Colored Boy on a Slope: A Unique Look at Black Parents Raising Their Child

By A. L. Jackson

A literary account that invites readers to view into the window of how a particular set of black parents raised their child. It reveals the nuances that helped their child acquire a high level of intelligence, self-awareness and self-confidence.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 28, 2021
• ISBN: 9781665529662

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2020 A.L. Jackson. 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 06/28/2021

ISBN: 978-1-6655-2967-9 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-2965-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-2966-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021912584

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.

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.

To Pop, Momma,

And

The Love of My Life, Mae.

CONTENTS

Introduction

Chapter 1 The Eagles

Chapter 2 Slope Settings

Chapter 3 Fried Shickin’

Chapter 4 Learning Eagle Values

Chapter 5 Eaglelization

Chapter 6 Girls

Chapter 7 Camp Eagletown

Chapter 8 Eagle Claws

Chapter 9 Eaglet Contemplations

Chapter 10 The Eagle Club

Chapter 11 The Eagle-eye Focus

Chapter 12 Higher Aspirations = Sacrifice

Chapter 13 Taking Flight

Chapter 14 Slope Stories and the Morals Learned

Chapter 15 Epilogue

INTRODUCTION

There are many verbal or written accounts of the experiences Black Americans have encountered over hundreds of years. Some of these accounts are of parents, single parents, grandparents, or immediate family members who one way or other, raised their child or children. Although there was an abundance of racial obstacles, many parents managed to foster in their child or children the ability to not only survive but achieve a positive self-worth and a strong desire to achieve whatever he or she wanted to achieve. Colored Boy on a Slope is another one of those literary accounts that invites readers to view into the windows of how a particular set of black parents raised their child. It reveals the nuances that helped their child acquire a high level of intelligence, self-awareness and self-confidence.

Colored Boy on a Slope does not include all of the things experienced on the slope because there are simply too many to remember. Those reoccurring memories returned while writing, thus causing too many revisions. Therefore, the focus is on the first twelve years of the child’s life. The descriptions of experiences are limited to what are deemed the most significant contributions that helped development their child into who he is today. Welcome to the eagle nest on the slope.

Albert Louis

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CHAPTER 1

The Eagles

I called my father Pop and my mother Momma. They called each other Pie and called me Albert Louis. They were wonderful parents as they both were teachers, community activist, and strong religious leaders. Well known and respected in the Grambling community and surrounding areas, they were the epitome of respect, integrity, character, honesty, and discipline. Add in a pinch of descriptors like intelligent, loving, with a sense of God’s purpose, I like to think of them as eagles.

Pop was the youngest boy of Rudolph Felton Jackson and Molly Wright Jackson. Clanton grew to be a big man. He was six feet four inches tall and hovered around two hundred eighty pounds. He was a good looking fella too. He had fair skin, wavy hair, and hazel colored eyes.

I understand that he was extremely smart in that he stayed in first grade one day and second grade one month. The rumor has it that the siblings got their intellectual prowess from both their father Rudolph Felton and mother Molly. When Felton was a boy, he looked white so he attended an all-white school. He learned everything as a white kid until his hair started napping up and he left. But it was too late. Felton passed his knowledge of math and other subjects to his children.

Clanton was what I would call a real outdoorsman. He and his brothers would hunt and fish throughout north Louisiana. He knew the names and locations of nearly every lake and creek in the area. He was also a great rabbit and squirrel hunter too. What was really special was how he could make a meal from rabbit, squirrel, or deer meat. People now say Look at the rabbit hopping across the lawn! Not Pop. Rice covered with gravy, cooked rabbit cubes, a piece of bread and cool-aid was so good. He would often share fish, rabbits, or squirrels with other families. But he would put some back in the deep freezer for hard times and for the winter months.

Whenever his brothers Uncle Jack and Uncle Rudolph would come home during the summer months, they would mainly go fishing. Then they would stay up all hours of the night telling stories and jokes. Many times Pop would balance me in the air with one hand while listening to jokes. It was true brotherly love. Uncle Rudolph would tell a joke about a hunter that went looking for bears.

There was a hunter named Joe. He liked to brag and lie about what he had hunted. One time Joe and his partners went bear hunting. They set up their camp and actually spread out to find a bear. They heard a gunshot and ran back to the camp. All of a sudden Joe comes running out of the forest with a bear hot on his tail. He didn’t have his gun. As Joe circled the camp he hollered Dar he is! Circling back around again he hollered again Dar he is!"

They all would burst out and start laughing. I didn’t see anything particularly funny about the joke and they would be literally falling all over each other laughing. Not until many years later, did I consider the joke funny. Only when I began to visualize the joke did I see the humor in it. Visualizing a supposedly master hunter, bragging about his accomplishments, claimed he got a bear, while running around his partners being trailed by a huge bear started becoming hilarious in my mind. I could see his partners standing there with their hands on their hips, guns lowered, and laughing I could see the bear focusing on this one hunter and not paying the others any attention with a look on his face that said I’m going to tear your ass up for telling that lie.

Later in life, Pop would share his outdoor skills with many young men as a mentor. He shared his outdoor skills with me at a very young age. Then he bought me a BB gun, showed me how to sight a target, and taught me the gist of gun safety.

He did have an athletic streak in him as well. He was basically a baseball fanatic as in his younger days he was the catcher on the Mt. Olive community baseball team. As a senior in high school, he was the center on the school’s first state championship basketball team.

He told me about how coach Oziah Johnson’s wife (Mamma Fi) begged her husband to bring his state championship team to her little school out in the country. He reluctantly obliged. When they got there, there was no gym. The basketball court was made of red dirt on a hill and the goals had strings hanging down for nets. The boys got off the bus all cocky wearing their state champion lettermen jackets. This little country school had this boy on their team named Droopy. Pop could remember those girls hollering, Shoot Droopy! and the strings would pop. He shot the strings off of the goals. And then the ball would roll down the hill. All Pop knew was those country boys beat the hell out of them. It was a strong lesson in humility.

Later years, Pop eventually coached the church