Photo by Idealistic Ambitions
The bright hot sun climbed slowly into a clear May sky, steaming the streets, the trees, and the lush green grass, still soaked from a predawn thunder shower. It would be another blistering day of spring heat along the Texas Gulf Coast—the kind of heat that, according to some, made everybody a little crazy.
High school sophomore, Adam Lee Jones, Jr., sitting at the kitchen table with his parents, toyed with a half-finished plate of grits and eggs and sausage.
“You alright, Junior?” Mary Jones leaned over the table and placed her palm over her son’s forehead.
“I’m okay, mom… just not too hungry.”
Adam Lee, Sr. washed down the last of his breakfast with a cup of strong dark coffee. The big black man leaned back in his chair, arms folded across his chest.
“You know, Junior,” he said. “If you go to that white school, them crackers ain’t gonna be babyin’ you like your mother, or looking out for you like the teachers you got over here.”
“Oh, come on, Adam Lee. Don’t start talkin’ like that again.” Mary Jones, still youthful and attractive at thirty-five, shared her husband’s outspoken temperament.
“I thought we agreed to leave the decision up to him.”
Adam Lee, Sr. brushed her objections aside. “That was before I knew he might really be willing to leave his friends at a school seven blocks away to go clear across town to a school where he might get lynched!”
“Why would you want to do that, Junior?” Adam Lee, Sr. tried and failed to make eye contact with his only child. “Do you think those white teachers are gonna be able to teach you better than the people who taught me and your mama?”
Adam Lee, Jr. shrugged. “No, dad, I don’t.”
“Then why would you want to go way over there? Did somebody talk you into this?”
The boy set his fork down and looked his father in the eye. “No, dad,” he said. “I’ve got my own reasons.”
Mary Jones came to her son’s rescue. “In case your memory’s fading, Adam Lee Jones, a lot of people have suffered so our son, and everybody else, can go to any school they choose. And if Junior is brave enough to be one of the first colored kids to go to Jeff Davis High, I think he ought to go.”
“But why does he have to break the ice?” Big Adam got up and started to pace. “I can understand the misfit kids transferring. They don’t have anything to lose. But Junior’s got a chance at a football or basketball scholarship.”
“He can play ball over there,” Mary countered.
“And how’s that gonna look?” Big Adam bellowed. “My only son, playin’ with the white boys against the team that me and all my friends played for!”
“If that’s gonna be a problem, dad, I don’t have to play sports. I’ll work hard and get academic scholarships.” Adam Lee, Jr. just wanted the arguing to stop.
“You mean you’d give up sports to go to a white school?” The frustrated father stared at his son, shaking his head. “You better think about what you’re doin’, Junior.”
“Let’s go, Mary Ann,” he said, stalking out of the kitchen. “We’ve got a business to run.”
Mary Jones hugged her son. “I think he’s just worried about something happening to you. So am I. But somebody’s got to lead the way. And I’m just thankful you’ve got that kind of courage. Lord knows it’s about time the colored kids started reaping the benefits of all the tax money we’ve spent on those fancy white schools.”
She kissed the boy’s cheek and started clearing the dishes from the table. “Don’t let your father intimidate you,” she said. “If you want him to sign your transfer, you’ll have to explain why you really want to go to that school. So think about it, okay?”
“I will, mom,” said Junior.
Adam Lee, Jr. gathered his school books and headed out the front door of the Jones’ modest home just as his parents were backing out of the driveway, on their way to another twelve hour day at Jones Dry Cleaners. Mother and son waved to each other. Mr. Jones kept his eyes trained on the rearview mirror.
Adam Lee, Jr. walked the two blocks up Carol Street to Columbus Boulevard deep in thought. He barely noticed the sweat starting to trickle down his neck into the collar of his freshly pressed shirt. The conversation with his father had caused him to wonder if he might be getting into something he didn’t fully understand. At Columbus, he turned left toward G.W. Carver High School, oblivious to friends waving from passing cars.
It was 1966. Mandatory school desegregation had come to Port Town, Texas like a deranged doctor—medicine in one hand, a gun in the other—determined to cure centuries of racism.
