Growing up in Jena, Before the Jena Six

By Murray K. Douglas

This book is about my growing up in a small town during the 50’s and 60’s, attending segregated schools and having to endure some of the demeaning things that came with being colored in the segregated southern town of Jena, Louisiana.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Nov 11, 2019
• ISBN: 9781728330310

Murray K. Douglas

Born and raised in Jena, Louisiana, attended Good Pine High School 1st through 12th grade and graduated in 1965. I attended Southern University 1965 thru 1969 majoring in Industrial Arts Education with minor in Driver Education. . I worked four years as a lab tech in the Biology Department at S.U. and also worked as a barber at The School For Deaf of S.U. where I enjoyed learning American Sign Language. During my senior year at S.U. I did my student teaching at Scotlandville High School . Graduated and got married in Houston, Texas August 9, 1969 to my college sweet heart/soul mate Martha Ann Leger. I was hired by Denver Public Schools and move to Denver, Colorado and started my career as a teacher in September of 1969.I took a sabbatical from teaching in 1977 to finish up my Masters of Arts in Industrial Sciences at Colorado State University in Fort Collins Co. I taught a few years then I finished another Masters in Education Administration from C.S.U. After thirty great years of teaching I retired from education 1999. After retiring I worked 4 and ahalf years as a case manager for Arapahoe House in Denver. I work with a super staff of people on The HIT Team. We worked with adult clients with mental and alcohol and drug abuse issues. I earned my Chemical Addictions Counselor III Degree (CAC III) with this job. I have been volunteering for the last twenty years teaching English as a second language to the Spanish speaking adults at our Church Of The Ascension in Denver’s Montbello neighborhood. As I teach these adults students how to read, write and speak English, they are teaching me and I am learning how to communicate in Spanish,… gracias, clases de Ingeles. It has been fun learning a third language. Well ya’ll, I’m gonna stop here and end this volumn. This endeavor has been a long time coming and has taken me the best part of fifteen or so years to complete. This being my first attempt at being an author and I want to sincerely thank all readers. I have to send a special thanks to all who provided me quotes for the memories chapter . Thanks to all who supplied me valuable answers to questions that helped me complete my manuscript. Again, thank you all for the Memories.

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© 2019 Murray K. Douglas. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 06/11/2020

ISBN: 978-1-7283-3032-7 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-7283-3031-0 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019915610

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models,

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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.

Contents

Chapter One

* Dedication

* The Whole Village

Chapter Two

* Another Room

* Runaway Wagon - Bucking Horse

Chapter Three

* Hurricane Season

* Basketball on Dirt Court (early 50’s)

Chapter Four

* Water Fountain in Jena’s Court House - 1952

* Fishing Trips - Aunt Jack

Chapter Five

* First Grade

* Black and White Ball

Chapter Six

* Picking Blackberries

* That N Name Calling

Chapter Seven

* The Hope’s Big Wedding

* Chicken Caper

Chapter Eight

* Chicken Incubators

* Them Cotton Picking Days

Chapter Nine

* Church Revivals

* Bus Low Riding

Chapter Ten

* Ice Cream Stands

* Run away wheels

Chapter Eleven

* Senior Prom Peabody High / Good Pine High

* Death Bed Confessions

About the Author

Our Immediate Family

50th Wedding Anniversary Memories, Endorsements

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Chapter One

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As you read my memoirs, please keep in mind that these are my true memories and experiences as I remember about my family and friends and acquaintances as we grew up in Jena, Louisiana. All seven of us grew up in a house with our Mom in a small southern segregated town in North Central Louisiana. The town of Jena is the Parish Seat of LaSalle Parish in Central Louisiana.

Yes, Jena Louisiana, the same place that some may remember awhile back (December 4, 2006) when the whole world witnessed the racial unrest reported by the BBC. The BBC reported the racial happenings in my hometown of Jena, Louisiana that were sparked by the hanging of three hangmen nooses in a tree at the only high school in La Salle Parish. This happened after a black student doing an assembly I was told, asked the Assistant Principal if he could sit under a tree where white students previously sat.

