COURTESY AND COURAGE

BLOG POST   COURTESY AND COURAGE

Courtesy was something that was discussed by name in my family as I grew up. My father was a very polite man. In his work with people, courtesy made the difference between repeat customers who would help him feed his family as opposed to twiddling his thumbs.

Having come of age at the height of the Civil Rights Movement, activism and confrontation seemed to my pre-teen eyes more self-respecting than passive resistance. I was very concerned with justice and being right. On more than one occasion I said to my father,” I would rather die than be treated that way.”

He would look at me as a father who loved his child would, and he would say to me, “I want you to live, not die.” Until I became a mother, his words seemed paradoxical and bewildering.

He was an activist: he resisted the oppression that was all around us. He did it in his own way. He was not flashy or confrontational. But he was courageous—both in World War Two in France and in the streets of Selma, Alabama.

At one point there was a blockade of Brown Chapel Methodist Church, where the mass meetings were held. The church was packed with people. Dr. King and the Steering Committee were inside.

The Alabama State Troopers and Dallas County Sheriff’s Deputies surrounded the church. The streets were blocked with saw horses. Cars were not allowed in or out. The tension was thick in the air, even for those of us who were too young to fully comprehend the gravity of the situation.

Mother was sitting in the back seat. Prudence and safety made that essential.*

Daddy drove his cab up as close to the church as the blockade would allow.  Then he got out, went around to the back passenger door and opened the door for her.

He would have done that for any passenger, of course.  In this instance it was crucial that Mom appear to be just a passenger arriving in a cab. 

My mother was dressed in her white uniform—starched and pressed fitted white dress with pockets on both sides. She wore the white thick soled shoes that nurses and other professional women wore and maybe even white gloves.

She was wearing dark glasses and she was carrying a basket of food for Dr. King and the Steering Committee. Without a word to anyone, she emerged from the cab.  She held her head erect and walked with purpose but not in a hurry toward the steps of Brown Chapel.

The lights on the tops of the police cars—red in those days—were revolving.  The troopers and deputies looked at her.  They looked at each other.  

They had guns, and Billy clubs. They had used cattle prods just days before on the high school and college students who were taking part in the demonstrations.

Mother walked up those steps as cool as anything and no one said a word to her. No one made any move to stop her.

She told me years later that they assumed that she was some “White Lady” who was attending to some business of her own; they were not about to interfere with a “White Lady”.  They let her pass.

*My mother had vivid red hair, fair skin, and freckles.  Appearance notwithstanding, her racial self-identity was that of an African-American.