When Minorities Lead In America: A Black Theologian's Political Journey

By Dr. Herman J Fountain Jr

What would America be like if Native Americans, Hispanics, African-Americans, Muslims, and Asians formed a coalition and created a new dominant majority voting bloc, and passed laws that enabled them to achieve academic and economic goals? What if government and commerce in America focused on the concerns of minorities and provided funding to promote their concerns? How would this new majority treat white people?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Lulu.com
• Release date: Jan 21, 2017
• ISBN: 9781365696428

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When Minorities Lead In America: A Black Theologian's Political Journey

WHEN MINORITIES LEAD

IN AMERICA

A Black Theologian’s Political Journey

Herman J. Fountain Jr., EdD, MDiv, MA, BA

Copyright

All rights reserved

Copyright © 2016 by Herman J. Fountain Jr. Ed.D.

ISBN 978-1-365-66542-4

I have tried to recreate events, locales and conversations from my memories. In some instances, I have changed the names of individuals and places, in order to maintain their anonymity and protect their privacy. I may also have changed some identifying characteristics and details such as physical properties, occupations and places of residence.

DEDICATION

To my parents, Elnora and Herman Fountain Sr., who endured the 1950s racial environment. To Vivian Smith-Fountain, my beloved wife, who inspires me to face the future with confidence.

WHEN MINORITIES LEAD IN AMERICA

INTRODUCTION

Growing up in the fifties in Louisville, Kentucky, I wondered how much I was like the other kids in my neighborhood. My parents did the best they could to raise their six children to be upstanding, hardworking, law-abiding and to hopefully avoid incarceration. My mother was the drill sergeant who whipped us for small infractions. My father, a hard worker, always had two jobs, and rarely had normal conversations with us. When I was twelve it occurred to me that he only seemed interested in his children when he was about to beat us.

I was deathly afraid of him because his whippings were brutal when he was angry. Being knocked around by both parents convinced me that I was unlovable. Even today, I still remember the lyrics from a blues song by B. B. King that seemed to perfectly encapsulate my childhood. Nobody loves me but my mother, and she could me jivin’ too.

My dad gave my three brothers and I flat-top haircuts that we hated. Playing with my friends one day, someone asked, "Who is the ugliest of us? They picked me. These early incidents heavily influenced my thinking that I was ugly and unlovable. Many whippings and few expressions of love by my parents, coupled with friends labeling me as ugly, convinced me that people I meet in the future will see my flaws and reject me.

These experiences happened in my mostly black neighborhood, before I began interacting with white people. After hearing the stories about how badly white people treated black people, I was terrified because I was already treated badly by blacks. I couldn't imagine how white people would treat me. Years later during a job interview, a white interviewer told me, You should smile when being interviewed. I had no reason to smile. I was too scared.

Almost forty years later, there are two reasons why I wrote When Minorities Lead In America. The first is because I heard a twenty-one-year-old African American woman say on television, Slavery happened many years ago. Get over it! My guess is that she is not aware of how discriminatory institutions and systems continue to preserve white privilege in America and oppress people who look like her.

The second reason is because the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia said, Blacks should not attend the University of Texas where they may not do well, but should go to a less competitive school where they will do well. I surmised from Justice Scalia’s statement that he believed African Americans were intellectually inferior, with no consideration of the possible negative effects of the environment at the University of Texas campus.

As an African American male who attended both Historically Black (HB) universities and Historically White (HW) universities, I have insight as to why some African Americans may not perform well academically at a HW school such as the University of Texas. The racial pressures they encounter could significantly impact their ability to concentrate. This is what I experienced at HW universities and a HW seminary.

At a HW university in 1961, I took a college course at night. A white instructor asked me a question in class that I struggled to answer. He said, Maybe you shouldn’t be here! His tone was loud and emotional. The message I got was that he didn’t want Black people attending that school.

I attended another HW university in 1970 and had a conference with my white instructor because I had problems grasping algebra. Rather than inquire about what could be done to help me learn, she stated with high emotion: You can’t do this work! She was talking to a twenty-eight old veteran who just left battlefield conditions of the Vietnam war. I told her defiantly, "I will do this work! I buckled down and passed the course. I believe the instructors’ attitudes toward me were racially motivated.

In a class in the HW seminary, I answered a question posed by the white instructor to the class. His response was unkind and embarrassing. I spent the rest of the semester in silence. His behavior toward me signaled his opposition to me attending that seminary. Another instructor refused to return a greeting when I said, Hello in the hallway. The glare he gave me told me he was not in favor of me attending his seminary.

Because of those experiences and the discriminatory actions I witnessed, it seemed that black people didn’t have a chance for a good life because White America controlled everything and oppressed us. I felt defeated throughout my early adult life. I earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in psychology and a Master of Arts degree in counseling psychology and continued to feel unloved and unlovable. At thirty, I married a young woman I had dated for four months, not because I loved her, but because I was desperately lonely. Our doomed marriage lasted nineteen years. I was fortunate enough to find and marry the woman of my dreams in 2000. She and I are both involved in ministry.

By the time I entered my sixties, I felt different. I felt more in control of my destiny. I retired and no longer had to accept racially-motivated insults and slights in the workplace in order to stay employed. I attended seminary and graduated with a Master of Divinity degree to answer a call to ministry. I pastored for twelve years. Having choices of how to respond to others, I felt empowered. My authentic self is kind, compassionate, and forgiving. This is the real me and I feel comfortable being who I am.

Over sixty years after I started school, white-controlled state educational systems continue to frustrate the aspirations of minorities but now they have new strategies. They continue to underinvest in