The Wisdom of Uncle Babe: Coming of Age in Fordyce, Arkansas, in the 1950S

By John C Moore

This is a poignant coming-of-age story about a young black boy, who left his northern life behind to spend his high school years in rural Arkansas in the 1950s. This story shows how the love and gentle nurturing of an elderly couple and the community helped set the foundation for a remarkable journey of life, love, and self-reliance.

The author shares with us simple wisdoms that have sustained him for over six decades. Readers, young and old, will be touched by the wisdom of Uncle Babe.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Aug 8, 2018
• ISBN: 9781532053009

John C Moore

John C. Moore is a Research Professor at Universities of Lapland (Finland) and Uppsala (Sweden), a Chief Scientist & Research Professor, Beijing Normal University (China), Guest professor at Polar Research Institute of China, as well as the Director of Polar Climate and Environment Key Laboratory. John C. Moore has published over 100 papers, where six papers have been published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). John C. Moore’s research includes climate change; past sea level change and prediction, natural and anthropogenic climate forcing, impacts of extreme climate events, and computer modelling of glacier flow and evolution. John C. Moore was Finnish representative on the International Arctic Science Committee, Glaciology Group. John Moore is the Editor-in-Chief of “American Journal of Climate Change” and an Editorial Board Member of “The Cryosphere”. John C. Moore’s research is supported by European Science Foundation, EU Northern Periphery Program, National Key Science Program for Global Change Research (China), Finnish Academy, and NSFC

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Copyright © 2018 John C. Moore.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-5299-6 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-5300-9 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2018908352

iUniverse rev. date: 08/07/2018

A LEGACY WORTH SHARING

So many of us have a story to tell. I wrote this book to encourage others to tell stories handed down to them. We need to start discussions in this great nation of ours about our past and how it has affected us today. We must not turn our backs on social injustice. We must take our heads out of the sand to talk and discuss our future!

I hope that if we start to tell our stories, that it will lead to an honest discussion of race relations. This is a topic whose discussion is long past due. Those who think that slavery and injustice did not happen on American soil must be able to see if they want to know the past of our country.

The movies portray Native Americans as savages with the image that the General Custers of the time charged down the hills to wipe out the savages. The question we should ask today is Who were the savages?

The wise men of Fordyce wanted to keep the past alive in the only way they could by telling the stories of their history. These stories were passed down over time their mothers and fathers. So much was lost over the last century because people became too busy to listen to the stories of our past.

Several stories took place in Africa. We may have been the first to discover fire, tools, and understand the importance of grain. We may have been the first to plant seeds. We may have been the first to create empires and books. We must have been the first to read, write, and to plan. Unfortunately, we have come to believe that we could not have done these things.

Some of our history is written by those who did not want to give us credit for all we did. Our history is tied into the history of the world. We must do all we can to protect it, take pride in it, and make certain we pass it on. We must do our own research, and like the wise men of Fordyce, Arkansas become storytellers.

Each time we forget a person, that person is dead to us forever. Each time we forget an event, that event in history becomes dead to us. Each year we lose so much of what we are as a race. We must turn back the pages of time. We must do our research. We must tell our children about our past. We must, like the wise men of Fordyce, become storytellers.

I truly believe that memories can be kept alive for centuries if they are shared. Writing this book was my goal, in a very small way, to bring the memories of my people back to life. Look at all the people who died years ago. We know their names, their histories, their victories and their defeats. Sometimes we even make them bigger than life.

Time passes. A 100 year, 200 years or even 1,000 years. But we still talk about them as if they were still alive. We do not want them to die. That was my attempt in this book. Only time will tell if I was successful.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

To write a book is a challenge. It is even a bigger challenge when you wait over 65 years to write a story about a snapshot of time in one’s life.

It’s hard to believe I started writing this manuscript in 1980. It was going to be my first book, but I couldn’t get past the first few pages. Then I did what I have always done when I wanted to accomplish something: I told everyone who would listen that I was working on a book about my stay in Arkansas from 1950 until 1954. I would often read those few pages to family and friends at gatherings. I was encouraged by many people to continue my work, but especially by Mary B. Johnson. She stated repeatedly, You must write this book.

On January 17, 2011, I received a memorandum that was sent to all Calhoun County High School alumni about a reunion that was to take place in Fordyce that July. This would be a great opportunity for me to reminisce, recollect, see sites, family and friends, and renew acquaintances. A time to relive those four precious years and exceptional high-school education that truly helped mold me into the man I was to become. More importantly, now I was guided by my Uncle Babe to be the very best person I could be. This stimulated me to revisit not only my high school but to revisit what I now see as one of my greatest legacies.

In this book, I attempted to capture the legacy of a great school, alumni, teachers, and most of all, my Uncle Babe and Aunt Bert. The period of this book is from the summer of 1949 to the spring of 1954. I’ve tried to recall events, places, and the people who had been a part of my life back then. I can’t remember that names of each, so I have created pseudonyms for some of the characters.

This is a true story based on real events, real places, and real people.

I truly believed that Alvetta would be my last book. Then one day, I told my daughter, Audrey that I had to do at least one more book. I told her I had to tell the story of Uncle Babe and Aunt Bert, and of the storytellers of Fordyce, Arkansas. She said, Let’s do it.

I knew that in this book I would need a lot of help and would need to do research on Fordyce, Kilgore’s, Blacks in WWI, Enon Missionary Baptist Church Calhoun County Training (High) School, slavery and racism.

Audrey oversaw gathering the background information on Blacks in WWI, and Fordyce. Her sons, Na’im and Nashid Madyun, had tasks as well. Both have their Ph.D.’s and were tasked with writing about how slavery affected future generations.

I asked the pastor of Enon Missionary Baptist Church, Rev. James Kemp to help with the history of the church. He led me to Mae Hall, who was a great help as a resource. A special acknowledgment goes to Kate Ingersoll, a local author, Fletcher Word, publisher of The Sojourner Truth, and Falconware Softworks. The story on Kilgore’s would not be complete with the 1970s photo that was granted to me by the Fordyce, Arkansas Facebook administrator.

My journey led us to find many treasures discovered only recently—an undated photo of Aunt Bert from the late 1950s which still hangs in Enon Missionary Baptist Church, an empty antique soda bottle manufactured right there in Fordyce, Arkansas, and a crumbling rare 1951 high school yearbook owned by the late Melvin Earl Williams. Each find brought more memories, but none more than that yearbook loaned to me by Mrs. Carolyn Green Williams.

I thank you all for helping me to tell my story.

JCM, October 2017

CONTENTS

A Legacy Worth Sharing

Acknowledgments

1949

The Reunion

Fordyce

Opportunities in a New World

My Friend, Al

A Great Summer

Aunt Bert

The Storytellers of Kilgore’s

My Country

Celebrating a Good Life Lived

Aunt Bert’s Mastery

Cchs

The Dreamer Finds Focus

The Freshman and the Bully

Read the Signs

Enon

Lost

Matthew

Coming of Age

Painful Reflections

The Wisdom of Uncle Babe

Appendix

The Impact of Slavery

Aunt Bert’s Recipes

More Wisdom from Uncle Babe

Bibliography

1949

I was born in Toledo, Ohio in 1936 and lived in federal housing projects for most of my childhood.