Racism: Memories of Mississippi

What I remember about growing up in Mississippi were the hateful signs.  They were posted near restrooms, lunch counters, bus terminals and other public areas.  One read: Whites Only.  The other said: Colored. The message was clear:  The color of your skin dictated how you were treated.

Colored meant inferior.  Unequal.  It was racism at its ugliest.  The year was 1960 and Dr. Martin Luther King's nascent civil rights movement was gaining national momentum.  In Mississippi, he was crowned with the derisive sobriquet Dr. Martin Luther Coon.  Racial hatred knew no bounds.

In 1961, I became eligible to earn a driver's license at age 15.  Mississippi had lowered the driving age to accommodate the state's agricultural industry.  Farm kids by necessity were operating family tractors and trucks on roads and highways.  The land was tilled and harvested by blacks.

During a lunch break, my Dad ushered me into the Driver's License Bureau office.  When he cracked the door, the waiting room was sardined with people, all of them African-American.  My Dad glanced around and tugged my arm and whispered: "We'll have to come back some other day."

Before we reached the door, a voice called: "Are you here for a driver's license?"  My Dad answered in the affirmative.  A state trooper motioned us to follow him into his office.  He closed the door and smirked: "None of those ("n" word) are getting a license today.  The dumb asses can't read."

My license exam began after the trooper plopped his feet on his desk. What color is a stop sign?  Red.  How about a yield sign?  Yellow.  He grinned, "You passed the written test."  He ordered me to drive Dad's car around the block.  "If you don't hit any cars, you pass the driving test." 

I never forgot the looks on those black faces as I strutted out the door.  Instead of feeling elated about getting my license, I dawned on me that I was part of a conspiracy to deprive African-Americans of their right to legally drive.  It was a cruel way to punish a people simply for being born black.

The other seminal event in my education about racism occurred in 1962. I was in high school when the first black student (James Meredith) attempted to enroll at the University of Mississippi in Oxford.  The state's governor vowed to block his path.  A group of whites rioted at the campus.

Amidst the turmoil, students at my high school were kept informed about developments by announcements over the intercom.  When Meredith was initially rebuffed from enrolling, the classroom erupted in whoops of applause.  The song "Dixie" blared over the intercom.

Confederate flags became a symbol of resistance.  Flags were duct tapped to radio antennas of cars and pickup trucks at school.  A few students boasted about plans to load up their vehicles with guns and speed to Oxford to prevent that ("n" word") from stepping foot near lily white Ole Miss.

I was ashamed of my state.  Dr. King, in his famous speech "I Have a Dream," pointedly referred to Mississippi as a state "sweltering with the heat of injustice." Racism was an epidemic, oozing from every corner of life.  Decades removed, I can't fathom how blacks survived with their dignity intact.

More than 60 years later, change has crawled into Mississippi.  Signs no longer taunt blacks.  About 12 percent of students at Ole Miss are African-Americans.  Mississippi leads the nation in black home ownership. However, too many blacks continue to live in stinging poverty.   

For many, change has been agonizingly slow in a state where African-Americans account for 37 percent of the population, the highest in America. Mississippi remains No. 1 among all states in poverty (21.9%) and illiteracy (21.5%). But sometimes change is about more than statistics.

On a visit to the state capitol Jackson several years ago, I was gobsmacked to walk into an an upscale hotel restaurant and find blacks seated at three or four tables.  They appeared right at home where once African-Americans donned aprons instead of dinner napkins.  The wait staff was mostly white.

Waitresses addressed their African-American customers as "Sir" and "Ma'am."  One black customer registered a complaint about the food.  The waitress was respectful and accommodating.  That doesn't represent waves of progress in most states.  But in Mississippi, it qualifies as a tsunami.

It has been 50 years since Dr. King was gunned down in Memphis.  The man once scorned by Mississippians might be surprised to witness blacks and whites together in a college classroom studying about the civil rights movement.  Dr. King would have surveyed the situation and thundered:

"Free at last, Free at last, Great God almighty, we are Free at last!"  But he might have added: "It's about time."