FORGED: When Sugar Taste Like Salt

By Jacquelyne Snowden Jones-Harvey

Forged: When Sugar Taste Like Salt explains why someone could place something in their mouth so essentially similiar in color and texture as sugar, and taste salt. We perceive things that we want as being sugary and sweet, when in reality, they are briny and dissatifying - distasteful once we receive them. The book is an autobiographic tale of a coming of age story of a young precocious girl testing the boundaries of Jim Crow society, challenging the separate but equal laws in a most unimaginable way. Told as an African groit would tell the plight, Jacqueline Snowden is the first to admit there is nothing exceptional about her growing up in segregated West Monroe, Louisana, mainly because nothing exceptional is expected of her. She weaves the stories of her educational misadventures from first to ninth grade in a segregated school. Born to a large family with strong ties and religious values, she is supported by a community of colorful charaters that enrich her sheltered life, so much so, she doesn't even realize that she is poor. Jacqueline is protected from a world she did not create, but she is conscious that something is wrong. She is also aware that even though she is young, she is called on a mission for change. As far back as she can remember, she has known "she would be first" There are numerous taboos, laws (written and unwritten), customs, and moral codes of conduct that Jacqueline must abide by to stay within the constraints of what is lawful and what is not, when trying to understand her miseducation in the strictly segregated town in northeastern Louisana.

Forged: When Sugar Taste Like Salt is a unique story about truths of life, which in this case is unsettling to the human heart, disquieting to the soul, and disconcerting to the sense of justice to humanity. Life is about changing and as humans we must make adjustments to constant change. Never in human history has it been so arduous or problematic to make those kinds of adjustments, than during the Jim Crow era in American History. This is the backdrop for this story.

This narrative is a fifty-year reflection on how integration adversely affected Jacqueline and everyone around her, both then and now. The story is about faith when faith in something greater than yourself isn't evident. It is about a wall of guilt and regret she bears for her radical choice, the consequences, of which, she must live with every day of her life. It's a novel that doesn't concede with apologies because white America isn't ready to perceive or acknowledge their transgressions against blacks. Even to this day West Monroe High School, known then and now as REBEL LAND, still supports the Civil War era separatist culture.
The story is explicit in its understating of telling the facts yet, blunt about racial relationships on sexuality, spirituality, humanity, education and sibling rivalary. There is a truthfulness with the underlying story of a strained mother-daughter relationship, and feelings of betrayal when marital infidelities are revealed. Mental health issues are addressed at several points, because emotional trama is forever a daily component in the three years Jacqueline was a student at West Monroe High. There are no heroes in this story because many protagonists don't suffer the consequences or angst of their choices made in life. There are no signs broadcasting separate but equal,yet its there even today, alive and well in America. In Forged: When Sugar Taste Like Salt, the reader witnesses how a young, black girl copes when there is no redemption or absolution when so much is deserved. Judge for yourself.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Dec 31, 2021
• ISBN: 9781667806181

Book preview

PROLOGUE

August 2011

I had returned to Louisiana with my husband and son to examine a mural inside West Monroe High School. Word had made it all the way to Dallas that a tribute had been painted in my honor at my old alma mater. I wasn’t thrilled nor impressed with the trip to go to West Monroe since no one got my permission to paint the mural in the first place. As a matter of fact, it took an act of Congress and plenty of convincing to even get me in the car to make the trip, but Patrick, my husband, was determined to see it for himself and let our son, Patrick Jr., view it as a lesson in black history, legacy, and pride. So, here we were in the heat of summer parked in front of West Monroe High School.

Momma, are you sure you won’t get out with us and see your portrait for yourself? Aren’t you just a little bit curious? I know I would want to see my picture if it was me.

I shook my head, eyes closed and everything. No. baby. This is for you and your daddy. Not me! Not today and seriously, never would be an appropriate answer since it wasn’t ever my intention to step foot again inside the walls of this facility. West Monroe High was the site of many of my most vivid night terrors.

