A Good Courage

By Daughtry Miller

A good Courage is a sequel to A Good Inheritance.

It is 1962 and Wade James is a teenager whose thoughts and views have been significantly affected by his great-grandfather’s Civil War experiences as a Confederate soldier. While living in a small southern town plagued by seemingly never-ending racial tensions, Wade makes a moral choice to quit his high school football team because of the head coach’s brutal treatment of the team’s first black player.

As the home folks, both white and black, react to Wade’s decision, he does his best to ignore the weasels and focus on his future. Following his high school graduation, Wade defers the draft and heads to college. While continuing on his journey of self-discovery, he works a summer job in his hometown’s cotton mill, earns a degree, marries his high school sweetheart, serves two years in the army, and returns home from overseas duty. But just as he rejoins civilian society, a harrowing incident alters the direction of his life once again.

In this historical tale, a teen who rises above racial tensions overshadowing the South during the sixties matures into an adult who continues to rely on his morals to navigate through life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Jan 13, 2020
• ISBN: 9781480880368

Daughtry Miller

Daughtry Miller is a retired history professor with a specialty in the American South. He has published three books and thirty articles. He lives in Augusta, Georgia.

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A Good Courage

Daughtry Miller

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Copyright © 2020 Daughtry Miller.

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.

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations, and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

Archway Publishing

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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.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

Scripture taken from the King James Version of the Bible.

ISBN: 978-1-4808-8037-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-8035-1 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4808-8036-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2019917263

Archway Publishing rev. date: 01/10/2020

Contents

Dedication

Acknowledgments

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

X

XI

Dedication

For Fran, Phil and Eleanor

With love and appreciation.

Acknowledgments

THE PRODUCTION of this book has been a family affair. My wife Fran, my daughter Eleanor, and my son Phil read the manuscript and offered valuable suggestions. My children helped their father, who is a technological illiterate, in other ways as well. I am deeply grateful for the assistance of all three.

For their encouragement, my friends and fraternity brothers, Mike Mallison and Bill Whitworth, have my sincere thanks.

At Archway Publishing, Gwen Ash and Teri Watkins, concierges, exhibited patience far beyond the level I deserved. I thank them for that.

Have I not commanded thee? Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest.

Joshua 1:9

I

INSPIRED BY reading my great-grandfather’s Civil War journal, I resigned from the football team at Winnville High School in October 1962 because the head coach had bullyragged our new and only black player so bad he quit. My decision to leave the team caused me a good deal of concern as it did people who were close to me. My brother Champ, a star on Presbyterian College’s football team, was baffled. He and I had expected to play a season together at PC during his senior, and my sophomore, year. My best friend and teammate at Winnville High, Moose Jackson, understood my decision but begged me not to quit the team because he was worried that students’ reactions would be hostile. My father Lucius—or Pop, as we called him—was hopping mad at first but my mother Lucinda persuaded him to come around and support me. My sweetheart, Mary Sue Chapman, a beautiful and very smart girl, told me that quitting the team would almost certainly cost me the football scholarship that PC had pledged to offer me. She called me a fool but in the next breath she said she respected me and loved me.

It turned out that Mary Sue was right. PC didn’t offer me a scholarship. It turned out that Moose was wrong about students’ reactions—at least in the short run. Maybe that was because I was one of the biggest boys in school and captain of the team, but nobody said or did anything to provoke me—until the third Friday in November. That’s when Winnville lost the conference championship game to our bitter rival, Louisburg High. The following Monday morning as I opened my locker before homeroom period, I noticed a sheet of paper taped to the inside of the door. The paper read Wade James, Nigger Lover.

I guess I expected something like this, but I still didn’t know how to react. After all, I had been class president two years running, captain of the football team, and a member of more clubs than you could shake a stick at. I was shaken up.

I needed to talk to someone outside my inner circle. I thought of Brother Clifton, my pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, and Curtis Johns, a custodian at Winnville High.

That same day after school, I found Curtis sweeping a classroom floor. He is a cool guy, a college graduate and the uncle of Solomon Davis, the colored player who tried to integrate our team. I showed Curtis the sheet of paper. The frown that appeared on his face soon gave way to a slight smile.

Well, Wade, he said, welcome to the club. Being a nigger lover may be even worse than being a nigger. You know I’m on your side. I appreciate what you did for Solomon.

Thanks, Curtis, I replied, but what can I do about this? Any advice?

Wade, the kind of people who do this sort of thing are cowards. They operate in secret. You notice nobody took responsibility for the sign. The best thing you can do is to act like this incident doesn’t bother you.

I’ll try, but as you can tell, it does bother me.

After school the next day, I went to see Brother Clifton in his pastor’s study. He’s a cool guy too: young, just out of seminary, and single, although the church ladies are striving mightily to change that. After I showed him the sheet, he looked me square in the eye and said, Wade, exercising moral courage can be even harder than exercising physical courage. What you did was right, and I’m proud of you. Don’t let people with narrow minds and small souls get you down.

I felt better after speaking with Curtis and Brother Clifton. If people whose opinions I respected supported me, I would try to ignore the weasels.

There were no more incidents for the