It was reported that a black student had a fight and beat up a white student after elegantly being called a nigger. As a result all total six black students were jailed and charged with attempted murder….They were labeled The Jena Six.

Dedication: This book is dedicated to our Mom Susie, Daddy Nick, to the rock of the family Mama Clara and Daddy John and to our Aunt Jack and to all of our Uncles and Aunts that had a hand in our upbringing. To all of our teachers that taught us with love and compassion and let’s not forget the Whole Village… (of Good Pine, over in Trout, out in the Country and the Quarters) and giving a special thanks to all the people that look after us while we were growing up that helped keep us in check when we were away from home and in their presence. Also to Martha Ann, the love of my life and wife of 50 years August 9th 2019 and to our two sons Ken and Marcus and to our grandchildren Monique, Micah, Mylah, Mariah, Ashlyn and Ensley. Also to our twin grandsons Darnell and Leonard.

With that being said, let me take you back in the day when my journey began. The day being when I was born in the late 40ies, the year being 1947.

My early childhood was a healthy childhood, thanks to the nourishment, the teaching, and the unconditional love that was given to all of us. Despite all the ugly that we experienced as we grew up when being called out your names. That ugly was over shadowed, buffered and subdued by all of the sincere love we were given by our parents, uncles, aunts, teachers and everyone that knew our family.

Not only did we receive the nourishment, the teachings and unconditional love from our immediate families but, also from everyone in the community, and I mean everyone that we knew and came in contact with.

As the saying goes …. the whole village raised us and that really holds true in our case. You talking about a tight knitted group of people when we were growing up.

The fact that all of us were raised by the whole village was as I see it a true blessing in disguise. We truly were taught, and had to be on our best behavior wherever we were, especially away from home. Mama Susie always said to us that if you are going to act a fool, do it at home with me. Mom taught us the golden rule and often reminded us of it. We were more than a hand full and I know that Mama Clara, our Grandmother was the strong glue that held the family together. Mama Clara kept us in check.

When we were growing up, every elder person had the right to discipline, and put us in our place if and when we got out of line in their presence. We would find ourselves in a very bad situation if we were to sass or disrespected adults in some way or another.

Whenever I got out of line when I was away from home and was caught in the act (yeah, I did get out of line and tested the tightness of the knit.) I soon learned to apologize. I would sincerely say that I was very sorry for what I said or done that was disrespectful and ask that they have me do whatever to make up for my mistake because I was wrong and I’m sorry.

I would also ask them to "please do not call home. I promised them that this would never happen again. Sometime they would say son or Murray K., you know your folks taught (learned) you better than that! The whole village had a really tight knit…. back in the day".

The main reason that I did not want them to call home was because I knew that whatever they did with us or to me for my misbehavior in their presence would be very minor compared to what we had to face if Mom had gotten wind of our sassing or our being disrespectful away from home, and that was my fear of Susie Q, and kept me in line, urr- wee.

I was birthed by a Mid-Wife named Mrs. Lucy Rolland in my Grandparents house, Mama Clara and Daddy John Johnson, at 7:30 in the morning of October 15, 1947. My birth was special because I was a 31st wedding anniversary present to my grandparents who were joined in Holy Wed Lock, October 15, 1916.

I was born on their 31th wedding anniversary in the small southern neighborhood / community of Good Pine, Louisiana which is located right off of highway 84 three miles west of the town of Jena, and one mile from Trout in LaSalle Parish located in the north central part of the state. Some have asked where is Jena and I explain by saying… you know the State of Louisiana is the shape of a boot and Jena is located at the ankle.

I was given my name at birth and it is Murray Kaye Douglas, the third child of the proud parents of Lucious James Douglas (Little Nick), and Susie Johnson Douglas, and the sixth child for Mom. Mom told me that I was named after dad’s brother, our Uncle Merl.

