3/5 of a Man

By Adam Harris

3/5 of a Man is about Adam Harris and his early childhood years growing up in the Jim Crow south. It is about separate but unequal school systems. It is about being an Army brat and the differences and advantages afforded by the U.S. Army as opposed to local southern
governments that displayed Colored Only facilities. 3/5 of a Man is about the high school and college years that shaped the political and social viewpoints of Adam Harris. It is about activism and seeking to improve the lives of minorities in the surrounding campus and community. 3/5 of a Man is about Harris' 25-year journey through the U.S. Navy, an organization that trained, educated, embraced, rewarded, lifted up, and ultimately said thank you for your service to a retiring Commander.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Feb 13, 2015
• ISBN: 9781503538610

Adam Harris

ADAM HARRIS is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where he has covered education and national politics since 2018. He was previously a reporter at the Chronicle of Higher Education, where he covered federal education policy and historically Black colleges and universities. He is a 2021 New America Fellow and the recipient of the Rising Star Award by the News Media Alliance.

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Copyright © 2015 by Adam Harris.

ISBN:      Softcover      978-1-5035-3860-3

                eBook           978-1-5035-3861-0

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Rev. date: 02/12/2015

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Contents

Early Youth

High School Years

Big State College

Sophomore Year

Junior Year

Summer School 1977

Senior Year

Chief Justice School Of Law

The Enlisted Navy

The Road To Ocs

Offcer Candidate School (Ocs)

Uss William H. Standley (Cg-32)

Navy Recruiting

Navy Recruiting District St. Louis, Mo.

Department Head School

Uss Cook (Ff-1083)

U.s. Army Command And General Staff College (Cgsc)

The Military Training Mission To The Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia

Military Training Mission To Saudi Arabia

Prospective Executive Officer’s School (Pxo School)

Military Sealift Command (Msc)

The Defense Intelligence Agency

YELLOW PAGE

Now I think the real work begins, but tonight I’m gonna have a couple, and after that, I’m gonna have a couple mo’. Chief Justice Thurgood Marsall’s comments while celebrating his victory in Brown vs Board of Education in 1954. The U.S. Supreme Court voted 9-0 to end segregation in U.S. public schools!(Segregation did not end until 1970 in Columbus, Ga – Muscogee County public schools. With all deliberate Speed)

It was the best of times; it was the worst of times. That’s probably true of most baby boomer’s lives. But as I reflect on a life well lived – meaning I tried to sample it all. I just thought it was past time to put some words to paper, in the hopes that reading them might shed some light, open some minds, dare I say inspire. All of this is a grand wish because our youth (black folks) seem to be reading less and less – a lost generation that I will speak to in detail later. My inspiration for this book comes from Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Claude Brown, Robert Maupin (Iceberg Slim), James Baldwin, Alexa Demps, and Mrs. Petunia Clark (my 10th grade English Literature teacher).

Early Youth

A s a child growing up in the 60s, the Amos and Andy, I love Lucy era, I did not know how impoverished my life actually was. As kids (cousins) we all lived close by one another in what could be considered the country. By we I mean three families of cousins, aunts, uncles and grand-parents. No indoor plumbing, getting water from a well, on a small chicken farm.

We always had enough to eat, but I was still running around 4 years old and hardly wearing shoes in the summertime. I remember having to go to an Army Hospital to get a foot worm (sand worm) frozen in my foot, and hearing a white doctor dress down my father not providing shoes for his kids to wear year round. Isn’t it amazing the things we remember from early childhood?

Kindergarten was a long walk, over the hill and through the woods to a segregated wooden building with old, used, beat up books and a large blackboard in front of the room. With an active duty army dad, I attended three different schools in the second grade. From living in a rat and roach filled house and segregated school outside of an Army Fort in Alabama to living on an Army post and attending an integrated brick school in Virginia. You see, on post there was no segregation allowed, but off post Jim Crow (segregation) ruled the day.