Come on Momma. Please? This is the voice of my grown son as he pleads with me from the backseat of our SUV. It has been thirty-eight years to the day that I had been on this campus. I looked out the passenger window at the school. How had I agreed to drive back here after all these years? My palms are sweating even though the air-conditioner in the vehicle is on high in the summer’s humid and unforgiving heat. I abhor this Louisiana oppressive humidity as much as I hate all the things that happened to me here. Memories are still fresh in my mind as I stare out the window. We were less than four car spaces from where my father, and I had parked when I took my first steps on this campus. It was a moment that forever altered my life. All three of my younger brothers graduated from West Monroe High School, and I missed all of their graduation ceremonies. Many nieces, nephews, cousins, and friends had gone here. My willful disconnect from Johnny Rebel, had managed to separate me from seeing generations of all the black people I knew, go through something I thought I could change. I had made a solemn promise which I intended to keep. I couldn’t even look at my son as I answered him, P.J. I am more than sure I don’t want to set foot inside this building ever again as long as I am black, I am absolutely certain.

My husband shoots me a disappointed look, because I am as stubborn as a mule. I’ve heard this unflattering comparison my entire life and am pretty sure it’s an analogy of who I have had to be to get where I am today. Patrick thinks perhaps, once I had gotten to the school, I would have changed my mind. He had to pull teeth just to get me to get in the car and leave Dallas to accompany them. Now I knew this was a mistake.

It had been rumored that the mural painted in my honor as, the first Negro to graduate from West Monroe High School, bore a strong resemblance to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with a wig on. I was pissed and even less curious to see it. The rumors came from voices I trusted. Most white people thought we all looked alike. My son speaks again. Why Momma? Just why is it such a big deal that you will not go back in the building? School is out. It was such a long time ago, and I want you to see what you looked like back then. This is so cool, and you never really talk about it.

I sighed. You don’t understand, and I don’t think I can explain it to you baby. I made a promise a very long time ago that I don’t intend to break.

A promise to who Momma?

My husband interrupts the conversation probably because it is going nowhere fast. Since we are already here, Barretta, you might as well go ahead and tell him the whole story. He might as well know. He looks in the rearview mirror at our son, who is a cross-image of the two of us. I can see Patrick is growing impatient about my decision, but he knows very well how I feel about this emotionally charged subject because I have shared my feelings with him before. Patrick taps his thumbs on the steering wheel; a sign that his patience is waning. I try to explain it as succinctly as possible.

As far back as I can remember, I have had an obvious calling on my life, but if you didn’t know me well, you would think that calling was being the last one expected to do anything exceptional. My moral compass has always been fortified, and I never had to be taught right from wrong. I am a person who doesn’t mind saying I am sorry AFTERWARDS, as opposed to asking for permission BEFORE doing something CONTROVERSIAL. Whether I selected to do what was right or wrong was another matter. I practiced a lot of free will and I always wanted to change the world—not just my community. Rather than conform to the rules and regulations of my peers, family, or adults around me, I wanted to test limits that I thought were unfair… This was who I was, and who I would be.

CHAPTER 1

"BY CHANCE, BY CHOICE, OR BY CHANGE—

NOTHINGS GAINED WITHOUT CONSEQUENCES!"

By 1951, the year I was born, West Monroe Louisiana is the armpit of the state. It has never been progressive and open to change. The state is in need of a strong deodorant. West Monroe is not unlike many small northeastern Louisiana towns: its dingy, suffocating, dark, and dangerous, if you do not follow the unwritten taboos, rules and regulations set up in the Jim Crow South. The city was beyond segregated; it was totally isolated into small enclaves of black and white, haves and have not’s, and it was dominated by a few authoritative, homophobic, bigoted, white men. One white man had been the mayor for over forty years.

