I Pass as White

By William "Tex" Pointer

This book was written in the 1950s by our dad. The manuscript was found after he passed away. This is his story of what hate, ignorance, poverty, and racism can do to a nation.

What if you could change the direction of your life? Would you have the strength to make sacrifices to get there? Bill Pointer had that strength. In these pages, you will see the price he paid for security and happiness. His life started out just like most people. There was mom, dad, friends, school, several jobs, and the ambition to get ahead. But that is where the similarity ends. Bill's journey through life was full of pain and misery and fear. Every day was an uncertainty to Bill. This story is about the past and the future of a race, as well as that of a person.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Newman Springs Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Oct 25, 2021
• ISBN: 9781638813217

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I Pass as White

William Tex Pointer

Copyright © 2021 William Tex Pointer

All rights reserved

First Edition

NEWMAN SPRINGS PUBLISHING

320 Broad Street

Red Bank, NJ 07701

First originally published by Newman Springs Publishing 2021

ISBN 978-1-63881-320-0 (Paperback)

ISBN 978-1-63881-321-7 (Digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

I

II

III

IV

V

VI

VII

VIII

IX

To Jum and Francis, two wonderful people whose love and understanding I shall always cherish

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank and give credit to Collier’s Magazine for permission to use one of its editorials, A Challenge to Bigotry, and to Mr. George E. Sokolsky of the Kings Features Syndicate to use excerpts from his article South Pacific.

The Author

Introduction

I am sitting here now running the past back before the present, some good and some bad, yet I wouldn’t have missed any of it.

I once read that a home is never vacant—it lives with the memory of the past—and that life itself exists in history. Vacant halls echo the resounding of feet long since dead that lived, loved, and fought there; and as such, a story has no ending. It is only a link between the past and the future, a never-ending search for something we know not what.

This has been my life—looking blindly, supposedly for happiness, and running from the past only to discover more unrest, sorrow, and then eventually happiness and contentment.

To begin with, I am no writer. I can never see myself as a great author, but I can put down on paper facts and actual events that I hope will shock you. They are all real, very real, and took place somewhere within these great forty-eight states of ours.

I have lived in misery and felt pain and heartaches, but what one of us hasn’t? Yes. I have felt pain and misery. But why? That’s the point we completely overlook—why?

I’ll tell you why—ignorance and a small-minded world.

Ignorance—the greatest sin in the world and a compassionate one, the thing that makes men forget that they are men and the thing that makes nations start wars that soon envelop the world, bringing nothing but sorrow and chaos in the end. It not only made my life a living hell. It can make it so for every human being all over the universe.

I have tried to tell my story, my life story, in a way that everyone can understand what hate, poverty, and ignorance can do to a nation. This is my life—a story of a boy, a man, in this great country of America with the ambition and ideals to get ahead. In these pages, you will see the price I paid to get security, freedom, and happiness for me and my family.

I

Like most children, my early life was normal and of little interest. I was born in a small southwestern town in Texas that since has grown into a thriving metropolis for my parents. They were the best and still are, both being alive at this moment.

There was always the best they could afford for me, which was better than the average. As a child, an abundance of toys; as a growing boy, clothes, enjoyment, and love; and as a young man, a good education. Things would have been so different if I had what Mom wanted, a college education and a lawyer’s degree, but our children come from us, not of us. They may have the same color of skin as us, or eyes that match ours or certain features, but they have not our minds or brains. Their thoughts are their own to do with as they see fit, and so as it was with me.

At school, I had always been an A pupil, with an occasional C in deportment; but due to a hotheaded, childish stunt during summer vacation before my last semester of high school, I resolved I didn’t want college. As a matter of fact, I didn’t want anything that had any connection or ties with my hometown.

It was one of those hot, sultry July mornings that Texas is known for, the kind that we brag about and tell you how an egg will fry on the sidewalk. Our house sits back about twenty-five feet from the street bordered with evergreen hedges and a lawn that stretches to the curb. Between the sidewalk and driveway, there are two large hackberry trees where one could always find my father reading after dinner (but in the morning, it was the neighborhood kids’ hangout). This particular morning, there were about eight of us sprawled there beneath the trees, fixing bicycles or just plain loafing. Mom and Dad were both at work, and only my kid sister was in the house. As always, there must be a neighborhood bully, and this day found him in my yard. Walter was all right; it was just that being a preacher’s son, he had been spoiled.