I never really feared Jim Crow (segregation) in my childhood – even though Jim Crow greatly affected my quality of life. The greatest fear in my childhood was living with a moody, alcoholic, wife–beating father. As a youngster, I loved watching Gun Smoke on TV with my mom on Saturday nights, but I hated my father coming home drunk and beating the shit out of my mom, almost every Saturday night.

The years of living on army posts were probably the happiest of my childhood. Dad never got drunk and beat my mom when we lived on post in army housing. In fact, they had some great parties at home on Saturday nights. I fondly remember watching from the bannister up stairs as they and their friends danced to the sound of Motown! What I did not know at the time was that army regulations prohibited that violent behavior in army housing. So living on post meant that dad had to hold all that bullshit in check, and he was wise enough to do so.

By the 5th grade we had moved back to Georgia renting a home off post, attending segregated schools. I think it is rougher on boys having an alcoholic father; kids can be cruel. I have never asked my sisters if they got teased about it. Maybe I will someday. I just have never gotten the courage to revisit those dark, ugly days gone by.

By this time, I had gotten pretty good at playing football, basketball and baseball. I also developed a serious liking of girls, especially grinding on their butts while standing in line at lunch or changing classes. Amanda Turner was my favorite partner – probably because she enjoyed it as much as I did! My middle school years found me fully engulfed in sports; quarterback of the football team; dropped baseball, but on the starting 5 in round ball at Kennedy Middle School. I also learned how to French kiss in middle school. Lots of girlfriends, but my absolute favorite was Mary Matthews – black as night but beautiful and so fine! She got me hooked on the phase, the blacker the berry, the sweeter the juice. She was all that! We used to get hall passes and meet in the janitorial closets to bump and grind and French kiss. It made going to school so very much fun. The bus rides to and from Kennedy Middle School were equally fulfilling. She lived two blocks up the street from me and it was also cool that we shared the exact same birthday 2/27/56.

I was always a gifted student and orator, and as I graduated valedictorian from Kennedy, I broke up with Mary because we were going off to different high schools. What an idiot I was! I would soon regret that move. It was the summer of 69 and JoAnn Ridgeway was throwing a last party of the summer at her house before we all headed off to different high schools.

I was headed to Cherokee High School, my first integrated school off post. As a matter of fact, I had already started football practice at Cherokee (more on that later). I did not know that Mary would be attending the party. When she arrived our eyes meet, and then the magic started. We danced to every slow jam played, and when we were not on the floor bumping and grinding, we were in the booth, in the back, in the corner, in the dark. We were French kissing and exploring every inch of each other’s body! We got the call for the last slow dance of the last party of the summer. Instead of dancing, we just stood on the dance floor, locked in each other’s arms, kissing and grinding. At the end of the song, I walked her to her brother’s car and told her how wrong I had been to end our relationship. I asked for another chance at love. She told me how badly I had hurt her and how she had been crying all summer long. She turned me down flat. She left me standing there, dick harder than times in 1929! I was brokenhearted and busted.

High School Years

T he summer of '69 was very exciting – the lowly Mets won the World Series after an amazing 7 games. The county where we lived was not fully supporting integration but a few blacks were allowed to attend white schools. Playing football at Cherokee High School (CHS) meant playing alongside white kids for my first time. Eating, sleeping, and taking showers with white boys was eye-opening. Some of them were cool; others were aloof. We had a starting varsity QB who lived down the street from me. Garry Harris would go on to attend a major university in the state. We had a record setting tailback. Gregory Hall was a brother who would go on to attend another major university in the state. We had a defensive unit that started 9 brothers. So the brothers were running thangs on the football team, and the coaches did not tolerate any racial disharmony. But disharmony came.