The Port Town Independent School District, faced with a cutoff of federal funds if their schools remained segregated, had hastily drawn up a plan that would allow every student to attend the school of their choice. Selection forms, passed out at every school on Monday, May 6th, had to be signed by a parent or guardian and turned in by Friday, May 10th. According to the plan, integrated classes would begin in the fall.
Over the years, by southern standards, the white leadership of Port Town had maintained good relations with the “nigra community.” Some said it was because the colored people worked hard and didn’t cause trouble. But the old timers said it was because colored folks in Texas had a long history of “shootin’ back!”
Whatever the reason, the Negroes of Port Town, unlike most blacks in the south, enjoyed a relatively high standard of living. Jobs in oil refineries, commercial fishing, and the shipping industry combined with decent schools, strong churches, and easy financing for homes and cars to create a stable, prosperous environment.
Except for the occasional case of police brutality, or the rare instance of a cross burning, the coloreds and whites in Port Town had always gotten along by ignoring each other as much as possible.
Now there were monumental changes stirring in the hot, sticky air. Rumors buzzed like mosquitoes, stinging a lot of ears: “The Klan was calling for a big rally in nearby Harper’s Bayou… Colored people who sent their kids to white schools would lose their jobs… Gun shops were selling out of guns and ammunition… The President was sending in the National Guard.”
Local, County, and State officials, fearing the disruption of business a race riot would cause, pleaded with everybody via newspapers, radio, and tv to help make the transition from the old to the new a smooth one. Law enforcement officials promised swift arrests and prosecutions for those who attempted to defy the law.
Until the announcement by the School Board the previous week, nobody believed the local schools would be desegregated anytime soon. The white people of southeast Texas, descendents of rebels who continued to battle the Union Army and Navy long after the rest of the Confederacy had surrendered, had been expected to fight Washington for years on the school issue.
But now it was Thursday, May 9th and Adam Lee, Jr. had only one more day to make up his mind about transferring.
“Adam Lee, wait up!” Terrell Jones was attempting to cross Columbus in the middle of the block. Taking advantage of what looked like a break in traffic, the stocky Terrell bolted from between two parked cars, head down, clutching a book under his arm, stiff-arming imaginary tacklers.
“Terrell!” Adam Lee yelled. But it was too late to stop him.
The old white man hit the brakes hard, forcing his battered pickup to a screeching, tire-smoking stop!
Terrell made it across safely, leaped onto the curb next to his cousin, did a little dance, and held both arms up in the football signal for a touchdown.
“Crazy nigger!” the old man screamed as he roared off in the truck.
“Yuh mama!” Terrell yelled back, shaking his fist in the air.
“You tryin’ to get killed?” Adam Lee’s dark brown face showed little trace of the panic his cousin’s antics had caused.
“I’m too fast for ‘em,” Terrell replied, taking longer strides to match the taller boy’s gait. “The white folks will get you way before they get me if you go to their school and start messin’ around with their daughters.”
“Look, if I do decide to go to Jeff Davis, it won’t be to chase white girls.” Adam Lee struggled to hide his frustration.
“Is your daddy gonna sign the papers?” Terrell asked.
Adam Lee hesitated. “I… I don’t know. I think he will if I can come up with a good enough reason to transfer.”
Terrell puffed up his chest. “My old man says he’d never send his kids somewhere they wasn’t welcome. He says most of the people who put their kids in the white schools are gonna be the ones who think they’re better than the rest of the colored folks.”
“Your dad’s entitled to his opinion. Just like everybody else that thinks we shouldn’t be allowed to take advantage of opportunities our parents helped create.”
Nothing he’d learned about the Civil Rights movement had prepared Adam Lee for black opposition to desegregation.
“What do you think, Terrell? You’re telling me what your daddy says, but what do you have to say about us gettin’ what we should have had a long time ago?”
“I just don’t understand why you would even think about leaving Carver and all the people we grew up with,” replied Terrell. “You’ve got it made over here! And I just can’t see why you’d give it all up to go and get mistreated by a bunch of red neck honkies. And besides that, I was lookin’ forward to us movin’ up to the varsity squad this season and kickin’ some more butt together.”