The Negro communities has a total of seven sections in the towns named by the locals as: Trenton, Haines Lane, The Quarters, Bob Crawford Quarters, Ward Nine, College Point, and Hickory Bend. Most of the Negroes lived in single-family rental homes which were inferior: without heat in the cold months, air conditioning in the summer, or hot running water ever. Many homes didn’t have indoor plumbing until the late 70’s. That’s what it was like to be a child in the 1950’s West Monroe, growing up in a small, close-knit Negro community. I’m a living authentication of what a village of people who share race is like when cultivated under such crude and rudimentary circumstances, and Jim Crow environment. I grew-up NEGRO.

I first lived at 315 Benson Street in Hanes Lane. I belonged because I lived in a two-parent home that was rare, but which gave me a firmer connection to the community in which I lived. My parents met in Lincoln Parish. My mother Lillie Mae Peevy was from Choudrant, Louisiana. Joe Snowden, my father, was from Ruston, Louisiana. After their marriage, they moved to the small town of West Monroe to raise a large family of seven children.

Lillie Mae Peevy, my mother, was tall at five-feet-six, and her build was medium and sturdy. There was nothing frail about her. She referred to her hands as workers hands, because they were large for a woman. She picked cotton as a young girl growing up on a farm. Ma Dear didn’t want any of her children to have to work as arduous as she did. Anything worth doing was worth doing well. And in her house, all things were going to be done well and in order. This was one of Ma Dear’s favorite sayings, and she drummed it into me day in and night out. We had a difference of opinions here. I believed the faster I could get chores done, the better. This was my way of thinking.

My mother was very striking with thick eyebrows, noticeable brown eyes, and skin the color of an afternoon sun in August. Her lips were full, shaped into a lover’s bow, and her nose was wide. Her raven-black hair fell well past her shoulders, and she loved allowing me or either of my sisters to brush it for her at night. She kept it curled and in style by rolling it up on strips of twisted brown paper sack. Ma Dear also hated having her picture taken with a camera. She never would explain why. To this day, very few pictures exist of Ma Dear. She shied away from the camera.

No one could ever say my mother was vain because she wasn’t one to stare in the mirror much. She used to always say to me, Stop looking in the mirror, Barrett. You think you looking cute, but what you are doing is looking curious.

My mother believed there is a place for everything—and all things had their place. She was very consistent with her words and actions. This philosophy bonded her purpose to her intent. The people in the community relied on my mother because she kept our house well-stocked and she was a faithful and loving neighbor to all; never hesitating to dole out good advice, cooking tips, or just a sympathetic ear. Ma Dear was available twenty-four-seven.

Ma Dear was very religious. I am not religious, but God and I have an understanding. I have a spiritual nature. I talk to God. God sometimes talks to me. Early on I have had a mission and that mission has been that "I would be first! I have never known where the directive came from and never questioned it but as a child, I knew something greater than myself guided me. Now, what I would be first at was never explained, but I knew at some point in my life, I would be first. I am often times on a mission of my own as a child that had nothing to do with my purpose.

I believed in justice and the humanity of man very early as a child. Instinctively, I have a strong sense of justice, and felt it was not only for white folks but it was for colored folks as well. I was aware of these concepts. I have a hard time focusing on the rituals of religious practices. It’s just part of my disposition to challenge the natural boundaries or limitations set before me and my mother believed in setting limits—strict ones. Yet, Ma Dear was fair and she was consistent.

If Ma Dear said, I don’t want to hear a peep out of you, my response was spelling the word p-e-e-p out loud, which resulted in a beat down. Barrett, not another word from you and I mean it. Under my breath, w-o-r-d would slip out of my mouth. It took me a while to learn to whisper. Just think, I was never tested for a short bus either. Ma Dear had problems with her vision, but apparently excellent hearing skills. It wasn’t that I was willfully disobedient; I just could not conform to the order of things, so Ma Dear consistently tore my butt up.