In 1969, the student body at CHS was 90% white, 5% black and 5% other. The faculty was 99% white. The football team was 30% black and undefeated (freshman and varsity). I started (1st string) on the freshman team and was 3rd string on the varsity squad. But there were no black cheerleaders and no blacks on the student Council. The student leader who organized a black student protest was a senior, a female Angela Davis type – in look and manner. To this day, I do not know exactly who was advising her. I do not even remember her name, but she was sharp as a tack! I would have to find a 1970 CHS yearbook to recognize her.

The black students walked out of classes, staged sit-ins in the cafeteria and marched in front of the school with protests signs. We were fired up and ready to go! I loved it. I felt like I was making history. But the real key to victory came when she gathered the black football players together and told us that we had to wear black arm bands and walk off the team! That debate was intense; the stakes were very high. Scholarships for the seniors were on the line; an undefeated season was at stake; a state championship was in play, and what we did not know at the time, a college job offer for our Head ball coach was in the mix.

The head ball coach got word about the meeting, and he pre-emptied our action. He ran the show at CHS! And all this protest and student un-rest was not good for his agenda. He met with our Principal (CHS), and the very next day we had 3 black cheerleaders assigned and 3 Black members were added to the student council. The rest of school year '69-'70 proceeded without incident. We came within one victory of playing for the state championship. The head football coach went on to coach at a major university in Florida next year.

In the 1970-71 school year, the county Board of Education decided to enforce Brown vs Board of Education with all deliberate speed. The Supreme Court verdict was only sixteen years old! Each public school in the county would have a student body of 70% white and 30% black. Each faculty would be 50% white and 50% black. This applied to each public school except Christopher High School – which remains lily white to this day!

CHS took on a whole new vibe and personality as buses rolled in from all over the county and student and teacher’s lives were greatly impacted. Can you imagine having to transfer schools in your senior year? I stopped playing football and concentrated solely on basketball. We had gotten a legendary Head coach from one of the previously all-black high schools – Coach Lewis. He was awesome!

Mary Matthews was included in all the new black students now attending CHS, but he still would have nothing to do with me. It did not matter because I had my eye on a red bone, Paige Smith. This was my sophomore year and I was a big man on campus (BMOC) already. I had a black female English Literature teacher, Mrs. Petunia Clark– and Petunia did not play! She was tough and exacting! And a member of my church! She introduced me to black literature and authors; I read Lorenzo Graham’s Northtown and Southtown, but reading Claude Brown’s Manchild in the Promised Land really opened my eyes! From there Richard Wright took over with Native Son and Black Boy. Then one of my friend brought me home with Invisible Man. These works and authors shaped my mind and changed my views forever. If only our youth today could know these authors and their powerful works!

Paige Smith and I became a couple during football season. My family had moved and bought a house in a newer black sub-division. But Paige lived in my old neighborhood – we went everywhere together. This was the girl I would marry after high school or college. They say you never forget your first time falling in love, and Paige was my first. What I did not know is that I was not her first love – that knowledge would come later.

The integration of CHS caused major turmoil for the seniors who were at a new school and would not be graduating from their original high schools. There was a new sheriff at CHS. His name was Mr. Watsons – a tough, black man who no prisoners, but the mixing of the races that many white folks feared did happen, a lot. And not just among the students. If walls could talk. There were a few fights; I had to defend friends on both sides of the racial aisle, but very few lock downs occurred at CHS.

Between basketball and Paige, my sophomore year was very good. I started on the junior varsity and dressed with the varsity and even played in a few blow out games. A surprise visit to Paige’s house that summer revealed her entertaining a soldier (an old boyfriend)who had just returned from overseas – enough said.

I entered my junior year back playing the field. Now I knew how Mary had felt all summer two years ago. I did however have my driver’s license now and an old set of wheels to get around with. So I tried not to date one girl to long and I ventured out to date girls who attended other area high schools. I continued to do well at basketball and started on the varsity squad. I did date Georgette Murphy – a childhood sweetheart whose mom was crazy about me. She was a very pretty, very dark-skinned girl. We would do movie and dinner every Friday night and I really enjoyed her company. She wore my varsity jacket with so much pride. She was a year younger than me, and as the school year neared an end we went to the prom but I knew soon that Georgette and I would part ways.