“But somebody’s got to go,” Adam Lee replied. “How else are we gonna keep the door open?”
Terrell was unimpressed. “What are you talkin’ about?”
Adam Lee continued, gaining momentum as he spoke. “Suppose none of us took ‘em up on the chance to get an equal education? The next thing you know, white folks are gonna be saying we’re scared to compete, or that we know our place, or that we’re satisfied with them spending twice as much on the white schools as they do on ours.”
“Who gives a damn what white folks think?” Terrell snapped. “I sure don’t! And how come you never showed no interest in all this civil rights stuff before Evon came to town?”
“That’s not true!” Adam Lee protested. “I’ve been reading everything I can get my hands on about the movement ever since President Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act. The only reason I never talked to you about it is because I know you don’t care.
Terrell looked at the boy walking next to him curiously. “You better wake up, man,” he said. “That civil rights crap is a waste of time. My dad says ain’t none of them civil rights leaders got a refinery for us to work at, or a ship to work on. And goin’ to that white school ain’t gonna make you no better off than the rest of us, Adam Lee. You’ll never be President of the United States because, to the honkies, no matter how educated you get, you’ll always be just another nigger.”
“I don’t think you understand,” said Adam Lee.
“I guess I don’t,” Terrell shot back.
The two boys walked the rest of the way to school in silence, each feeling a sudden strain on a relationship that had kept them close for as long as either of them could remember.
As they crossed onto the crowded campus of G.W. Carver High, the Temptations crooned “My Girl” through the speakers of several little transistor radios, all tuned to KJET, the only colored station in the county.
Adam Lee spotted Evon getting out of her father’s new Buick and started over to meet her. “Catch you later,” he mumbled to Terrell.
“Yeah, right,” Terrell responded, turning toward the big oak tree where the jocks hung out.
Evon Johnson was the first girl Adam Lee had ever seen in person with an Afro hairstyle. Her family had recently relocated from Houston when her father became the first Negro assistant manager at TexiCal’s Port Town oil refinery. The baby sister of two activist brothers attending Texas Southern University, she insisted on being referred to as Afro-American or Black instead of colored or Negro.
“What’s the matter?” Adam Lee could tell something wasn’t right with his girl.
Evon sighed as her shoulders slumped. “It looks like I won’t be transferring to Jeff Davis,” she said.
“Why not?” Adam Lee couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
Evon avoided his eyes. “My parents are scared,” she confessed. “I know they said I could go if I wanted to, but now my father says he’s worried about what might happen to the kids that go to the white schools.
Adam Lee had expected more backbone from a man like Charles Johnson. “Do you think they pressured him at work?”
“No, I think he’s just really nervous about what might happen. I heard him talking to my mom about what he’d seen the Klan do to Black people when he was a boy in Alabama, and he said he just didn’t want me to be a part of the first group going to a white school."
Adam Lee was extremely disappointed. Being the new girl’s boyfriend had continued to prove costly. Her radical statements about the plight of Black people, while fascinating to Adam Lee, had alienated her from most of Carver’s complacent students. And ever since he’d broken up with the ever popular Carmen, his girlfriend since 7th grade, to be with Evon, a lot of his friends said Evon must have worked a mojo on him. Then he’d suffered a black eye in a fight with an older boy who called Evon a "brillo head bitch."
Now he figured he’d look like a fool if he backed out of the transfer just because she couldn’t go.
“You’re not still going, are you?” Evon searched Adam Lee’s eyes for clues.
“I don’t know yet,” he replied, looking away.
The loud school bell saved him from having to come up with a more definitive answer.
The school day seemed to last forever. Each class got progressively hotter and muggier as the temperature soared into the high nineties.
And by the last bell, Adam Lee had spoken with several students who, like Evon, said they’d changed their minds about transferring to Jeff Davis High. Fear, he guessed, was the common denominator—fear of being labeled a traitor by their own people, and/or the fear of becoming a victim of white violence.
With football practice cancelled due to the heat, Adam Lee caught a city bus and headed for the main library downtown to see if he could find a book he needed for his final biology paper of the semester.
