“Selma” and My Memories of Racial Tension in the Sixties

 

John Hallwas

 

The film “Selma” (2014) is getting rave reviews all over America. Of course, the recent race-centered conflict in Ferguson, Missouri, and the rising concerns about police brutality make it very timely. But “Selma” is also a fine piece of cinematic storytelling, about a complex matter. 

Although Martin Luther King was the central figure in that disturbing historical episode, and David Oyelowo’s performance as the great black leader is superb, co-producer and actress Oprah Winfrey has commented that the movie is titled “Selma,” not “King.” In other words, the community of downtrodden blacks who rise in non-violent protest against prejudiced, bullying, violent whites, is the heart of the story. Of course, they symbolize all blacks in the 1960s South.   

My wife Garnette and I recently saw the film, and it brought back a host of memories about our own experience in the Deep South during the 1960s. After I received my first two degrees from Western Illinois University, in 1967 and 1968, I was awarded an NDEA Fellowship to pursue my doctorate at the University of Florida, which had a fine department in my field (English). So, we headed down to what we thought was simply “The Sunshine State,” with our 15-month-old son, Darrin.

We didn’t realize that central Florida, where the university was located (in Gainesville), was far removed from the cosmopolitan culture of the state’s coastal areas. It was indeed part of the Deep South. In fact, the local high school in Gainesville had only recently been integrated. And due to the black protest movement, and King’s assassination on April 4,1968, which had prompted riots in many cities, there was enormous racial tension in central Florida.

Married housing at the university, too, had just become integrated, and the first black couple to break the color line in that vast housing complex moved in right next door to us—in our shared-patio duplex.  I often wonder now whether university housing officials noticed that a Midwestern couple had recently moved there, and so, to avoid conflict, they located that new black family adjacent to us—in a housing complex dominated by students from the South.

Wesley Avery was a huge black man (six-foot-five and almost 300 pounds), who had been a cop in the racially torn city of Jacksonville, Florida. He had finally had enough of that severe racial tension (being called a “nigger cop” by some whites and an “oreo” by some angry blacks) and had quit police work to do graduate study, at the age of 32. As I soon learned, his impoverished childhood in Alabama had been a vivid testament to the awful racism there. Often hungry while growing up, he was a chronic overeater, which prompted his weight problem. And stressed by his personal struggle, he was a smoker and a moderate drinker. 

            His wife, Byllye (pronounced “Billie”), was a bright, outgoing woman who had met him at Talledega College in Alabama, where she graduated in 1959. (Martin Luther King spoke at her graduation.) She married Wesley in 1960 and became a special education teacher. As we soon learned, she had already had many difficult experiences trying to help the mentally challenged, or emotionally disturbed, youngsters of racist white parents. (Imagine those parents being instructed or advised by a black woman.) Byllye was then taking graduate classes, too. 

Rather naïve about the deep racism in the South, Garnette and I learned much from Wesley and Byllye, who soon became good friends. They had a little girl, Sonja, who was two and became Darrin’s first little playmate. And they had a seven-year-old son, Wesley, Jr.

But our relationship with Wesley and Byllye had consequences. Garnette and I were soon rejected or criticized by some of the Deep South whites we knew in the housing complex. After all, we had clearly crossed the color line, by welcoming blacks (having them over for dinner, etc.) and befriending them. As one upset white student bluntly told us, “Where I come from [South Carolina], we tolerate blacks but don’t have to live with them. Forced integration is disgusting. And you two only make things worse by encouraging them to remain here.”

Nevertheless, for the remainder of our time in Galinesville, Wesley and Byllye were our best friends. Among other things, we went out to lunch or dinner together, when whites and blacks seldom mixed socially, and when many local restaurants disliked serving blacks—although they were compelled by new civil rights laws to do so. Most blacks shopped and ate on the black side of town; all whites stayed on the white side.  

        One Sunday, some weeks after they arrived and before we knew better, we asked the Averys if they would like to go to church with us, and then we’d all go out for lunch. They laughed—and then Wesley asked, “Have you ever seen a black person at your church?” Of course, we hadn’t. Wesley explained, politely, to the naïve couple from Macomb, that all churches were informally segregated in Gainesville. To avoid rejection, anger, and conflict, blacks went to black churches only. (We abruptly quit going to that whites-only church.) 

         Listening to Wesley and Byllye talk about their experiences in the racially segregated South, and empathizing with them, Garnette and I soon identified with their struggle against the color line. For example, in future months, when Wesley, Jr. wanted to join the Cub Scouts, he was not allowed to, simply because he was black. At age eight, he learned that black kids had to stay in their place. I wrote a letter of protest to the local Cub Scout troop, but to no avail.

         There were many other sides to it all. For example, because I was busy all day with graduate study, as were Wesley and Byllye, Garnette was often the two-family babysitter, minding the toddlers, Darrin and Sonja. (Garnette also worked, but in the evenings.) So, some days she would take them to the local food store—where she got shocked looks and mean comments from some white people, for after all, it was a southern tradition that black women cared for white children, not the other way around. To them, it was degrading to see a white woman serving as a nanny for a black child. (I also suspect that some thought she had really crossed the color line, having a black husband or lover, and hence, had a black child.)

          Our talks with Wesley and Byllye also prompted us to attend, together with them, a groundbreaking recent film, “In the Heat of the Night” (1967), partly as a display of support for Hollywood’s new venture against southern racial bigotry. The struggle of a black law officer (Sidney Poitier) in a white-dominated small town reminded Wesley of his own police work. And the depicted challenge of a slowly growing relationship between a black man and a white man impressed all four of us. 

          Those two years in Florida were an eye-opening experience for Garnette and me—getting an inside look at the racial bigotry of the South, as blacks protested and whites resisted change. We firmly supported the blacks who spoke out and marched in Gainesville—and we realized the huge tension that all southern blacks lived under, even educated ones like Wesley and Byllye. 

          Sadly, some months after we returned to Macomb, Wesley—a gentle giant of a black man—died of a heart attack, prompted by overweight and stress. Byllye never remarried. But she became a famous black activist—the founder of the Avery Institute for Social Change.

          So, my determination to write now and again about the black experience in our Illinois county and region goes way back. And you can see why I believe that every American today needs to see “Selma.”