I was thinking more and more about college – my sister was attending college in Alabama, and she kept me informed about how much fun it would be for me. Most of my friends wanted to attend Historically Black Colleges/Universities (HBCUs), like my older sister – but I wanted to be a big fish in a small pond. As my senior year began, I noticed a young lady on the street behind mine. She was a freshman at Lyons High School, a hated rival of CHS. She was also dark as night and very pretty. Her name was Lois Ayers and I had a lot to teach her. She was a very apt pupil. We would eat out once a week, and she would cook Sunday dinner. I was a part of her family. Her dad was overseas, and her mom loved me. Lois was the only freshman at my senior prom – her mom was so proud; we had a real ball and we headed for home before her one a.m. curfew. We kissed long and hard at her front door – I did not go inside that night.

As the 1974 school year wound down, all of my buddies were headed to HBCUs (most in the south), but coach Lewis got me a scholarship offer from a small college in Big State, Ga. As I graduated from CHS, I came to realize there was good and bad in both races – that it was what was in the heart and soul that mattered. As I left CHS, I thought that integration was the greatest thing since sliced bread! But today, as I look at public education in America, I think that integration in the long run may have been our (black folks) downfall, more on that later. After graduation, but before I headed off for college, Lois’ dad came home from overseas and he did not approve of her dating anyone in college, so he ended our relationship. I wanted to kick his ass, but he was a green beret – so I let that idea go!

YELLOW PAGE

The title 3/5 of a Man comes directly from the U.S. Constitution. Slaves were considered as chattel and each slave state could count 1 slave as 3/5 of a man – for representation in Congress (even though as property slaves had no voice and no rights).

Big State College

(Now University)

T he absolute best four years back to back to back to back of my life! The campus was gorgeous, full of palm trees because we were so close to the Florida state line. The coach wanted all basketball players to schedule their classes in the mornings. He wanted us to leave the afternoons open for practice or shoot around until we could officially hold practice. That suited me just fine because the afternoons were too lovely to spend in a classroom. The freedom at college was unreal, parties every weekend, night clubs every night – a typical college town. Wide open! And girls, girls, girls! My high school civics teacher got me hooked on politics – so declaring Political Science as my major was a no brainer for me.

We (as basketball players) could not officially hold practice yet, but we did shoot around and lift weights every afternoon. The Big Man on Campus (BMOC) was a guy named Aaron Watson. He was called Dr. A. I wanted to be him, hell we all wanted to be him. He had the best looking girl on campus; and he was a real mellow guy – easy to like and follow and just absolute fun to be around. He lived off campus and threw some of the greatest parties ever. However, he never did graduate and I will speak to that fact later.

My roommate was a shy fellow from north Georgia – his name was Pete Taylor; he was there on and AFROTC scholarship. James Brown was correct when he sang This is a Man’s World, but what I would learn and have reinforced at Big State is that James would have been even more correct to sing "This is a White Man’s World". The class work was never an issue at Valdosta State, except for biology – which I saw no earthly use for, me being a political science major. So I got two D’s in biology. I was just glad to be done with that crap after two semesters!

On third weekend of the first freshman semester, one of our wealthy basketball boosters held a huge BBQ at his country estate. It was a chance for all the basketball players to get better acquainted – naturally there were plenty of co-eds at the party. That night I would experience my first bout of jungle fever. Sharice was a junior on the cheerleading squad. She was tall and statuesque, with long raven-black hair and gorgeous. Sharice proceeded to school me (educate me). Number one, we were not boyfriend and girlfriend – she already had a boyfriend. Number two, we would say hello if we saw each on the yard (on campus) and of course at ball games. Number three, I should use protection at all times, if I decided to have sex. Number four, most girls are at college to find a husband, and they would be after me simply because I played ball. Number five, get to class every day on time because the coaches will be checking. Number six, a little weed was okay – all other drugs were of limits. I got the feeling that Sharice had schooled ball players before me – and I was right. That night I told my roommate about the basketball players BBQ and my encounter with Sharice. He could not believe it!