The recently integrated main library was impressive, more like a cathedral than a library, and at least ten times the size of the colored library.
Finding the aisle he needed, Adam Lee browsed the massive bookshelves until his search was interrupted by a hushed-tone conversation between two men on the next aisle. The topic of discussion was the school integration plan.
Adam Lee held his breath, listening intently.
“It’s the best thing that could’ve happened, if you ask me,” one of the men drawled.
“What’re ya sayin’, Bob?” the other man asked. “You think it’s a good idea to let the niggers in our schools?
“Hell yeah!” replied the first man. “It’ll give us the chance to show the whole world, once and for all, that these poor little nigger children just cain’t keep up with our kids! And besides bein’ lazy and just plain dim-witted, they’ve been usin’ our outdated books ever since we opened their first school.”
“And what does any of that mean?” asked the second man, seeming a little confused.
“Hell, ain’t you got a brain, Jimmy Joe?” the first man chuckled. “They’ll last about as long as a fart in a windstorm. And their mammies will be so ashamed over the way they’re failin’, they’ll pull the little monkeys back to the nigger schools so fast, it’ll make your head spin!”
Both men erupted with uncontrollable laughter, punctuated by hacking coughs.
“Maybe you’re right, Bob,” the second man sighed. “Maybe you’re right.”
Stung by their words, Adam Lee straightened up to his full height and walked around to the aisle where the men were standing.
The sudden appearance of the six foot Negro at the end of the aisle, brilliantly backlit by sunlight beaming through a large window, startled the men into silence.
The fragile, gray-haired librarian, coming over to shush the good ole boys shuffled up behind the men, stopping short when she too became transfixed by the glowing image at the other end of the aisle.
“Is there a problem here?” she asked, her watery blue eyes darting nervously from the men to the boy.
As soon as Adam Lee took a step toward them, all three abandoned the aisle. Without saying a word, the angry young man stormed passed other library customers and out of the building.
But something wouldn’t let him leave. He paced in front of the main entrance, hoping the scrawny little men would come out. Incensed, their wheezing laughter still ringing in his ears, he wanted to smash their faces with his fists, rub their noses in the dirt…
Suddenly, a black and white patrol car raced around the corner and slid to a stop right in front of Adam Lee!
“That’s him right there!” The librarian, backed up by the two men and several other library patrons, stood in the doorway of the main entrance brandishing a baseball bat.
The big burly cop kept his eyes on the menacing Negro as he stepped up onto the sidewalk. “You got a problem, boy?” he asked, slapping a huge nightstick into the palm of his beefy hand.
The advancing policeman brought Adam Lee to his senses, triggering survival instincts he’d inherited along with his skin color.
“I… uh… I was just upset with myself, officer… for forgettin’ the name of the book my teacher told me to get,” he stammered, faking a smile.
“You sure that’s all it is?” The cop moved into striking range. “These folks said you was actin’ kind of funny around here.”
“Yassuh, that’s all it is,” replied Adam Lee. “Sometime I get so mad at myself when I forget somethin’ I bump my head against the wall trying to remember.”
“Yeah, well it’s gettin’ kinda late for you to be on this side of town,” the sweaty officer growled, eyeing Adam Lee warily. “I think you’d better start headin’ on home.”
“Yassuh,” Adam Lee replied. “I think you right. I best be headin’ for the other side of the tracks.”
Just as Adam Lee turned and started walking toward the Westside, the cop’s command stopped him.
“Not so fast!” the cop barked. Again he walked to within a few feet of the boy. “I want to get a good look at you, because if I see you up here actin’ a fool again, I’m gonna haul your black ass off to jail. You got that?”
“Yassuh… yassuh,” the nervous boy blurted.
Adam Lee almost ran the entire three miles to Evon’s house. His anger had returned and with it a deep sense of shame over the way he’d resorted to acting like an Uncle Tom to avoid a beating.
As he rang the doorbell, he wondered what he might have done if the cop hadn’t shown up.
“Hi Adam Lee.” Evon came out onto the porch. “My parents aren’t home yet so I can’t invite you in.”
