this book will challenge your thinking as it has mine.

Pennsylvania State University Press, 1955

Introduction 

Where race is important, there must be a way to sort by race. Thus, to the extent that we talk about race in America, we are basing our talk on notions of racial purity. The concept of race cannot exist without the concept of racial purity.

 The need for racial purity laws arose in America as soon as an African and a European had sexual relations here and produced a child. Was the child African? European? Something else? It is not surprising, then that the question was raised early....By 1662 the state of Virginia, troubled by these relationships, passes its first law banning miscegenation. (p.3)

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Just as the forced migration of millions of Yoruba and Ibo wrought destruction on those cultures in Africa as well as in America, so has this newly created African American community been devastated by a vision of the world in which light skin and dark skin are seen as meditations on good and evil, civilization and savagery, intelligence and ignorance. This cruel lesson has not only affected how we see ourselves in comparisons with white Americans; it has also informed how we look at each other within our own community. 

Like my parents, I am a black American with white skin, an African American with both African and European ancestors. Thus, I live a life that is often disjointed, troubling. I also see the world in a different way...For my position does not allow me the luxury of thinking that the notion of race makes any sense. If you are black and white at the same time, once you finally realize that it is not you that is strange, you realize something very strange is going on in this society. Perhaps more directly and more starkly than other Americans, I understand "race" as a socially created metaphor, for my very existence unsettles expectations of "race." (p. 4)

photo © Rob McElroy, 2015

 Journal Entries

November, 1978. Cast out, cast out, always cast out from the only home, the only safe place, the only refuge in a terrifying, vicious land. Cast out, and alone.

No home. No home.

No place to belong.

No place to rest a frightened and lonely heart.

No place to hide.

White people would let me in, of course. They think that I belong with them. They smile at me. They welcome me. They think I'm their sister.  

.......

Missing the safe warmth of my childhood, a colored girl growing up in the protection of a strong family in the segregated South, surrounded by their love and their strength and their definition of me and of themselves.

 ......

But I lost something more when I grew up and moved out of the segregated South, out of the safety of my childhood home, because the Jim Crow laws gave me an identity and a protection I couldn't give myself.  

.....

What do you do if you're rejected by one world,...and are constantly rejecting the other? I am perceived by some as white, by some as black, by yet others as a black person but "really white," so (a) you can trust her and (b) you can't trust her. 

And yet I'm me all the time.  (p. 13-14)

Guardian: A Book Review and a Writing Exercise

Congratulations to Sheri Levy who won Dorothy Price's picture book, "Nana's Favorite Things."

In November I reviewed Mississippi Trial, 1955  and analyzed a scene using questions that Rebecca Petruck posed to me. In this post I'm sharing an excerpt from another award winning book about the Jim Crow period, Guardian by Julius Lester. This time I'm analyzing it using questions from James Scott Bell's book, Plot and Structure.

A short but immensely powerful book, Guardian portrays a lynching as seen from the viewpoint of several characters most intimately effected by the man's murder. Here are seven of these characters:

Ansel Anderson- a 14-year-old white boy living in a small town in the south in 1946.

Bert Anderson- Ansel's father who operates Anderson General Store and helped Big Willie get his job.

Maureen Anderson- Ansel's mother.

Little Willie Benton- Ansel's black fishing buddy who works with Ansel at the General Store. 

Big Willie Benton- WWII vet suffering from (undiagnosed PTSD), Little Willie's father. He does odd jobs at Mary Susan's father's church. 

Mary Susan Dennis- the girl Ansel likes.

Zach Davis- Ansel's antagonist and town bully. Great-Grandson of the man who founded the town of Davis, son of the man who owns the largest plantation in the town as well as the store where Ansel's father works and the church where Mary Susan's father is the preacher. 

Through these multitude of lenses, yet told from the narrator's present tense viewpoint, Mr. Lester has interwoven a story full of deep prejudice and misunderstanding. It is an unconventional style which works well for this topic. The reader intimately sees each character's motivations, fears, and beliefs and feels his or her emotions.

James Scott Bell writes: "A novel usually revolves around a few big scenes. These act like guideposts as the novelist moves from one to the other up through the climax." (p.127) The scene you are about to read happens three-quarters of the way into the book and is one of the big scenes in Guardian. Bert and Ansel have just left their store. 