My father was a mechanic with only a third grade education but was referred to as Mr. Joe Snowden or simply Mr. Snowden. He allowed me to have free reign and set no boundaries on what he’d tell me about the world. I was a bonafide, daddy’s girl because my father lacked a lot in the parenting department, but I got a lot of perspectives about whites from his examples.

Once, he and I were in the car together driving by Hasley’s Cemetery in the white part of town. My father looked at me and said, Rhett, there lies all the good white people in West Monroe.

Daddy what are you talking about? All those white people are dead, I replied.

My father snickered. Good, you get my point. One thing I can say about you Rhett is you are one smart little cookie. Nothing gets by you. Nobody gonna give my baby girl no wooden nickels. I really didn’t understand, but he did plant the seed—good white people were dead white people! I attended a segregated church, was enrolled in a segregated school, and lived in a segregated community. I had little interaction with whites. The only times I saw a white person were the times I walked to the Jewish stores—Mr. Block’s or Mr. Hopper’s Stores. These two stores were in the black parts of town, and we shopped there for day-to-day necessities. I didn’t think much of it, but my father had a lot to say about the matter.

Daddy didn’t allow Ma Dear to run a tab at either store. He had no real trust in white people. Mr. Block and Mr. Hopper were supposed to keep exact records, but Dad believed that both storeowners padded their books. Unlike many people in our community, we didn’t have credit at the store. My dad was strange like that.

Daddy was very vocal about wanting them out of OUR neighborhood. Now my father with all his flaws, was not a man to use profanity. He substituted the words, ‘John Brown’ for the word, ‘goddamned.’ So, as children, when we heard the word ‘John Brown,’ all of us headed for cover. Even Ma Dear shut up!

Ma Dear was the enforcer of punishment in the family, but ‘John Brown’ was the key that unlocked daddy’s fury and we knew to head for a good hiding place.. So, when it came to the stores in the neighborhood, my father would express himself. He wasn’t a fan of either man. John Brown! Why don’t them peckerwoods pack up and sell that outdated, over-priced, crap to their own people instead of down here living off of us. Dad was a provider and a man of few words but when he spoke, all of us listened. He was E. F. Hutton.

My parents agreed on a few main things. One was the proper way to address any adult, which was, Yes Ma’am. No Ma’am. Yes Sir., and No Sir. Failure to do so was considered disrespectful and resulted in some type of punishment. There was zero tolerance to arguing back, even if certain you’re right. It was true, especially in the Snowden home. Ma Dear believed we were representatives of her, and she was not going to have us showing out in public.

Barrett Snowden, you better not be out there showing your behind; having folks thinking I am not training you here at home. None of that smart mouth of yours either. Mr. Tibbitt came by here this morning and said you turned your head and didn’t speak to him.

If any adult saw a Negro child misbehave, it was an adult’s sworn duty to step up and verbally correct that child immediately. The adult then reported the incident to the parent and whatever the grievance, it was met with swift and just punishment.

Ma Dear, Mr. Tibbitt is so drunk he doesn’t even know if he’s in this world or on the moon, so how is he sure if I spoke to him or not?

POP! POP! POP! Ma Dear thumped my head.

See girl, that’s what I’m talking about—that mouth of yours is going to get you killed and land the rest of us in jail. Go get me a switch right now! You’ve got to learn to respect your elders. I tell you; I could not win with Ma Dear. That woman was on me like white was on rice.

My mother always expected good behavior and to conduct myself respectfully. Now this was a golden rule for me. I tested the waters on many occasions just to see if the rules would vary. The rules never changed. I was expected to respect all adults at all times with no exceptions.

Ma Dear had a very bad habit of whipping me and giving me a lecture at the same time. Being the smart jackass that I was, I decided to tell her in the heat of one of those disciplinary moments to either do one or the other, but not to do them both at once because I couldn’t concentrate when she was hitting me and talking to me. Dang, it was at that point I thought God had forsaken me because my poor mother lost her mind. I literally saw her lips curl into a cruel snarl as steam come out of her ears. I was in for it. The lashing gained intensity.

