Y'all would know my name if I had done the right thing, way down south, way back when. With a bit more conviction and a lot more courage, I would have made history.
The first day I was in the South was in June of 1952. As a college student going downtown, I stepped onto a city bus in New Orleans and took a seat in the back.
Instant eruption!
The bus driver shouted at me to take a seat in the front. He cussed me out, long before cussing was cool. His outburst surprised and bewildered me, causing me to hesitate and try to understand the situation.
I was naive about civil disobedience - although Hubert H. Humphrey was my senator in Minnesota - or I might have recognized the opportunity. I should have stayed put in the back of the bus. Instead, I scurried to the front, taking a seat directly behind the driver. The name on his sun visor identified him as Jim, his last name must have been Crow. His eyes caught mine in the mirror. He said, "Are you from the North or what? Whites sit up front and Negroes in the rear. We have two races down here."
There was my chance to do right and make a difference. I could have preempted Rosa Parks, the black woman who refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. That celebrated event was three years after my bus experience, which also preceded sit-ins, Freedom Riders, the Little Rock school desegregation, Martin Luther King Jr., and most civil rights legislation.
I should have seized the moment.
I, Jerry, should have been the first white to refuse to move to the front of the bus. The driver would have called the cops to drag me from the bus using snarling dogs, tear gas and night sticks. I might have emerged from a grilling in the New Orleans Police Station with swollen eyes and bruises all over my body. TIME, LIFE and LOOK would have flashed my face and message: "Tear Down This Wall."
My civil disobedience would have been a big factor in the hot national election campaign of 1952. Brave and progressive candidates would have sought my endorsement. My own political career would have been a natural consequence, and I would be a public servant, even now.
Some slick lawyers would have represented me pro bono before the U.S. Supreme Court to win one for civil liberty. The President of the United States would have sent troops to escort me to the back of the bus.
My message might have initiated a call to end segregation. I would have sipped water from the fountains under the signs: COLORED ONLY, just to make a point. I would have entered the side door of a movie theatre and climbed the stairs to a balcony (dubbed "Nigger Heaven") with the non-whites.
Who knows? With a honky striking the first blow against Jim Crow laws, the whites in the South might have embraced the idea. The nuisance of separating the races might have ended with more harmony and good will. Many whites felt uneasy about the separate-but-equal segregation, because equal it wasn't. Whites needed to be freed from the guilt as much as the other race needed a fair deal.
Segregation was messy and expensive in many ways. Messy, for its unequal provisions and rules, and costly to maintain due to the dual facilities so often necessary.
The system was ripe for a fall in 1952. Everybody knows that the black people resisted and finally forced an end to racial segregation in public facilities. Too bad for the whites. The accomplishment should have been theirs. After all, segregation was the crude, cruel creature of white society.
I missed the bus to history. If I had defied the system in the summer of '52, there would be Jerry statues all over Dixie. Mine would be a household name.
You never would have heard of Rosa Parks.
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* Smog advisory for St. George: Stay indoors until noon, and tell your relatives back home about the difficulties in breathing. Stop the growth and remember that, in this one case, the end justifies the means.
* Ecuador is nationalizing its oil industry and expelling the American Occidental Oil Company.
* Bolivia is instituting land reform to enable poor folks to own property. The program will give government land to the poor. This reminds you of the plan of our Senator Bob Bennett, which likely will deliver government land to real estate developers. Think about it.
* Venezuela's President Chavez is planning to sell F-16 fighter planes to Iran. Isn't that what we get for being the world's leading arms merchant?
* The Washington County Sheriff's search for stragglers from the middle class has been disbanded. They are feared to be lost - vanished without a trace.
Overheard
A group of 10 German tourists shopping in a convenience store knew no English. One of them asked the cashier, "Zion Park?" Several others said, "Starbucks, Starbucks."
Twenty-Years-From-Now News
The Federal Aviation Agency is expected to release a comprehensive impact analysis and tentative approval report regarding the proposed St. George airport. The holdup has been the study to determine the effect on smog conditions.
A spokesperson for the garment industry told Chamber of Commerce members gathered at the new Dixie Convention Center that the average price for a man's suit is $2,900. (The same price as an ounce of gold.)
St. George Mayor Dan McCarthy is running for governor of Utah. McCarthy is known as "Roundabout Man," but he's campaigning on the slogan: "He stopped loitering in its tracks."