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As father and son cross the street to the car, they see Big Willie hurrying out the front door of the church. He looks quickly to his right and left, and seeing Bert and Ansel, he runs to them. 

"Mistah Bert, suh! I'm glad it's you. Yes, suh!" Willie is a tall and rather ungainly young man. His face looks as if it absorbed every death he witnessed, those he was agent of and those he was not. He is wearing a khaki military shirt with a private's stripe on the sleeve. But the shirt is dirty and torn, as if he has not taken it off since his discharge. 

"Wasn't me, Mistah Bert. No, suh! I didn't have nothing to do with it, but I know I'm gon' get blamed for it. Something like this happen, nigger gets blamed every time. Yes, suh. Sho' do. But I ain't done it." 

"What are you talking about, Willie?" 

Willie points toward the church. "I seen him. I seen him just as sho' as I'm seeing you and Mistah Ansel. Yes, such. The young Mistah Zeph." 

Bert hurries to the church and goes inside. In the dim light at the front, he sees and does not want to believe what he sees. 

"Ansel! Go outside!" 

Instead of doing what his father tells him, Ansel says, "Papa? What's he doing?" 

Zeph Davis the Third turns at the sounds of the voices. In his right hand is a knife. It is slick with blood. On the floor in front of the alter lies a body, the skirt raised to reveal her nakedness. 

Ansel does not wait for an answer from his father, who is still trying to understand what he is seeing. Ansel screams, "Mary Susan! Mary Susan!" and runs to the front of the church. He stops and stares at her nakedness. Then, realizing what he is doing, he pulls down the skirt to cover her. 

In doing so, he sees a ripped blouse and severed bra. The exposed breasts are red and slick with blood.  

He wants to stare, but feels that he shouldn't, that Mary Susan would not want him to. 

He takes the blood-soaked blouse and pulls both sides over her bared breasts, careful not to touch them. 

Zeph looks rapidly from Ansel to Bert, back and forth, back and forth, breathing heavily, not knowing what to do, what to say. 

Then he sees Big Willie in the shadows at the back of the church.

"He did it!" Zeph hours, pointing at Big Willie. "He did it!" 

"Mistah Bert? Suh, look at me. Ain't no blood nowhere on me. Look at him. He covered with blood, her blood." 

"You know niggers, Bert!" Zeph breaks in. "They do all kinds of stuff with roots. That nigger probably got a mojo that can take blood off his hands." 

"I seen him, Mistah Bert. I seen him. I was up in the balcony. I likes to sit up there when no one's around. It's real peaceful. 

"That's where I was when the preacher's girl, Miz Mary, come in. I wanted to leave right then 'cause I knowed it wouldn't look good if I was alone in the same place with a white woman. But wasn't no way I could get out without her hearing. Seeing' me, she might get the wrong idea and start screaming. So I just stayed still. 

"She went to the altar and knelt down to pray. I wondered what could be weighing so heaving on the heart of someone as young as she was. If she'd been a nigger gal, I could understand. Us niggers need all the prayer we can get. Yes, suh. 

"Miz Mary hadn't been there long when I heard the door of the church open and he come in. I thought maybe the two of them had decided to meet up together at the church, but when she turned around to see who it was had come in and seen it was him she say, 'What do you want? You get on outta here and leave me alone. I'm praying.' 

"He don't pay no mind to what she say. He go up to her and grab her try to kiss her. She push him away. She say, 'Get away from me or I'll kick you so hard you won't be able to move for a month.' 

"That's when he whipped out his knife and before she could do anything, he was on her, stabbing her over and over. Then I seen him raise up her skirt, and I didn't want to see no more. Mistah Zeph was so caught up in what he was doing that he didn't see me, and I hurried out and that's when I seen you and your boy. That's the God's truth, Mistah Bert. You believe me, don't you? You'll tell the white folks it wasn't me. Won't you Mistah Berth?" 

"Who you going to belive, Bert? A nigger or a white man?" 

Zeph notices that Bert is hesitating, that Bert is thinking about what the right thing to do is, and Zeph drops the knife on the floor next to Mary Susan's body, runs up the aisle and out of the church. 

