Because They Endured . . . We Are!

By Robert Lewis

These words were spoken by Marcus Tullius Cicero, a Roman philosopher, over two thousand years ago. What meanings do they carry over to the American people today? The United States of America has been called the melting pot of the world. A more accurate description, in my opinion, is a large jar of mixed marbles.

The American citizen of African descent has been in America longer and has done more for America than most other ethnic groups. Yet we are attacked, lambasted, demonized, inhumanely abused, reviled, lied to, and lied about, more than all other ethnic groups combined. We have been subjugated to eating the guts of animals that the other ethnic groups throw away and the greens, roots, and dandelions that grew wild in the fields. This, along with being assailed with rules, regulations, laws, and practices are designed to keep us down and deprived. Yet, we continue to prevail.

Today, as a people, we are at a crossroad in our lives. In order to make the best decisions for our prosperity, we must uncover our gloried past that was systematically kept from us. This will better enable us to better understand and answer the why questions of today, thereby being able to come up with more appropriate directions for our tomorrows. This is why I pause to write!

Young people you are our hope. We cannot go forward without you. Search your past, share your stories (in writing), bring out the commonalities we share, and encourage each other with a singleness of purpose as you take us forward.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Trafford Publishing
• Release date: Feb 3, 2017
• ISBN: 9781490780467

Robert Lewis

Robert (Robby) J. Lewis is a writer based out of Charleston, South Carolina. He has brought you not only the Shadow Guardian series but he Someone Series under Robert Lewis. He has written numerous steamy film scripts for Noir Male and Icon Male and more recently agreed to start writing for Luxxxe Studios. You can keep up with Robby Lewis's latest releases, news, and antics via his social media or at www.robert-j-lewis.com.

Book preview

Because

They

Endured…

We Are!

By Robert Lewis

©

Copyright 2017 Robert Lewis.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the written prior permission of the author.

ISBN:

978-1-4907-8045-0 (sc)

ISBN:

978-1-4907-8047-4 (hc)

ISBN:

978-1-4907-8046-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2017900931

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models,

and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

2 images on the cover taken fromwww.archives.gov and www.nps.gov.

Scripture quotations marked KJV are from the Holy Bible, King James Version (Authorized Version). First published in 1611. Quoted from the KJV Classic Reference Bible, Copyright © 1983 by The Zondervan Corporation.

Trafford rev. 02/02/2017

22970.png www.trafford.com

North America & international

toll-free: 1 888 232 4444 (USA & Canada)

fax: [phone]

Contents

Dedication

Introduction

My Beginning

Early Education

Continued Miseducation

World War I

Labor Unions in America

World War II

After World War II

My World of Work and Education

Life as an Educator

The Beginnings of the Fall

The Moral Destruction of the Black Community

Hope For The Future

Dedication

To Mrs. Carlene Hicks whose encouragement, support, suggestions, and editing, made this book possible to complete.

Introduction

To be ignorant of what occurred before you were born is to always remain a child. For what is the worth of human life, unless it is woven into the lives of our ancestors by the records of history?

Marcus Tullius Cicero

O Lord, our Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth!

You have taught children and nursing infants to give you praise’

They silence your enemies who were seeking revenge.

When I look at the night sky and see the work of your fingers…

The moon and the stars you have out in place…

What is man that you should think of us?

Mere humans that you should care for us?

For you made us a little lower than the angels,

And you crowned us with glory and honor.

You put us in charge of everything you made,

Giving us authority over all things…

The sheep and the cattle and all the wild animals,

The birds in the sky, the fish in the sea,

And everything that swim the ocean current.

O LORD, OUR Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth!

Psalm 8 from the Holy Bible

Jesus replied, You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important. Love your neighbor as yourself. All the other commandments and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.

Matthew 22: 37-40

The above statements gives us cause to pause and reflect upon the meaning and purpose of life. At age seventy-four, please allow me the opportunity to reflect and share some of the things I was told, some of the articles, novels, history books, etc. I read, and some of the things I witnessed and how they impacted my life. This is written with the hope that those who read it will take the time to examine their lives to see what it was to cause them to be who they are now and ascertain if they can, individually and collectively, make changes that may positively affect ourselves and our prosperity. It is written with the hope that our young people will see brighter alternatives for their lives and those of us who are older will serve as positive mentors, teaching and showing the benefits of our rich heritages and how our ancestors sacrificed so much to make life better for us.

