Looking Back While Living Forward: an Autobiography: A Life Viewing Discrimination and Injustices Toward Minorities

By Jim Reynolds

There's no available information at this time. Author will provide once information is available.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Jun 1, 2022
• ISBN: 9781665558068

Jim Reynolds

Jim writes primarily for the “streets” by making scripture come alive with intensity and straightforwardness which, at times, lands him in straights in some circles and being embraced in others. Jim earned a BS and MA from Western Carolina University in Cullowhee, North Carolina, and a MDIV from Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. A widower, he lives in Cincinnati, Ohio with family.

Book preview

© 2022 Jim Reynolds. 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.

AuthorHouse™

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.authorhouse.com

Phone: [phone]

This book is a work of non-fiction. Unless otherwise noted, the author and the publisher make no explicit guarantees as to the accuracy of the information contained in this book and in some cases, names of people and places have been altered to protect their privacy.

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.

ISBN: 978-1-6655-5807-5 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6655-5806-8 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2022907756

Published by AuthorHouse 05/31/2022

70204.png

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Chapter 1: Growing Up in Roanoke, Virginia: 1936–1955

Chapter 2: Four Years in the US Navy: 1955–1959

Chapter 3: My Career with IBM: 1959–1983

Chapter 4: Northern Virginia Community College: 1983–2004

Chapter 5: Family

Chapter 6: The United Methodist Church of the Redeemer Families

Chapter 7: Other Friends as Family, and More about Me

Chapter 8: Our Battle with Alzheimer’s

Postscript

Appendix A: The Search

Appendix B: Jim’s Publications

Appendix C: Reception in Loving Memory of Ruth M. Reynolds

Notes

About the Author

Acknowledgments

Many people have supported and influenced me in writing this book. I want to thank Dr. Martha Brown for the early conversations about minority discrimination that gave me the idea of how to frame my autobiography. Martha’s supportive and constructive feedback was most valuable to me, and I will always value our friendship. I am grateful to Dr. Fred Hecklinger, the head of counseling at Northern Virginia Community College (NVCC) when I was there, and we remained friends after we both retired. Fred’s editing skills were outstanding, and he edited much of my book. Unfortunately, Fred lost his battle with cancer after many years and passed away in 2021. I will truly miss him as a friend.

I am grateful to Dr. Bill Baker for his friendship over the years and for letting me read his unpublished autobiography that motivated me to write mine. I also thank Dr. Pres Keeton, psychologist and friend, for his ongoing support and positive feedback. I want to thank my colleagues from NVCC, Dr. Pat Lunt, Dr. Tony Tardd, and Marjorie Kinnaman, for their feedback on early drafts of this book. I thank my daughter-in-law Elaine for her proofreading skill and helpful suggestions. I am indebted to Carolyn Chuatiuco for her friendship and her proofreading skills.

I dedicate this book to Ruth, who was my wife and my life for 63 years. As I wrote in my first book, Ruth’s unrelenting loving support, patience, and understanding made her a true partner and friend. I will love and miss her for the rest of my life.

Finally, let me thank my two sons, Jimmie Jay and Jerry, and their wives, Annette and Elaine, for their continuing support for me as a father and writer. I am very proud of my sons and their families.

001_a_igiiiit.psd

Introduction

For most Americans, I think 2020 will go down in the history books as a year to remember. In 2020, three major events occurred that impacted our day-to-day lives. The first was the COVID-19 pandemic that started at the beginning of 2020; but now, at the beginning of 2022, we have lived through the Omicron variant and are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. The coronavirus and the collapse of the economy made all of us alter the way we interact with others and made major changes in how we live our lives. The second event was the collapse of the economy because of the pandemic. The US has not seen such a severe recession since the Great Depression in the 1930s. The third major event was the ongoing protests and unrest over the death of unarmed Black people by White police officers. The protests we saw on TV, heard on the radio, and read about in the newspapers illustrated anger at the perceived discrimination and injustices toward minorities that give us reason to rethink how we define America.

As I write this autobiography, I want to focus on three concerns. One is to look back on my eighty-five years and write about events that influenced my life. I don’t have a very good memory for names or dates, but I do remember certain events in my life. Psychologists call event memory episodic memory. For example, I don’t remember the names of my elementary school teachers, but I do remember drawing and painting holiday scenes on the classroom windows. All the events I write about are autobiographical and have meaning for me.

The second focus for me is to write about my life experiences while viewing minority injustices and discrimination. The protests in 2020 have focused on police brutality and other racial injustices found in the Black and Brown communities of the United States. The protests were described by reporters as being multi-racial and multi-generational. I think the protests have caused some Whites (myself included) to start to rethink the idea of White privilege and systemic racial injustices.

The third focus for me is to write about Ruth, our marriage, our family and friends, and our battle with Alzheimer’s. My hope is that the reader will see this book as a conversation with me about my life and how I viewed the events in it.

I am an eighty-five-year-old White male, born in Roanoke, Virginia, in 1936. Virginia was then a segregated state. All of my education through high school was in White public schools. I was a junior in high school in 1954 when the Supreme Court handed down the landmark Brown vs. Board of Education decision. Virginia was one of the many Southern states that slow-walked the Brown decision. Growing up, I was aware of two drinking fountains in stores, one for Black people and another one for White people. I also wondered why Black people had to ride in the back of the bus. Part of my goal is to write about my life witnessing minority injustice and practices. But first, let me write a little about some events that occurred in the United States and the world in 2020 and 2021.

COVID-19

As I started writing this in 2020, the United States was trying to control the COVID-19 virus, but then the Delta variant came along; and then the Omicron variant hit us. The impact on the US population—and globally—has been a disaster for the people and the economy in many ways. To date (March 2022), there have been over seventy-nine million COVID-19 cases in the US and over nine hundred thousand deaths. The death toll could reach one million. We now have three COVID-19 vaccines that are very effective, but we need more people to be vaccinated. At present, the US has only around 77 percent of its people fully vaccinated, but there is hope that we could get a lot more real soon.

Because of the coronavirus, the 2020 start of Major League baseball was delayed until July 24 and then began without fans. At the start of the opening game between the Washington Nationals and the New York Yankees, players on both teams took a knee along the sidelines in support of Black Lives Matter. The act of taking a knee to protest police brutality and racism started in 2016 when National Football League (NFL) player Colin Kaepernick took a knee during the national anthem. Kaepernick lost his job, and the NFL has been very slow in giving its support to the Black Lives Matter movement.

The Collapse of the Economy

Because of the coronavirus, the world and the United States have had to deal with a major downturn of the global economy. Not since the Great Depression in the 1930s has the US had such a severe recession. In April of 2020, the unemployment rate reached a high of 14.7 percent and had only declined to around 10 percent in August 2020 but is now back below 5 percent. The government has helped provide money to states for increased unemployment payments. Starting in March of 2020, Congress has passed several COVID-19 relief and funding bills. Those bills distributed money to most Americans and provided funds for unemployment benefits. The last bill, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (March), gave $1,400 stimulus checks to those who qualified.

The Killing of Unarmed Black People

George Floyd was murdered by