“That’s okay,” he said sternly. “I just came by to tell you I’ve made up my mind. If my dad signs the transfer, I’m gonna go to Jeff Davis in the fall.”
Evon was shocked. “You mean you’d leave me at Carver by myself, knowing that just about everybody there hates me? How could you do that?”
“It’s something I’ve got to do, Evon. I’m sorry, but it’s something I’ve just got to do.
Adam Lee told Evon about his encounter with the men at the library. He told her he was determined to prove them wrong by maintaining his honor roll status at the white school, no matter how hard it might get.
By the time Adam Lee finished talking, Evon realized that he was totally committed to his mission.
“I just wish you’d wait until next year,” she said. “It could be dangerous.”
“I can’t wait another year,” he replied. “If my father signs the paperwork, I’ll be at Jeff Davis in September, even if I have to go there alone.”
That evening at the dinner table it was apparent to Big Adam and Mary Jones that their son’s appetite had definitely returned to normal. They looked on in wonder as he started on his second helping of smothered steak, collard greens, red beans and rice, and yams.
Mary, having come home early from the cleaners to cook supper, was happy to see her boy acting like his old self again.
Adam Lee, Sr. watched his son make short work of the pile of food, remembering a time when he too could eat as much as he wanted without gaining a pound.
“You better not get too fat and out of shape, Junior,” he said. “There’s probably gonna be a lot of white boys at that school that want to see what you’re made of.”
Adam Lee looked up from his plate. “Does that mean I can go?”
“Is it what you really want to do, son?” Big Adam’s tone was serious.
“It’s something I’ve got to do, dad. You’ve always taught me that white folks are no better than we are. But I don’t want to go through life not knowing for sure. And the only way I’ll ever find out is if I get the chance to compete with them up close, on an equal level.”
Knowing how close he’d come to going to jail that day, Adam Lee, Jr. never mentioned the incident at the library.
Mary Jones sat down and looked her son in the eye. “Are you trying to prove something to yourself, Junior, or someone else?”
“Both, mom,” the boy replied. “Because when I prove what I’m capable of achieving to myself, it’ll help other black people to see that if I can do it, they can too, and that we are just as good as anybody else when we do our best.
“Then it’s settled,” announced Big Adam. "Your mother and I will stand behind you one hundred per cent."
Later that evening father and son sat on the front porch, cooling off with tall glasses of ice cold lemonade. The night air was still warm and humid.
“I hope you’ll forgive me for some of the crazy things I said this morning, son.” Adam Lee, Sr. paused before continuing. “I guess the fear of something happenin’ to you at that school had me lookin’ for any excuse to keep you from goin’. Sometimes change is hard to accept, but we can’t move forward if we’re always lookin’ backwards. So if you want to play sports at Jeff Davis, I’ll root for you and your team at every game.”
“Thanks, dad,” said Adam Lee, Jr. “That means a lot to me. Maybe I’ll play the second year. I want to put all my energy into studying the first year.”
Mary Jones came out onto the porch with refills of her sweeter than honey, homemade lemonade. “Your father went to see Sheriff Clark today to make sure the police are going to provide adequate protection for the colored kids. Mr. Johnson, the new manager at Texical, was there for the same reason. He said he’s decided to let his daughter transfer too.”
“Alright!” shouted Adam Lee, Jr. He set down his lemonade and raced to the phone.
Mr. and Mrs. Jones smiled. They were not surprised by their son’s reaction.
Most of the Black community eventually came to recognize the significance of school integration and rallied to support the students that would represent them in the desegregated classrooms.
Congregations prayed for the children’s safety, car pools were organized, and school supplies were donated to needy students. And the white people of Port Town proved themselves again to be different from their southern brethren. Aside from a few arrests for failure to disperse during the first week of classes, and some isolated incidents of name calling, most of them characterized school desegregation as “no big deal.”
The children, with the exception of a handful of fistfights, turned out to be more curious about each other than hostile.
Both Adam Lee Jones, Jr. and Evon Johnson graduated from Jefferson Davis High School with honors in 1968. Neither participated in inter-scholastic sports.
© 2016 Paul Howard Nicholas