I guess I was the alpha dog of our little posse (me, two other freshmen ball players, and about eight other friends that hung out with us). As the school year progressed, I began to see that Big State had two distinct cultures; one culture was black and one culture was white. Classes were of course integrated, but if you looked in the cafeteria blacks and whites had their on sections – and sections within those sections. The black Greeks were separate from the white Greeks. The pool room in the student union was a black hangout; the burger joint was a white hangout. The races came together at sporting events, but there were definitely two different worlds at Big State – and I would come to find out that they were not equal!

The year before I arrived at Big State, the black student body (minus the basketball players) united to protest the school’s athletic team name: rebels and mascot – Col. Boyd; after months of sit-ins, walk-outs, marches and protests, the administration yielded and changed the name to Blazers vice rebels. What was not known to the student body (black or white) is that the Athletic Director imposed his will on the administration citing that changing the name would indeed attract better black athletes. The name rebels and Col. Boyd were preventing the upper-cut of black athletes from accepting scholarships. This evidence came via direct feedback from black athletes who declined to attend Big State.

A practice that had not stopped was the Delta Chi (DX), a white Greek fraternity, Southern Heritage Days celebration. This week long event climaxed every year with a mock lynching on main campus. They would pay some brother two hundred dollars to sit on a horse and be rescued by Col. Boyd. As my posse and I found out that fall of 1974, one of the brothers in our dorm had been the spook last year. We flipped out, and made it our mission to end this overt racism. We made sure that no black person on campus would take the two hundred dollars; we made signs and marched. But the DXs, all dressed in their Confederate uniforms, got some brother from out in town to play the role. The following week, I was summoned by head ball coach, and told that we (basketball players) do not get involved in student protests. I was told that I was at Big State to play ball and get an education. Any further activism would result in me losing my scholarship. It was a one way conversation and for me the writing was on the wall.

The basketball season began – finally. I was at home and at ease on any court. I started on the freshman team and traveled with the varsity on the road. Everything Sharice had told me came true. We would wink at each other during games, but never had sex again. She graduated early and went on to law school at a major university. I first saw Prentice Foster walking to a class on campus. I did not know her because she did not run in my circles but she was gorgeous. She was a short, red-boned, petite sister who always looked so serious. I saw her at our home games, so I knew that she followed the team. I asked about her and Jeff, a junior on the men’s basketball team, said that she was also a freshman but had an old man (boyfriend) in the war (army). Jeff had the scoop on all the girls. Prentice was a nursing major and all of them were serious students. That BSN (Bachelor of Science in Nursing) degree was very valuable and difficult to obtain, only a precious few black students were nursing majors. I told Jeff that I had to meet her. He said cool–he would invite her to the next house party. He lived off campus.

It was the weekend before Halloween. We hosted Field House. We won a very tight game (Doctor A came through) and Jeff threw a party afterwards. Prentice and her roommate came to the party. Her roommate, Michelle Barett, was from my hometown but she attended a different high school than me. I introduced myself to Prentice and we danced a few times. She told me that she had a boyfriend who was stationed overseas. She also stated clearly that she was not looking to get involved with anyone at Big State. She said that we could be friends that’s all. I said cool (because I was getting sex from several other girls at the time). By Thanksgiving break, we were talking on the phone regularly. What I did not know at the time is that my home girl, Michelle, was steadily putting in a good word for me.

The ball players had games over the Thanksgiving holidays, so we had to stay at school (our dorms did not close), but when the student body returned from Thanksgiving break, Prentice and I started dating. This surprised a lot of folks because she had