Ma Dear wrapped that switch around my legs and pushed me across the bed. The spring on the mattress gave in to my weight as she pressed onto me. I could feel the heat of her breath as she responded, Girl, I thought you had some screws loose, but I know you must be off your rocker now, talking to me like that. For every word she said, she was laying a switch across my back and legs. I knew then that I had crossed over to the land of Help Me Jesus, because all feelings vanished, and I had my first out of body experience.

Mercy! Ma Dear, mercy! I begged for her to stop.

Ma Dear looked at me and I concluded at that moment, she figured she thought she had beat some get right in me, because she suddenly stopped and hugged me. I learned that the word mercy had power, because for an entire week I was not whipped. It wasn’t because I didn’t misbehave, it was because for once I was granted favor without merit. Thank you, Lord! It was never granted again.

As the middle child of seven siblings, I developed magnificent coping skills. The oldest sibling being a male was named Willie Joe Van, who we called Buck. Don’t asked me why. It was his nickname. Barbara JoAnn was my oldest sister, who went by Chub. Helen Deloris was third at bat, who we affectionally called H.D., which simply meant, Helen damage. That girl knew she could fight. Then there was me; Jacqueline Barretta, who everyone called, Barrett. That’s my middle name. When I was born, they spelled my name J-A-C-Q-U-L-Y-N-E on my birth certificate, but I never spelled it that way. I liked it spelled with L-I-N-E at the end. My first name has too many syllables, and who was going to take all day to just say my name to get any attention? Calling a person by their middle name is a common practice in the south, so is having nicknames; it’s not just a Negro practice.

There was one minor exception; my father who called me Rhett. Go figure, I guess he either had a speech impediment or it was too much trouble to pronounce all the syllables in my middle name. George Gregory, was next to me, was nicknamed Grits, because he could do serious damage to a bowl of this morning cereal. Norris Dewayne was called Prune, because he was so small. The baby of the family was Maurice Cottrella, and he wore the unsavory nickname of Booboo. Use your imagination to figure out why he was called Booboo.

We were a varied family, but we were connected by blood and blood was everything. The happiest people I knew didn’t have the best of everything. The happiest people made the best of everything they had. This golden rule was taught to me at my mother’s feet. Once, Ma Dear had to give Daddy our government names which was during one of the rare occasions that our father had to have someone fill out an income tax form for us. The man told my father he could not use dogs’ names as dependents, and when he could give him the actual names of children to come back to his office. My daddy had to call Ma Dear to get our real names for the tax records since Dad had informed the man that his children’s names were Buch, Chub, H.D., Rhett, Grits, Prune, and Booboo.

Everyone called my mother Ma Dear, and she was a stay-at-home mom and a very hands-on mentor with me. There were some weeks, it seems I got a whipping every day. I can’t deny that I didn’t warrant it. I believed it was easier to take the punishment and do what I craved than ask and be denied permission. I was considered a very disobedient child. I saw myself as obedient to God who had a job for me to do. I will admit to being precocious.

There have constantly been three words in my life: choice, chance, and change. I would make my own choices. I would take a chance for the better. Through free choice and chance, I knew my life would forever be changed. I liked being myself. People never had to like me, and I didn’t have to care. All I had to do was follow God who was going to take ordinary me and do something extra-ordinary.

Despite all the disparity around me, I was happy in the south in my early days. Poor didn’t mean POOR! I never went to bed hungry, though I never had a choice of what I had to eat. It was either eat what was prepared or dine on air-pudding. I never chose what was cooked.

I always had three sets of clothing. There was my church set, school set, and play clothes to choose from. Many of my clothes were hand-me-downs from my sisters, but I was incredibly happy to get them because I had two sisters and I was fortunately big for my age. I was blessed beyond measure and I was reminded of it daily. I knew that my mother and father held me accountable for my behavior and that I represented what they were teaching me at home.