"Rape! Rape! Pastor's daughter been raped by a nigger!" Zeph is running and yelling at the same time. Over and over he shouts and the only words that are clear are "rape" and "nigger." pp. 71-75.

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Mr. Bell asks:

Was this an action scene? No question. This scene demonstrates high intensity with "tremendous conflict, important emotions, sharp dialogue, and inner turmoil." (Bell, p.128)

Identify the places where you learn about the character's objective in the scene and the conflict:

• Big Willie's speech when he meets Ansel and Bert show how he wants his name cleared. That is repeated  at the close of the scene bookending his desperation. Conflict roars to life through Zeph's false accusation. 
• Entering the church, Ansel wants to see what has disturbed his father. His internal conflict in seeing Mary Susan is demonstrated in his actions.
• Zeph's anger at being rebuffed again (this is not the first time Mary Susan rejects him) leads to his objective: revenge. His conflict is visible in his brief hesitation after his sociopathic behavior. 
• Bert wants not to see what is plain before his eyes. Afterwards, he also hesitates, showing his internal conflict. 

How does the scene end?

Zeph leaves the church and "Over and over he shouts and the only words that are clear are 'rape' and 'nigger.' The reader knows that this certainly means disaster for Big Willie and sets up the scenes which, like soldiers falling in battle, will surely follow. 

Do you want to read on? 

I'm going to leave this question up to you. Even though you have a strong sense of what's going to happen next, are you pulled into the next scene? Why or why not?

Jim Bell writes, "...you need to end scenes with a prompt, something to make readers turn the page...Don't ever let your scenes fizzle out, ending on a boring note." (p. 124).

It seems to me, that Julius Lester has done just that. 
On next week's blog, Mr. Lester shares some personal insights into writing Guardian.

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For more information on making your scenes intense, download these handouts from Lorin Oberweger, founder of Free Expressions. 

Scene Response Sheet

High Temperature Plotting Sheet

Multi-Racial Read #19: Just an Overnight Guest- And a Giveaway!

Congratulations to Linda Phillips who won Kathy Erskine's book Seeing Red.

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It's been awhile since I've reviewed a multi-racial book and Just an Overnight Guest by Eleanora Tate fits the bill--but from a different perspective than the other books I've reviewed as background for writing Half-Truths.

The only thing wrong with nine-year-old Margie Carson's life in the small town of Nutbrush, Mo. is that her trucker father isn't home to spend enough time with their family. 

That is, until Mrs. Carson decides that 4-year-old Ethel needs to stay in their "gray-shingled one-story house [which] fit only Daddy and Momma and Alberta and me--there was no place in it for Ethel." (p. 29).  

Margie's reasoning goes like this: 

"If Ethel were clean and nice and regular white, or clean and nice and regular Black--or just plain nice--folks would say, 'Ain't it sweet about Miz Carson keeping Miz Mary's girl.' They sure wouldn't say that the way she is now!" (p.27) 

While Margie puzzles over how her mother and Ethel's mother know one another, 13-year-old Alberta gives hints that Margie just can't quite figure out. But that's only part of Margie's problem. From the moment that her mother drops her off--allegedly just for the weekend--Ethel is a handful: 

"They came into the kitchen and right away Ethel started jumping around. Same ole dirty face. Same dirty hands. Dirty red shirt and too big sandals that flopped when she walked. She climbed unto a kitchen chair, jerking at the tablecloth, and one of Momma's best plates shattered on the floor." (p. 29)

Margie's anger knows no bounds as she faces the humiliation of Ethel wetting the bed Margie is forced to share with her, Ethel calling Mrs. Carson "my Momma," and her own friends' scorn. 

But when Ethel tells Margie that her "toys" are her mother's empty beer bottles and bottle caps, Margie begins to understand the life that Ethel has lived. Although a wise neighbor advises Margie that she's not the baby anymore, it takes several major growing-up moments before Margie makes room in her heart for Ethel. 

"I wondered what it would be like in my life to have a real younger sister. Course, she wouldn't be anything like Ethel. A regular sister would be all Black and not trashy. Her parents would be Momma and Daddy. Not Miz Mary and somebody. Who in the world was Ethel's father after all? The way they went around whispering, they had to know! It finally hit me that everyone knew how he was but me! I had a right to know, too. After all, his kid was in my bed." (p. 110-111)

I won't spoil the ending but suffice it to say, readers will empathize with Margie's struggles and appreciate the decision she makes in the end. 