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
The first day I was in the South was in June of 1952. As a college student going downtown, I stepped onto a city bus in New Orleans and took a seat in the back.
Instant eruption!
The bus driver shouted at me to take a seat in the front. He cussed me out, long before cussing was cool. His outburst surprised and bewildered me, causing me to hesitate and try to understand the situation.
I was naive about civil disobedience - although Hubert H. Humphrey was my senator in Minnesota - or I might have recognized the opportunity. I should have stayed put in the back of the bus. Instead, I scurried to the front, taking a seat directly behind the driver. The name on his sun visor identified him as Jim, his last name must have been Crow. His eyes caught mine in the mirror. He said, "Are you from the North or what? Whites sit up front and Negroes in the rear. We have two races down here."
There was my chance to do right and make a difference. I could have preempted Rosa Parks, the black woman who refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus in 1955. That celebrated event was three years after my bus experience, which also preceded sit-ins, Freedom Riders, the Little Rock school desegregation, Martin Luther King Jr., and most civil rights legislation.
I should have seized the moment.
I, Jerry, should have been the first white to refuse to move to the front of the bus. The driver would have called the cops to drag me from the bus using snarling dogs, tear gas and night sticks. I might have emerged from a grilling in the New Orleans Police Station with swollen eyes and bruises all over my body. TIME, LIFE and LOOK would have flashed my face and message: "Tear Down This Wall."
My civil disobedience would have been a big factor in the hot national election campaign of 1952. Brave and progressive candidates would have sought my endorsement. My own political career would have been a natural consequence, and I would be a public servant, even now.
Some slick lawyers would have represented me pro bono before the U.S. Supreme Court to win one for civil liberty. The President of the United States would have sent troops to escort me to the back of the bus.
My message might have initiated a call to end segregation. I would have sipped water from the fountains under the signs: COLORED ONLY, just to make a point. I would have entered the side door of a movie theatre and climbed the stairs to a balcony (dubbed "Nigger Heaven") with the non-whites.
Who knows? With a honky striking the first blow against Jim Crow laws, the whites in the South might have embraced the idea. The nuisance of separating the races might have ended with more harmony and good will. Many whites felt uneasy about the separate-but-equal segregation, because equal it wasn't. Whites needed to be freed from the guilt as much as the other race needed a fair deal.
Segregation was messy and expensive in many ways. Messy, for its unequal provisions and rules, and costly to maintain due to the dual facilities so often necessary.
The system was ripe for a fall in 1952. Everybody knows that the black people resisted and finally forced an end to racial segregation in public facilities. Too bad for the whites. The accomplishment should have been theirs. After all, segregation was the crude, cruel creature of white society.
I missed the bus to history. If I had defied the system in the summer of '52, there would be Jerry statues all over Dixie. Mine would be a household name.
You never would have heard of Rosa Parks.
Thoughts While Jaywalking
* Smog advisory for St. George: Stay indoors until noon, and tell your relatives back home about the difficulties in breathing. Stop the growth and remember that, in this one case, the end justifies the means.
* Ecuador is nationalizing its oil industry and expelling the American Occidental Oil Company.
* Bolivia is instituting land reform to enable poor folks to own property. The program will give government land to the poor. This reminds you of the plan of our Senator Bob Bennett, which likely will deliver government land to real estate developers. Think about it.
* Venezuela's President Chavez is planning to sell F-16 fighter planes to Iran. Isn't that what we get for being the world's leading arms merchant?
* The Washington County Sheriff's search for stragglers from the middle class has been disbanded. They are feared to be lost - vanished without a trace.
Overheard
A group of 10 German tourists shopping in a convenience store knew no English. One of them asked the cashier, "Zion Park?" Several others said, "Starbucks, Starbucks."
Twenty-Years-From-Now News
The Federal Aviation Agency is expected to release a comprehensive impact analysis and tentative approval report regarding the proposed St. George airport. The holdup has been the study to determine the effect on smog conditions.
A spokesperson for the garment industry told Chamber of Commerce members gathered at the new Dixie Convention Center that the average price for a man's suit is $2,900. (The same price as an ounce of gold.)
St. George Mayor Dan McCarthy is running for governor of Utah. McCarthy is known as "Roundabout Man," but he's campaigning on the slogan: "He stopped loitering in its tracks."
IT'S ALL SO SIMPLE.
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