CHAPTER 2

"I’M GOING TO THAT SCHOOL!

I WILL BE FIRST!"

It was required that everyone in the Snowden household attend church every Sunday. I was fortunate to come from a home where both of my parents took me to church. Calvary Missionary Baptist Church was a spiritual community who deeply believed in the power of God, prayer, worship, and fellowship. Death was the only excuse accepted for not attending Sunday services, and depending on the cause of death, Ma Dear still might want to prop you up. Church fellowship was a required ritual for spiritual nourishment three times on Sunday and on Wednesday night for the Hour of Power. We were exempted from Wednesday night prayer meetings, but we did have to go to choir meetings and youth meetings during the week.

On the way to church, we went directly past one of the neighborhood’s white elementary schools. This school had a huge playground equipped with a jungle gym, swing sets, an outdoor basketball court with nets, monkey bars, rocking horses, and see-saws. I thought it was a kid’s paradise. Grits teased. There she goes, looking at something she can’t have.

I can have it if I want it! I will be first. You wait and see. I raged.

He’d explode in laughter.

I looked at my brother, One day Grits, I am going to go to that school! You just watch and see! I am going to have new books and everything!

"In your dreams Barret. They don’t let Negroes in that school; it’s for white folks. They are never going to allow Negroes in that school. You must be running a fever or something.

Ma Dear this girl is sick back here. We better get her to a doctor. She done lost her mind."

Grits dodged as I tried to hit him over the head with my Sunday School book. I noticed daddy looking in his rearview mirror and quickly decided a good pinch would be better. I didn’t like my brothers saying that I wasn’t going to get what I said I could get if I wanted. I grabbed his skin between my fingers and tightened.

Stoooooop Barrett! You better stop before I tell! My brother squeals like a pig in mud.

I’m not bothering you. I reply, ever so innocently pinching this time; trying to draw blood from his wretched arm. After Ma Dear looked back at us, gives me the evil eye, and gestures for us to sit up straight, I leaned in on my brother and told him how things were going to be, Grits, you’ll see one day I am going to go to that school and you all can come with me. Look at that playground. Can you imagine what the inside of the building must look like if that’s what the outside has?"

You crazy girl, I don’t want to go there. I don’t want to go nowhere that I’m not wanted. You need to shut up with all that silly talk!

Doors shut, windows slide, I don’t shut up till I get tired! I’m going there whether they want me there or not. It’s not fair. I ‘ve just as many rights as anybody else…

Ma Dear turned and scoffed. Stop that foolish talk, Barrett, and you boys be still. Barrett, make sure everybody has their shoes tied before we get inside the church. Stop all that movement around back there before you all look like a bag of magpies. Be still for once and shut your mouths! She adjusted her hat by pulling it down over her head. We are almost at church and I want you on your best behavior; no gum chewing, and I better not get any bad reports from anybody on any of you in Sunday School. Sit next to me during service` and don’t have me come looking for any of you. You hear me, Barrett?

Yes, Ma Dear.

You better because I am not playing with you. I’m not about to keep telling you over and over, and over, and over the same thing. Your head is as hard as a rock.

That’s about the time when my dad would try to come to my defense. Now, Lillie Mae, the child done said she heard you.

Yes, Joe, she says she hears me, but she disobeys me at every turn. If I say up, she says down. If I say black, she says brown.

You mean white, don’t you? My father would question.

Just shut up Joe. It’s bad enough with her. I don’t need you adding to my frustration. Had she been my first child, I wouldn’t have birth the other six. She’s going to be the death of me.

We arrived at church in one piece where not only am I instructed in religious training, but civil rights and the importance of racial pride. For that I am forever grateful. Our church was who we were. It had little to do with the building where we worshipped.