First published in 1980 by Dial, Just an Overnight Guest was made into a television movie in 1983; here is a clip from that production:


Although the book is recommended for ages 9-12, because of the nature of the story I personally would suggest a slightly older reader. (Caveat: I'm a very conservative reader and Eleanora told me that 8-year-olds have read this book and liked it!) Like the Boy in the Striped Pajamas that also features a young protagonist, I think the content of the book requires a more mature reader. The characterization, character's voices, and historical accuracy are spot on and lend themselves to a good read-aloud in an upper elementary or middle school classroom.

The sequel to Just an Overnight Guest is Front Porch Stories at the One-Room School which was original published by Bantam/Skylark Books in 1992.  

To enter to win my gently-used autographed copy of Just an Overnight Guest, please leave me a comment (and your email address if I don't have it) by 8 AM January 1. Who will be my first giveaway winner in 2015?

The Other Half of My Heart: An Interview and a Giveaway!

In my last blog I reviewed Sundee Frazier's contemporary novel, The Other Half of My Heart. Now Sundee shares the story behind the story, and a chance to win a personally autographed copy.

Carol: I'm curious as to why you chose to write your book from Minni's point of view.

Sundee. I know this point of view best. As a biracial African-American with light skin, I have often been labeled “white” like Minni. I “get” what it feels like to blend in with and be accepted by whites, and yet have this deep, abiding sense of being psychically and emotionally connected with black people. Over the years I learned, like Minni, that I could align myself with my darker sisters, use my voice to speak the truth, and have a beautiful heart, no matter what my color. Telling the story from Minni’s point of view required less effort, in that it’s substantially my point of view, but also required more transparency and emotional vulnerability.

Carol: Did you consider telling the story from both girls POVs?

Sundee: Not while I was writing it. After the fact, I received feedback that some readers would have liked to hear Keira’s perspective.

Carol: I think you did an excellent job of showing your readers what Keira thought and felt through her words and actions. How did your own growing up years influence writing this book? Did any of your experiences make it into the book?

Sundee: I’m glad you asked this, because while Minni and I have similar racial experiences, Keira is certainly a part of me, too! I enjoyed performing as a kid, like Keira (although I can also be shy and performance-averse like Minni), and experienced my share of “achievement programs” as a teen. (See my website for pictures of me wearing ridiculous pageant gowns and outfits—or maybe don’t!) In terms of racism, as a young person I was only a direct target of racist comments a few times. I’ve never been followed in a store or asked not to handle goods, as Keira. I know that in our society’s messed-up paradigm of race, I’ve been afforded a certain protection by the lightness of my skin. But I also know that being African-American has sensitized me to racism and that’s why I write about it: because I know it’s real.

One of the experiences that informed her book was Sundee's
experiences in scholarship pageants.
Here she is as Miss Washington's Junior Miss First Runner-Up in 1985.

My black grandmother’s experience directly influenced Grandmother Johnson’s character, particularly the pain Grandmother Johnson carries related to skin color. My grandmother was essentially raised by her grandmother. (Her mother was a domestic worker who traveled with the white families she served.) This woman (my great-great-grandmother) was the daughter of a slave and a master, and had very light skin. My grandma told me about visiting the South with her grandmother, and how shocked she was when they had to go to the back of the bus. (In the Northwest, where she was born and raised, there wasn’t legal Jim Crow, although there was still plenty of prejudice and socially enforced segregation.) This anecdote inspired the story that Grandmother Johnson tells about her white-looking grandma taking her on a bus. I never experienced my grandmother as someone with internalized racism—to me, she was extremely proud of her ethnicity, and passed that along to me.

Carol: Can you share some of the backstory about writing this book, getting an agent, and getting a publisher?