At birth I was the youngest of five siblings, three brothers and two sisters. My oldest brother, Kermit Walker, my older sister Earlene Walker (deceased), brother James W. Douglas Sr. sister Billie R. Conner, and brother 18 months older than me, Norah Hilary Douglas (N.H.)(Deceased)

By the time it was all said and done in our family, our mom, Mama Susie, had eight children. There were two other brothers born after me, Robert Lee Myles, and another brother named Ernest Dornell (Deceased), died not long after birth.

As a young kid I remember when our Sis Earline and her high school classmates and choir members would sing Christmas Carols as they walked through neighborhood. They probably did the same thing out in the country and quarter neighborhoods as well.

This was before we had telephone service with the party line where we had to dial zero to get an operator if we wanted to call long distance. The caller would tell the operator if the call was going to be person to person or station to station. I think our parents told us that the long distance station to station phone calls were less expensive than the person to person calls.

That party line was a trip and Mom taught us early that when we pick up the phone and someone is talking to hang up because it’s rude to listen to others conversation (ease drop). She said it ain’t your business and you should not be ease dropping. Again reminding us of the Golden Rule. We all were very happy when everyone finally got their own private telephone lines.

We all resided in a two bedroom wood framed of a house made of pine that stood approximately two feet off the ground on a solid foundation of wood building blocks (stilts). During the early fifties, when I was about 3 years old there was a wood burning heater (stove) in Moms’ room. I am not sure if the other rooms had heat or not at that time.

The wood burning stove as I remember stood on four legs on top of a small metal sheet on the floor. A small door was in front where they loaded the wood into the stove. There was a stove pipe out the back of the stove that went up the side of the wall and into the wall close to the ceiling. There was a brick chimney outside on top of the house above Moms’ room.

I do remember when the wood burning stove was dismantled and taken out of Mom’s room and later someone disassembled the chimney on the outside.

The wood burning heater was replaced with a gas heater in Mom’s room and one in our room.

The bedrooms in the house were now heated by medium sized gas heaters in each room. Mom would always leave the heaters on low during those frigid cold winter nights. She would frequently come into our room well after the lights were out to check on us. She would tuck the covers and she checked on the heater sometimes adjusting the flame during the winter nights.

The first person to hit the floor in the mornings would turn the heat up and after we got up, we would stand around on the cold floor in front of the heater to warm our backsides as we started to prepare for school in the mornings.

Mom would already have a kettle of water warming on the kitchen stove. On those really frosty cold mornings Mom would also have the oven lit for extra heat in the kitchen and a burner on warm with a pot of oatmeal on it. As we got dressed for school we took turns using a wash pan to wash our face and to brush our teeth before we ate breakfast and got off to school.

When we were growing up our house went through and withstood on that solid foundation many storms such as hurricanes, thunder, rain and high wind storms and once or twice it snowed in Jena while we were young.

During the few occasions when it snowed everything in Jena as I remember would close down. The post office may have been the only business that remained open. I recall snow twice while growing up. I was as surprised as anyone else. We took a picture of our sister Billie one winter in our front yard scooping up enough snow with her hands to make a snowball. The caption said Snow? We put the snow ball in the freezer and kept it there until June.

The roof on our house leaked when the rain came before Mom had the roof fixed. When it rained and the roof started to leak, they would have to put buckets, pots, pans, and wash tubs on the floor underneath the leak to catch the drops of water that dripped from our high ceilings.

The drops of water falling and hitting the different containers sometimes made some interesting sounds and rhythms that I sometimes found myself listening to before falling to sleep.

It usually rained a little and sleet just before it turned into snow and there would be a sheet of ice underneath the snow everywhere especially on the road ways. The roads were slick with what we called Black Ice. Some people tried to drive to get from place to place on the snow and ice and a few did really good not having snow tires on their vehicles. Others did not fare so good and the tow truck and homies with their trucks were all busy helping each other out of stucks.