In addition to my nuclear family, I was fortunate to be raised by an entire community of black Christian characters. There was a plethora of personalities from board certified schizophrenics to undocumented Einstein’s in Haines Lane. From the lowly drunks to the pillars of the community, everyone had a voice in the discipline of the children and every adult was treated with respect.

Many of my early-primary education teachers attended Calvary Missionary Baptist Church. My pastor, Dr. P. Rayfield Brown III, instructed us every Sunday on racial pride, civic duty, and the importance of voting, and stewardship. Voting was a very important subject at our church because we knew the power of having someone who represented our special interest not only at the national level but locally as well. At Calvary Missionary Baptist Church, our membership was taught the importance of registering to vote, saving money for poll taxes, and even classes were held to help pass the literacy test given in order to keep some Negros from voting. I later in life formed a philosophy like Stokely Carmichael. Voting is not a privilege it was my right. Every time I tried. I was shot, killed or jailed, beaten, or economically deprived. So, somebody had to write a bill for white people to tell them, When a black person comes to vote, don’t bother him." That bill, again, was for white people, not black people, so that’s when you talk about open occupancy. I know I can live anyplace I want to live. It is white people across this country who are incapable of allowing me to live where I want to live. You need civil rights bills, not me. I felt just like Mr. Carmichael. Did the Supreme Court have to pass a bill in order for me to attend a school of my choice, so that I could receive a quality education? Oh, the Supreme Court already did that! The devil you say. That bill has already been passed. It’s already a law."

These are ideas I pondered at the Calvary Missionary Baptist Church, besides the dogma of the Baptist creed. I was made aware of my civic duty. I knew the power of God in my life, and I knew I was on a mission; I was just uncertain as to when the mission would begin. When you enter God’s presence with praise, He’ll enter your circumstances with power. This resonated with me from the first time I heard it come from Pastor Brown’s lips.

It was through sitting in church that God and race first perplexed me and had me question segregation within my own race. It began in my own family, beginning with me. My mother was very light skinned compared to my father. When I was born, my racial identity was classified as being either ‘colored’ or ‘Negro’ on my birth certificate. We are labeled from the womb to the grave. So why is it that white folk insist that race is not important when it is on every valid application anyone apply for or need to turn in information about oneself? RACE is important! If anyone were to refer to me as being black, a fight to the death would ensue. Mentally, the word black would get Negros wound up, and I was one of them.

I thought I had the misfortune to have been born dark-skinned. I can’t express the feelings I experienced. It’s like when people would tell me how much I looked like my father. I knew what they were telling me was that I was black just like Joe. Was this a compliment? I could not be sure. Now of the seven siblings that I had, three of my sisters and brothers were fair skinned and four of us were dark like Joe.

Within the immediate family, I did not denote any prejudice, but we had cousins who had a knack for letting me know that I was dark enough for them to pick on me. Every chance I got I was kicking one cousin’s fair-skinned ass, because my black wasn’t passive.

Ma Dear stopped one such altercation, but later let her true feelings come out when the family wasn’t around by referring to a cousin who’d picked on me as, A waste of yellow and ugly as homemade sin.

It was prevalent in school and noticeable in church when I became aware that there was even an advantage to being light-skinned, let alone, white. My church had in its congregation, a renaissance man who was ahead of his time: Dr. A.G. Facen. He was a pillar of the community and a touchstone for change. Dr. Facen was a principal at Myles High School, a very small high school which was a considerable distance from where we lived. Dr. Facen was of average build with no outstanding characteristics. He was the color of coffee with way too much cream. Dr. Facen was often seen wearing a taupe safari hat on his head and he walked fast, as if he had worked in a hospital and had important life and death situations that only he could render the verdict on. Dr. Facen always kept a pen or pencil above his ear to jot down notes, or important information he wanted to remember in a notepad he kept in his shirt pocket. I loved the way Dr. Facen’s eyes would twinkle when he would talk with me. I could tell he had a bit of mischief going on behind that gregarious smile of his. Dr. Facen was a spitfire of a man; he walked hard and carried a big stick. Looking back on him, I like to think of him as the type of man who was into shooting first and asking who he shot later. If an apology was needed, he would do so most sagaciously. That was Dr. A. G. Facen. True repentance is not when you apologize, it’s when you change. Change is of God. Pray for change. That’s what Dr. Facen lived by.