My idea of a perfect description is a fat slob of seventeen weighing about 160 pounds and completely lazy. By comparison of size, I was only a dwarf; but in brains, I had him licked. At that time, I was a tall, scrawny beanpole weighing 125 and had always given him a wide berth. It wasn’t fear of him that made me do this as much as what his father stood for in the community. As silly as it seems, a young boy of sixteen sees things through strange eyes, and you don’t know what a big preacher in a small town can do. At any rate, I had never had trouble with him; but on this day, he was itching to start it like a horse chafing at the bit.

Having picked on everyone without successfully starting a fight, he was reluctantly giving up when my kid sister came out of the house. I say my sister because she has never been regarded in any way but as such although in reality she is adopted. From the first day she came to live with us, she has been loved as a sister. Julie was eight years old at the time and just recovering from illness. Upon seeing her, Walter started meddling with renewed vigor; only now, it was directed solely at Sis. I would have overlooked the whole thing if he hadn’t grabbed her arm.

As she has taken shots for the past three months, her arm was naturally sore, and she started crying. He persisted in pulling her by this arm. Until now, all the fellows were watching me for some signs of rescue. Without moving from the lawn, I told him to turn her loose and that I thought it would be best if he went home.

That was all he wanted. I had played right into his hands.

He released Julie and slowly turned on me.

With sly smiling face and hands on hips, he remarked, I don’t think you can make me go home, and I don’t like to leave a place until I’m good and ready.

There was no use my lying on the ground arguing, not with him standing there looking for an excuse to pounce on me.

Rising to my feet, I took Julie by the hand, saying, Come, Sis. We’ll go in the house until he leaves.

I expected him to grab me any minute, and when he made no move to do so, I started around him for the porch. The fellows had not moved since Julie entered the yard, and now all eyes were following me. One of the gangs sitting near the steps was using a knife to pick a valve stem from an inner tube. As I passed him and started up the steps, there was a scuffling movement behind me.

Turning, I was confronted with Walter standing in an arrogant, cocksure manner brandishing the knife.

I saw at a glance what had happened. He had simply jerked the knife from the boy’s hand, and he was now repeating his first remark, I’ll go home when I please. I could have stood for anything except his repeating this last phrase again. As I saw him standing there with such childish bravado in front of the fellows, something just snapped inside me. It’s funny how we remember small happenings, but one strange thing has always remained with me. Rushing into the house, taking Julie with me, I went straight to my parents’ bedroom and, throwing back the pillow, found what I wanted—my father’s .45 revolver. I kissed Sis; and upon reaching the porch, for no apparent reason, I turned and locked the door. I have always wondered why; at any rate, it doesn’t matter now.

I knew exactly what I was going to do, and I was mad enough to carry it out. When I told Walter to leave the yard, I meant it. He was still standing at the foot of the steps, and in my turning to lock the door, the gun had not been seen. As I turned to face him, bringing the gun up, everyone was frozen with fear including Walter; but in the next second, all hell broke loose. The kids dived for cover, and he made a dive for the corner of the house. I was right on his heels, but when I reached the corner, he was dodging between cars and disappearing rapidly up the street.

Here began my mistake, my hotheaded error, my close brush with the law. Not being satisfied with removing him from the yard, I now set out to do a good job of removal. Knowing he might expect me to follow, I decided to cut through the alley coming out directly in front of his home. The neighborhood was not alarmed or disturbed yet because only the fellows saw what happened, and I guess they were still running. Being careful to keep the gun concealed in case I ran into anyone, I finally reached a large tree directly across the street from him. He must have expected me to follow, for he was standing there looking in the direction from which he had just come. I was both satisfied and happy. I had fooled him. As for handling the gun, that was a cinch. My father was a great one for hunting, and from the time I was old enough, I had been taught how to handle practically every make of firearm. For a moment, I just stood there watching him, thinking how much I hated his kind and all that he stood for. True, we were only kids—he’s seventeen and I’m sixteen—but sometimes, as I said before, it’s surprising what goes on in a kid’s mind. Raising the gun, I took careful aim, and then I called to him. At the sound of my voice, he whirled to face me; but only for a moment because, in the next second, he was half running and half stumbling toward the house. As he reached the porch, I fired.

I thank God now that I missed although at the time I wanted to kill him in the worst way. Luckily, due to my temper, I had forgotten the one important thing—the kick of the gun. That’s what saved him and me. The gun was aimed at his back, and when I