Sundee: I am fortunate to be represented by the inimitable Regina Brooks of Serendipity Literary Agency. My final advisor in the Vermont College of Fine Arts MFA program, Carolyn Coman, introduced me to Regina after I graduated and she has been a force on my behalf. When Regina sold my first novel, Brendan Buckley’s Universe and Everything in It, which also happened to be my MFA creative thesis, to Delacorte Press (Random House), she garnered a two-book contract, although I didn’t yet have a second book written! When it was time for the second book, I pitched an idea that I’d hatched and drafted during NaNoWriMo. My editor rejected that manuscript, but then told me about a news item she’d seen out of the UK about twins who’d been born to a multiracial couple: One looked black and the other white. She pondered aloud, “I wonder what their lives will be like when they’re 12.” Then she asked, “Do you think you could write a story about that?” Eager to please, I responded with, “Uh . . . sure!”

I always believed I was uniquely poised to write such a story, but I have to say, it was an extremely challenging process getting from beginning to end. I had the pressure of a contract for a book I hadn’t written, and subject matter that I cared about passionately and wanted to get just right.

Sundee's parents married one year after the Supreme Court
outlawed the remaining laws against inter-racial marriages.

I had over 600 pages of draft writing, just trying to find my way to the characters and the plotline. For the longest time Minni’s name was actually Serenity and her family lived in Seattle; Grandmother Johnson lived in Atlanta; there was a garbage collector named Lester, a friend they made in Atlanta with synesthesia, and a little fatherless boy named Marcus (none of whom appear in the final novel). The parents were on the verge of getting a divorce and the twins were always at each others’ throats! The breakthrough for me came when my agent asked whether I wanted to write a story about “sisters against each other” or “sisters against the world.” And that’s when I knew: the girls would be indefatigable and their common enemy would be Grandmother Johnson. It still took many drafts to get to the finished product, but that was the crystallizing moment for me.

Carol: It’s great hearing how your book evolved, Sundee. That gives me hope for my own WIP! It’s also interesting to discover how much your own life experience informed your writing; you were definitely in a unique position to write it.

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Sundee is giving away a personally autographed copy of her book to one fortunate reader! Here is how you can win it:

1. Leave me a comment with your email address, if I don't have it. For every time you share this post on a social media site, I'll enter your name an additional time. Make sure you tell me what you did!

2. If you are a new follower to this blog, I'll enter your name another time.

3. Winner will be drawn on Friday, February 21--so enter soon!

Multi-Racial Read #18: The Other Half of My Heart

Minni's heart soared as the small plane's wheels lifted from the ground. She loved being up in the clouds with Keira, Mama and Daddy, the never-ending blue-gray ocean, and the rugged mountain peaks. Gliding, like a bird on the wind. 

Keira sank her nails into Minni's arm. It hurt, but Minni didn't pull away. It wasn't often that she got to be the brave one. 

I love it when an author's opening words draw me into a story; that was my experience when I began listening to Sundee Frazier's middle grade book, The Other Half of My Heart. 

Minni and Kiera are eleven-year-old "one-in-a-million twins." Their artist mother is black and their pilot father is white. As a  result, Minni's skin is "milky white" and Keira's is "cinnamon brown." Growing up in a small town in Washington state, the girls are used to the stares and questions they receive when their family is together. 

But their cocooned life changes when their black grandmother insists they both participate in the Black Pearls of America beauty pageant in North Carolina. While shopping for pageant dresses with their white grandmother, Kiera is treated like a second-class customer and told not to handle the dresses. Minni witnesses the clerk's rudeness, but doesn't come to her sister's defense. Later at the pageant, Minni is ostracized because of her skin color and for the first time experiences what it's like to be the one who is different than everyone else. The girls' close relationship is tested as each is pulled by new acquaintances and past loyalties.

Written from Minni's perspective, she longs to look more like her dark mother. One of my favorite lines is when Minni asks her mother "Am I just white? Or am I black too?" Her mother's answer includes this thoughtful response: "Your blackness is just hidden a little deeper--like a vein of gold running deep within the soil of your soul." (p. 7)

I also appreciated the multi-generational flavor which Frazier brings to this contemporary story. Despite their grandmother's generosity in bringing the girls to North Carolina, both girls find her stuffy, domineering, and critical. After the pageant is over, Minni gets up the nerve to ask her why she's always trying to change her sister's appearance so that she would look less dark (straightening Keira's hair, encouraging her not to allow her skin to darken in the sun). When her grandmother reveals her own painful childhood experiences of racial prejudice, Minni understands a part of her family's history that puts her grandmother's life into historical perspective.  