During one of the little snow storms I remember a situation with Uncle Charlie Walker. He and Aunt Hunn were neighbors to Reverend Holly. Lawrence and I were playing out front of his house in the snow when Uncle Charlie was trying to drive his car up the small incline to get to the street.

We heard Uncle Charlie’s car’s engine reveling, varoom… varoom… We looked and saw that Uncle Charlie had backed out from under his carport and had gotten his car stuck and he was spinning his wheels on the snow and ice and he was cursing and not going anywhere.

Uncle Charlie’s friend that we called Daddy Hue turn off highway 84 by Mitchell’s Grocery headed passed us going to the Post Office when we saw and heard Uncle Charlie shouting and waving his hands and beckoning for Daddy Hue to come down there where he was stuck. Uncle Charlie was shouting "Hey Dirty, Dirty, Hey, Dirty, Come mer!

Daddy Hue saw Uncle Charlie waving and beckoning for him and he hit his brakes and his car started to slide sideways as we looked with amazement. He finally got control and drove down the little incline to see what Uncle Charlie wanted as Daddy Hue slid to a stop.

He said Damn Charlie what do you want? Uncle Charlie looked at him and said, Dirty! (Dirty was his nick name) I don’t know how the hell you are going to get out from down here cause I’ve been down here stuck and sliding around and trying for two days and I ain’t got out yet. What Unc said tickled the crap outta us. Lawrence and I had a good laugh when we heard that.

Daddy Hue managed to get his back wheels upon the grass next to the road and he put his car in low gear and eased up the hill and proceeded on to the post office.

Mom, Dad and all of our folks stressed to us while growing up the importance of keeping our bodies clean. When I look back on it, all I say is that it’s amazing how we all managed to keep our hygiene in check growing up in our house without having the luxury of indoor plumbing.

Our folks always told us that Cleanliness is next to Godliness. They said for us to take a bath, wash your butts (ya little asses) and put on clean underwear. When we were really young we asked why, and one of the answers was, (in case something happens to you and you have to go to the hospital).

Like I said there was no indoor plumbing except for a water faucet that supplied water to the house that was located in the kitchen and another water facet on the outside on the west side of the house.

During some of those hot summer days we would hook a water hose up to the outside facet and we would have fun spraying each other with the cool water during those hot days and when we finished playing we would get a bar of soap and a towel and take a shower in the cool water.

All other times during the winter we had to take a bath inside usually in the back room or Mom’s room. We like many other households in the hood would have to heat water on the stove in a tea kettle and a foot tub and pour it into a #3 galvanized round tub add some cold water and we got in on our knees at first to wash the upper half of our bodies then we would sit down in the tub and do same to the lower half. Our folks kept reminding us with the sayings Cleanliness is next to Godliness.

The water in the kitchen facet in our house would often freeze in the winter if someone did not remember to leave the facet drizzling a little during the night.

During that time nearly everyone in the community was like us and had an outhouse way outback of their house. There were a few that I knew had indoor plumbing, our grandmother, Mama Clara (The Rock of our Family) who lived diagonally to the right across the street from us and the Washington’s that lived next to us and across the street from Mama Clara and Miss Edie King our neighbor and a hand full of other residents in our community had indoor plumbing as well.

As we grew up I noticed in back of Mama Clara’s house there was an old abandon broken down outhouse that was not in use anymore and bushes and a small tree had grown up all around it.

At our house on cold winter nights when we had to use the rest room inside the house we used a one gallon white bucket that we called The Pot. We kept the pot in the back room with a white lid on it. I have also heard Mama Susie sometime called it the Slop Jar.

We all had our turns during the chore of taking the pot/slop jar out to empty it into the outhouse in the mornings. After emptying the pot in the outhouse, we would wash it out with soap and clean water using the facet outside and add some disinfectant usually (pinesol) or bleach and leave it outside in the open air until just before dark and then we brought the pot and the lid back into the house and put it in the back room.