In Dr. Facen, I learned to fight and stand up for what I believed in, even if I had to stand alone. Dr. Facen was our very own Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., mixed with Malcolm X, because he believed if you couldn’t fight the white man, you could at least spit in his face. I loved that about Dr. Facen.

He was unapologetic about how he felt too. Now this might seem a bit strange to white people who are unaware that some Negros get sick and tired of turning the other cheek. The Bible as I understood it does state at some point, that you are to turn the other cheek when your enemy slaps you. Dr. Facen and my father’s interpretation of that passage is that a human’s anatomy has two cheeks: the ones on the face and the ones on the buttocks. After an enemy strikes your face, you kick his ass, then you walk away to show him your own backside. That to them, was how you turn the other cheek, and it was scripture.

Now I believe I was born radical, and extreme radical tendency was taught at the feet of two very able teachers, in my father and Dr. Facen.

Dr. Facen lived in Haines Lane, and his one delight and passion was to quiz me about my future, every time he would see me. Dr. Facen never failed to ask me what I wanted to be when I grew up, to which I replied, I am going to be the first Negro female heavyweight champion of the world. I was fascinated with boxing. The art of war kept me transfixed for hours. One human being thrashing on another human being was astonishing to me. What engrossed me, I cannot say for I watched with intensity, and marveled at the human mental capacity to participate in such an activity and call it a sport. Another paradigm that puzzled me about humanity. Dr. Facen would laugh at my response and claim his belief that someday I would succeed in this endeavor. Coming from a man like Dr. Facen, that spoke volumes to me. Dr. Facen never stated once that my preposterous ambition to be a female boxer was ludicrous. He encouraged my outrageous dreams of bizarre conquest.

I was a girl who had three younger rambunctious brothers for playmates. I was a tomboy and I got into many fights with them. This would serve me well in later years. I would need my training and instinct to protect myself physically. I can’t say that I was a hostile child, I just enjoyed the physical contact of fighting. Ma Dear use to say, Sometimes a colored girl had to fight even if she was the only one in the ring. I believed that. I didn’t start many fights, but if you started one with me, I would most certainly finish it. My motto was scorched earth. I believed the fight wasn’t over until I drew blood.

Dr. Facen was not only my boxing coach; he was the first person to introduce me to the movie picture show. He took me to the first movie I’d ever seen at the Rialto Movie Theatre; it was a youth trip with the Calvary Missionary Baptist Church. The movie was, the Ten Commandments. The Rialto was a segregated theater where I paid the same price as whites, but I was separate from them because of the color of my skin. We walked up three flights of stairs and set above the whites where there were no restrooms and many of the seats were broken beyond use.

Yet, to me these were the best seats in the house because we were above the whites for once, and what popcorn we didn’t want could be thrown down on them. The chewed-up gum that had lost its flavor, rained down on whites, like the great American dream my parents had been given, but had been chewed out of them. At the Rialto, when I could get away with it, I spewed and spat out generational pain before when all the flavors had long past lost its taste. This was their American nightmare to become my dream, and I had the blackness of the Haines Lane community to thank.

CHAPTER 3

WHITE MEN IN WOODPILES!

I did have a guardian angel in the body of Isabelle Allen Williams. Everyone in the community called her Aunt Bell. She was not my real aunt by blood; she was my Godmother. Aunt Bell loved me unconditionally and knew I was unique. She listened to all my questions.

I believed my Aunt Bell hung the moon and the stars; that’s how influential she was in my life. She