A fellow writer recommended Frazier's book to me because of my own WIP, Half-Truths which centers on the relationship between a light-skinned teen and her white cousin. My friend's recommendation was on the money: not only is The Other Half of My Heart (Delacorte Press, Random House, Inc. 2010) a well-written book for girls, it also provides thought-provoking insights into both girls' struggles with racial identity.

Come back next week when Sundee answers some questions about herself and her inspiration for this book. You will also have the chance to win a personally autographed copy of a book that you, or a young girl in your life, will love. 

Multi-Racial Read #17: Dear Senator- Part VIII

In the last blog of this series, Essie Mae Washington reveals what happened when she finally divulged her secrets. 

In the late 60's Thurmond surprised Essie Mae by calling to say he was coming to Los Angeles and wanted to see her children. She was thrilled, but first had to break the news that their white grandfather- the staunch Republican "King of the South"--wanted to meet them. 

Her children were understandably shocked and couldn't believe he once loved her mother. But as surprised as they were, they agreed to attend the church were he was speaking. Essie Mae recollected, "It wasn't some emotional family reunion. There were too many people around for that, and besides, he preferred things this way, just as if he were out on the stump, charming for votes...He introduced us to his local handlers as 'some dear old family friends.''' [p.197]  Eventually, her children accepted him and were recipients of his generosity. 

As Senator Thurmond aged he became more generous to Essie Mae and helped many blacks get into political office, including one of her old boyfriends, Matthew Perry. When Essie Mae completed her MA degree he presented her with a string of genuine pearls and a diamond-encrusted pearl pendant. But despite his pride and affection, a public acknowledgment of their relationship was not forthcoming.

In reflection about him Essie Mae wrote:

"He was his father's son, following every rule to the letter, by the book. The one time in his life that he broke the rules was with my mother, his one and only walk on the wild side. I was Exhibit A, proof that Strom Thurmond had soul. But by the same token of his eternal caution and propriety, I was proof he dare not present. That's why, at the end of his life, he never stepped forward to celebrate our relationship. He must have been thinking of his legacy, his posterity. The southern gentleman in him that prevented him from forsaking me also prevented him from embracing me--and all the glory that embrace might have brought him. He would always be a conservative, in war and in love." [p.204]

After his death at 100, Essie Mae's children urged her to make her secret public and to confront the fact that she had been left out his will. Essie Mae hesitated, her loyalty to him and desire not to become a public figure were very strong. Finally in 2003, her daughter contacted a lawyer, Frank Wheaton, who was willing to take on the case. 

"Leaving me out of his will, just like leaving me out of his life, had been a massive injustice, Frank asserted....It took me a week to decide, but I didn't want to end my life carrying this secret to my grave. I wasn't a black Joan of Arc as Frank was trying to inspire me to be, but maybe I could help someone by telling my tale. 'The truth shall set you free,' and I wanted to die a free person." [p.215]

Rather than the closure she had expected, after a well-attended press conference in the state capitol of Columbia, S.C. Essie Mae felt as if this was the grand opening of the rest of her life. She appeared on television, developed friendships with Thurmond relatives, obtained an honorary doctorate from South Carolina State, spoke frequently at public events, and strove to become a member of the NSDAR (National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution) and the UDC (United Daughters of the Confederacy).

Defending these decisions she concluded her book by writing:

"I am every bit as white as I am black, and it is my full intention to drink the nectar of both goblets. History is complex, and mine is as complex as it gets. That's why I want to join these organizations, to explore and to to comprehend all the fascinating complexities, tragic as well as joyous of my life, and of my country. In my past lives, as defined by my genealogy, I was a slave and I was a master; I was black and I was white; I was a Roosevelt progressive and I was a Dixiecrat; I was for Kennedy and I was for Nixon; I was the glorious president of of the South and I was a lowly maid in Edgefield. Above all, I transcended all these internal contradictions to become a  real person, my own person, a simple person who loves America as the wonderful place that has allowed me to discover, and to be, exactly who I am." [p.223]

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I finished reading Dear Senator about fifty miles from where Essie Mae lived outside of Los Angeles. I hurriedly googled her name, thinking that perhaps there was a chance I could visit her. Unfortunately, I discovered that she had moved back to South Carolina in 2008 and died just this past February.