Whenever it was my turn to take the pot outside to the outhouse to empty it in the mornings before school, I tried to do it early enough in the morning that the crowd of children passing by our house going to school would not catch me doing my morning chore.

We lived only a block or so from Good Pine High and all the school children from the two back rows of Good Pine had to pass by our house going to and coming from school.

Our house was surrounded by teachers. On both sides there was Miss Washington, Miss Elsey, Uncle John, Aunt Clara and Aunt Edna across the road.

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Ella Cole, Our Great Grandmother and Mama Clara’s Sister Aunt Coot

Every now and then after school let out and when everyone started to walk home, sometimes there would be a disagreement, an argument and on several occasions a fight would break out. This happened usually right as the crowd of school kids leave school walking back home through the neighborhood and start down the track just before they get to our grandmother’s house.

Everyone soon learned that Mama Clara was very religious person and did not tolerate all of that loud talking, screaming and shouting at each other nor you did not dare be whistling when passing in front of her house. Any rig ma row going on between the school kids would have to stop and wait until they passed Mama Clara’s house and everyone respected her for that.

She would nearly always be sitting on her front porch and everyone that turned that corner acknowledge her presence with a how you doing Miss Clara. Her reply usually is hey mane how you doing?

Our grandmother Mama Clara, escorted us to the L&A Baptist Church, the church that we all attended. I think from the time shortly after I started to walk.

The L&A Baptist Church is where we all attended Sunday School and other church services. This is where we learned about Religion and the Bible.

I did not know that when we started going to The L&A Baptist Church and that when after I became old enough I would begin to teach the Bible Lessons to the younger children in Sunday School.

Deacon Dude Lee was a deacon in the L&A Baptist Church. Deacon Lee taught Sunday School lessons to the children of the church. Deacon Dude Lee was a very good Sunday School Teacher. One of Deacon Lee’s daughters, Emma Lee is one of our classmates since the first grade.

Once I became of age, Deacon Dude Lee was very instrumental in helping me learn how to teach Bible lessons in Sunday School. Deacon Dude Lee tucked me under his wing as the saying goes.

When Deacon Lee taught us Sunday School Lessons at L&A Baptist Church they used flip charts to illustrate the lessons for that Sunday. From those colorful illustrative flip charts the Deacon would explain us the lessons for that Sunday. The charts illustrated colorful lessons about David and Goliath, Noah’s Ark, lessons on The Parting Of The Red Sea, The Burning Bush and many others.

Mom had bought us a Bible and it had lots of pictures to illustrate bible lessons. The book titled The Golden Treasury of Bible Stories was a good source that helped me prepare for Sunday School.

I also received lots of help from Mama Clara as we had coffee together every morning during the summer and on weekends and only weekends when school was in. We would drink from her small white coffee cups as we talked. A lot of the time our talks were about Religion and the Bible.

I had to study a few days during the week before to prepare for my first Sunday’s lesson and all of these talks helped me prepare for those lessons. This was going to be my first time being up in front of a group teaching a lesson or explaining a lesson or doing anything in front of a group.

Although I was very nervous when it came time for me to teach a lesson, Deacon Lee told me to take my time as I stumble a little in the beginning. As time went on and I got the hang of it, it felt good and I liked that feeling of being able to explain a concept and help someone understand the lessons that the flip chart was illustrating. I got better with time and tips from observing Deacon Lee and others in the church and with lots of practice. That was the beginning of that teacher itch.

The one thing that I remembered about Deacon Dude Lee that stuck with me about his teachings was that he kept it very interesting with his gestures and with his expressions and his movements as he explained the Sundays’ Lesson. He was a very energetic Deacon and Teacher and I learned a lot from him. Thanks Deacon Dude Lee…R.I.P.

During some of those Sunday School Lessons, when some kids were still tired and a little sleepy from having to get up early to make it to Sunday School, Deacon Lee kept them awake. He would raise his voice when explaining Parting of the Red Sea with his arms spread apart and those of us that were