My Beginning

God’s plan for mankind is simple. We are to love Him with all or heart, soul, might, mind and strength and to love each other as ourselves. Because Adam and Eve chose to disobey God, sin entered the world. Later Cain became jealous of Abel because God was more receptive of Abel’s offering than his. Cain became angry. God approached Cain and asked why he was angry? God explained that Abel offered his best and if Cain did the same, his offering would be accepted like Abel’s offering. Cain ignored God’s counsel, conned Abel into a meeting and killed him. Since then, the annals of time and the pages of history are full of the repetition of Cain’s act. Individual against individual, tribe against tribe, culture against culture, religion against religion, country against country, all have participated in the victimizer versus the victim relationships. Groups have banned together to rob and steal land and resources from other groups. Such is the case with this land we call the Americas. More specifically, the part we call the United States of America. Groups came to this land and by cunning and force of arms took the land and resources from the indigenous groups we wrongly call Indians. After the occupied group became established in the land they proceeded to victimize every group that followed including the groups they took from the shores of Africa and brought exceptionally large groups of them here against their will. Every person of every ethnic, cultural, and religious background have a story to tell of mistreatment by the established group. However, none is more compelling than the people of African descent, here in America. We study our past to understand our present so we will be able to make better decisions about our future. Coming from such a place in my life, I write my story.

I was born the third of five sons to the union of Hollis Lewis and Josephine White on October 5, 1941, at 11:59 p.m. My mother swears that I was born at 12:01 a.m. and until I entered elementary school was told my birthday was on October 6th. What was the difference between being born at 11:59 p.m. on the 5th of October or 12:01 a.m. on the 6th of October other than the obvious two minutes? The Cook County hospital had a tradition of giving a gift to the first child born each day. After I was born, the hospital staff made a fuss over me being the first child born on October 6, 1941. After about five minutes, everything went quiet. Later, when my mother was being released with me and her other belongings, she asked what happened to the gift for my being the first born on October 6th. She was told she was mistaken. The first child born on October 6th was born at 12:04 a.m. I was born at 11:59 p.m. on October 5th and showed my mother the birth certificate that confirmed what they said. It was whispered to my mother that the time of birth was changed because the other child was white. Robert Earl Lewis, welcome to one of the realities of being a Black man living in the United States of America.

Most of my life, through age thirteen, was wonderful. Although I knew I was poor, I didn’t feel any negative effects of being poor. My father, mother, two older brothers, and I lived in the attic of my paternal grandfather’s home while our permanent home was being prepared on the property of my maternal grandfather. My father had six brothers, my mother had one. They, along with the two grandfathers plus other male relatives converted the garage behind my maternal grandfather’s home into our home where I lived until I married at age nineteen. The rest of the family remained there until the Dan Ryan expressway came through and they had to move. By-the-way, my first bed was a dresser drawer.

There was a billboard on the North side of 111th Street facing east, which read, Morgan Park the best place to raise children. Open fields where the children could romp and play were in abundance. Many residents had gardens on their property as well as raised crops on some of the open fields. Assorted trees, very tall grass, assorted fruit trees, and other vegetation, grew in many of the unattended fields. This was the backdrop of many adventures! Climbing trees, playing cowboy and Indians, snake hunting, searching for fool’s gold, making bows and arrows from tree limbs, building tree houses, using the seeds from the cottonwood trees for our bean shooters in the spring, trying to catch rabbits and hunt pheasants, made our days, seasons, and years exciting.

There was a Park District Field house on the playground of our elementary school that provided many activities and after school programs. We were involved in baseball, volleyball, basketball tournaments and track & field events. We lived ½ block north of the school and when we finished our homework and chores, mother would allow us to go to the playground to participate in the activities it provided until dinner time. On the playground were two softball diamonds, two basketball courts, a giant slide, monkey bars, two sets of swings, a swing set for toddlers, two maypoles, two (what I called) activity centers which include swings, slides and a climbing apparatus. In the back of the field house was a wading pool and two sets of benches.

In the field house we were provided with table games, board games, table tennis, and mats for wrestling. Every winter, the field house attendants would flood the playground and the foundation for the giant slide with water once the weather dropped below freezing. The winter games began! Sliding on the ice before and after school and running home to finish our homework and our chores before rushing back to the playground to engage in whatever activities we could. Most of the boys would wear clod hoppers, brogans, or combat boots with big taps on the toes and heels so we could slide farther, especially when sliding down the wooden base of the giant slide. Am I implying competition here? Of course I am! We competed in everything we did! Who could slide the farthest on the playground, down the wooden base of the giant slide, flop the farthest on sleds (notice I didn’t say our sleds. We didn’t have one. Sometimes our friends would let us have a turn on their sleds), or skate the best.

The field house had some type of intercom system that allowed the attendants to play music that could be heard all over the playground while the ice skaters danced and performed. The rest of us would slide on the ice or flop on sleds away from the skaters. After dark, the field house attendants turned on lights that lit up the entire playground. The ambiance it created was magical! Most of the skaters were older so the rest of us, especially after the lights came on, would sit one the benches and marvel at the skaters twisting and twirling, doing tricks on the skates, or dancing with partners. We spectators would look in awe as we clapped, cheered, and encouraged the skaters as they exhibited their marvelous skills before us.