I was left with a sense of loss, but her rich memoir is a legacy to myself and future generations. We all can be reminded of the power of family relationships that cross boundaries; love and loyalty; and the "truth that can set us free." (John 8:32)

Here is a video of Essie Mae taken at the Strom Thurmond institute in Clemson, SC:


For previous posts in this series, please go to:
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI
Part VII

Multi-Racial Read #16: Dear Senator Part VII

In 1953 Essie Mae Washington-Williams moved to California to start a new life with her husband and son.  She flew home regularly to receive cash gifts from her father that were delivered by a relative; she also kept close tabs on her father's political activity.

In 1956 nineteen southern senators declared war on the Brown vs. Board of Education decision and called for a return of "separate but equal" status quo, stating that "the states had the right, by any lawful means, to resist integration ordered by the federal government. My father, in touting his manifesto, once again put his racist foot in his states'-rights mouth, calling the white people of the South 'the greatest minority in this nation'....Oh daddy! I despaired." [p. 170]


In early 1960 Thurmond's young wife died of a brain tumor. Soon afterwards Essie Mae cut a speech out of the paper (to prevent her husband from reading it) in which Thurmond said:

"Just as there are in this country two main and quite distinct cultures, a northern culture and a southern culture, so there are in this country two different species of genus segregation... Segregation in the South is open, honest, and aboveboard. Northern segregation is founded on hypocrisy and deceit." (p.176)

Essie Mae commented, "...My father shared [John C.] Calhoun's paternalism; he never saw it as racism, even though the rest of the country did....He called southern segregation 'human,' which was one of the worst uses of that adjective I ever heard." (p.176)

After her husband died suddenly, Essie Mae moved into View Park, an area that "was about as good as a neighborhood could get for African-Americans at the time."  They had a few Asian, Mexican and white neighbors, although it was less integrated as she had seen when they had first moved to Los Angeles. (p.186)

Although her neighborhood was not as racially mixed as she preferred, in Los Angeles she experienced racial acceptance and equality. Over the following years she completed college, registered to vote, joined the NAACP, and became a guidance counselor. She taught English as a second language to students from all over Central and South America as well as Asia. "I was very flattered that so many of my students would want to come up to me after class and ask more questions." [p.187]

As I mentioned previously, I read Dear Senator on a recent trip west. One of the highlights of this trip was worshipping in a multi-cultural church in a suburb just north of Los Angeles. The congregation was a generous mix of Hispanics, Asians, and whites, as you may be able to detect in these pictures from the All Saints  Reformed Presbyterian Facebook page.

Afterwards I thought of Essie Mae and her experiences living and working among people of many ethnic backgrounds. She had come a long way from the Deep South and being a young woman who had to sit in the back of the bus and had to keep her parentage secret. In visiting Los Angeles, I understood how she found a home and acceptance in a culture full of racial diversity. 

But no one--not even her children--knew who her father was. In my last installment in this series, I'll share some of what led up to that revelation. 

If you are interested, here are the previous blogs in this series:

Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI

Multi-Racial Read #12: Dear Senator- Part III

In the previous posts in this series, I shared excerpts from Dear Senator: A Memoir of the Daughter of Strom Thurmond that covered Essie Mae's early years. This post includes some of her struggles with her racial identity. 

During her nursing training at Harlem Hospital Essie Mae attended Reverend Adam Clayton Powell, Jr.'s church, the Abyssinian Baptist Church. She admired the fact that he was "so light skinned that it was always said he could have 'passed for white.' Perhaps the most inspiring thing about him what that he didn't want to. (p. 85) She reflected,

A lot of girls, the light-skinned ones, frequently talked about passing, marrying into the white world, preferably the rich white world, and living on East Street- Park Avenue, not Lenox. Here I was, born into the rich, white world, the plantation world, and yet where was I? It could have been easy to be resentful, because I was "it" or at least half of "it," yet it was doing me no good aside from two envelopes of money. I was grateful to have a church to turn to, to count my blessings and pray for more, and to watch this great "white" preacher embrace his blackness. If he could be happy with it, so could anyone else. (p. 85)

Essie Mae decided nursing wasn't for her and discussed her options when Strom visited after the war was over. She was pleased when he suggested she attend the "state" college back home in South Carolina until she realized that he meant the "Negro college."  