Summer seemed to be the time when most activities took place. There were boy and girl softball teams, volleyball teams, track & field events, and wrestling teams that competed against other schools and their park district branches. The most popular sport was softball. It seemed as though half of the community would come out to watch and cheer on the teams at the softball games. There were four divisions or categories of the competition. They were: junior (8-9 years old), intermediate (10-13 years old), senior (14-17 years old) and adult (18 and above, where one could not participate unless you were good, very good). The adults were independent and played for money. When there was a competitive game against another site, large numbers of the community would turn out to cheer for the home team, no matter the age group. I guess it was because of the pride they held for the community.

The way I’ve carried on about the playground and the park district, one would think that it was the center of the community. It wasn’t! Remember, I lived approximately one-half block from the school, others lived seven to eight blocks away. Therefore, they had to devise other ways to compensate for the distance. They played these activities in the street and nearby fields. Oh! They also participated in the activities I mentioned earlier. The center of the community was the church. All the concerns of the community were addressed at the church. Let’s list a few:

• Spiritual and moral correctness

• Teaching reading skills through Bible stories/study

• Public speaking through learning speeches

• Leadership training

• Building self-confidence through overt support

• Boy and Girl Scout programs from cub & brownie through eagle scout

• Practical mathematics

• Field trips

• Vocational training

• Assistance with employment opportunities

• Sports

• Fellowship

• Community service

• Politics

Relatives, relatives, relatives! I had sooo many relatives! When there was a funeral, the church was so packed with relatives that many of the other well-wishers had to stand outside the church. On my father’s side of the family, there were seven boys and two girls. Everybody had children! For example, my father was the second youngest child. His oldest brother had three children older than my father and one son younger than my youngest brother. I don’t know his total number of children. My father’s oldest sister had twelve children. In my mother’s immediate family there were only three siblings, one boy and two girls. My uncle had no children, but each of the girls had five. However, their parents’ bloodline was extensive with brothers, sisters, and cousins, so much so that they competed with the number of relatives in my father’s family. There were so many Whites, Lewises, Morgans, Sanders, Richardsons, McMorrises, Rodgers, and other surnames, that I can’t remember at this moment. It seemed that half of the community was made up with my relatives.

The people in my parent’s generation put heavy stock in family. They made sure we got to know other family members all over the city, in our community, and the suburbs. We were also told about other relatives that lived out of state. It seemed that every weekend we were visiting someone or someone was visiting us. I am sure the reader can relate to this in his/her own family life. This is probably where the saying, blood is thicker than water was spawned.

Deeper than this, I found out that my mother’s family had family reunions as far back as my mother could remember. She and my uncle would tell the story of how my grandfather took them, on the train, to New Jersey for a family reunion when they were toddlers. When my uncle became an adult, he continued the practice. Every other year there was a family reunion someplace in the United States and he would always attend. In off years, he was always visiting someone somewhere. When my two older brothers and I procured our driver’s licenses, we were given the task of taking him to and picking him up from the airport every year.

When I was in my mid-twenties, the family reunion was held in the neighboring community of Kankakee, Illinois, which is approximately 50 miles south of Chicago. Most of us that lived in the Chicago area car pooled to the site. The Morgan and Rodgers family, packed a bus. The site was a park. I had the time of my life! Almost 600 people were there and they were all my relatives. They came from as far north-east as New Jersey and as far west as California and many of the states located between them. This appeared to be my Uncle’s greatest day. He spent his time taking people from one group to another introducing us to each other. An introduction would go like this: Robert this is your cousin Mary, whose family is the Johnsons, who came from the Turners who moved to New York City back in 1925. Floyd Turner had five brothers and two sisters (he would name them and tell where they lived), whose parents, Harold and Josie comes from Columbus, Georgia. My Uncle appeared to be the griot of the family. All these years he traveled, he had been keeping the ties of our family history. I was so proud of him and I felt empowered by this occasion.

The organizers of this event had reserved the entire park including the field house. On one of the bare walls was a hand-made placard that went from the floor to the ceiling. On this placard was a tree dating back to the early 1700’s. There was a big trunk with a family name. From this trunk, as I remembered about eight limbs, which represented their children. From each of the limbs were branches of various sizes, starting from large branches to smaller branches. Each of the limbs and sizes for the branches represented generations that could be traced back to the 1700s.

Back to my pre-teen years! Sometimes, we would sit quietly and listen to the grown folks conversation. During these times we would learn a lot about what was going on in the community, our family history and parts of the history of Blacks in America.

What I have listed is a partial list of the positive influences that affected my life. I MUST mention the many positive mentors who covered every aspect of my life. This is what I feel is the important piece that is missing from so many of our children’s lives today. I pause to tell my story with the hope that someone, man, woman, boy, or girl, will say, oh! I can do that, and commit themselves to making a positive difference in the life of their community. From this backdrop, I was nurtured, enlightened, encouraged, inspired, taught patience, learned to care for others, formed a strong work ethic, and developed into who I am. I thank you my ancestors, thank you my parent’s generation, thank you to the older children who did their part in training, helping, encouraging and supporting me. I thank God for allowing you to be a part of my life. Because you endured and