He didn't have the heart to say the word. In face, he had never spoken the word in my presence He couldn't bring himself to do it, but there it was. My father saw me as a Negro. I may have been half black and half white, but the rule in the courts was a drop of blood made you black. I don't know what else I was expecting. I had lived my whole life as a Negro, but to hear it from my white father, and a judge at that, made it a brutal ruling, and one with no appeal. I could either go to a "Yankee" college or a "Negro" college, but I couldn't go to a "Southern" college, because that meant a white college, and despite my white father, I couldn't be white. p.97"

Next week I'll share Essie Mae's thoughts on her father as South Carolina's 103rd governor and its effect on her. Here are links to the previous posts:

Part I
Part II

Multi-Racial Read #11: Dear Senator Part II

Last week, in my first blog about Dear Senator: A Memoir by the Daughter of Strom Thurmond, I shared highlights of Essie Mae Washington-Williams’ early years and the revelation of her parentage.  This second  post includes some of Essie Mae’s teenage and early adult recollections.

Meeting her father for the first time changed Essie Mae. Always a good student, she tried to use her academic abilities to gain white friends. She wrote,

Knowing that I had a white father somehow emboldened me to do things I would never have done before. 

In particular, one time in high school she was caught allowing Gloria- a pretty blond cheerleader who all the boys liked—to cheat off her paper.  When the teacher reprimanded her, she “lectured me about everybody having to stand on her own feet, that if I could stand so nicely on mine, so could Gloria. The implication was that if a poor black girl could do well in math, it should be a piece of cake for the school’s white princess. The idea that Gloria needed “Negro” assistance was beneath her and the school’s dignity. I hung my head and apologized…Gloria never did speak to me one way or the other. P.47

When World War II broke out, Essie Mae learned from Carrie that her father had volunteered.  Her mother explained,

He’s an Edgefield man,” she said proudly. “They need to fight. It’s in their blood. His grandfather was right beside Robert E. Lee when he surrendered. War runs in the family.”

But is it really “our” family? I wanted to ask her. Talk about being the poor relations. We were the invisible relations.

…..

As Coatesville hunkered down for war, I tried my hardest to put Strom Thurmond out of my mind. Yet like a moth to a flame, I couldn’t stop reading about South Carolina and the “Gone with the Wind” world that was at least half my birthright, but it was a birthright I could not claim. I wanted to find out the worst about this forbidden family, so that I could hate them and want nothing to do with them. After all, did they not formerly own slaves? …And what was my father up to? What kind of justice to blacks did he dispense? (p. 56)

These conflicts and questions would haunt Essie Mae for her entire life.

After a brief meeting in a Philadelphia hotel room while Strom was on leave, he shook her hand and saw her and Mary (her aunt) to the door.

“Is he ashamed of me?” I asked Mary when were out in the street.

“Ashamed?” She opened the envelope and counted 200 dollars in twenties, just as before. “Do you call this ashamed?’

Two hundred dollars was indeed a lot of money, but spread out over three years, it wasn’t that much. Wasn’t a daughter worth more than that? “That doesn’t mean he cares about me,” I said.

“It does to me. It does indeed,” Mary said. (p. 73)

This pattern of secret meetings and money gifts continued long into Essie Mae’s adulthood. Although later in life family members would say these payments were “shush” money, Essie Mae came to believe that the money was expressions of his love for her and her mother—although it always hurt that he never publically acknowledged her as his daughter.

After high school, Essie Mae decided to pursue nursing.  She only considered black programs thinking,

It didn’t occur to me to apply to a program for one of the great university hospitals….though I might have been qualified to get in. I guess I “knew my place,” my white father notwithstanding. There were talented blacks at all these institutions, but I was too locked into the self-perception of race limitation to try to test the color lines. I was shy and self-effacing and had never been away from home…Penetrating the white universe was far too intimidating a prospect. If my own white father didn’t want me, why would anyone else? (p. 74-5)