The Grace of Silence (23 page)

I am forever grateful to my agent and dear friend Gail Ross, who believed that I had a story to tell, and used her mighty “mama bear” skills to nudge me toward this path. I must have won the lottery when my editor, Erroll McDonald, signed on to this project. You understood the power in this story and provided a careful eye, a hungry ear, a depth of knowledge, and a playful sense of humor just when it was needed most. (DuSharme!) Thank you for your patience and supreme confidence as this project transformed into something neither of us imagined when we set out on this journey.

I enjoyed the warm embrace of enthusiasm for this project early on at Pantheon. Katie Freeman and Paul Bogaards marshaled a team that worked hard to make sure this book found a home on many a bookshelf. Lily Evans is as gracious as her name suggests and such a joy to work with.

I have long believed that you learn much of what you need to get through life at the dining room table in your childhood home. In that sense my parents and grandparents were tremendous
tutors for they taught me the most important lessons about surviving life’s storms, making your own luck, and making the most with what you’ve got if luck is in short supply. From the moment I entered this world, my oldest sister, Marguerite, shared her love of books with me, and though she no longer lives on this earth, she was with me every step of this journey. My sister Cindy is a divine source of inspiration who lifts our entire family up with her wise guidance, dedication to others, and incredible vigor. Superwoman could learn a thing or two from you. I certainly have. Thanks for always telling me I’m capable of anything. It would be so easy to throw “almost” into that sentence. You never do. I hope this book will serve as a tribute in at least some small way to the folks who know me as “Mickey,” that protective cocoon of aunts, uncles, cousins, and loving neighbors who occupied my world in Minneapolis, Chicago, and Birmingham. Mary and Luther Johnson and the rest of the Johnson clan were abundantly generous with their time and support. I hope the next generation, Carlos, Carniesha, and Moon, find strength in these pages. I hope this book honors the memory of William Johnson, who like my father, served his country well in the years before the navy fully integrated. Myrtle Brotherton and Mimi Worku are heaven-sent members of our family circle. Thank you for all the many things you do to nourish our home, body, and soul.

There is the family that you’re born unto, the family you marry into, and then there are the family members you adopt along the way. This book proved my village is a thing of awe. My sister-friend Gwen Ifill has been my best pal since the day decades ago when she hijacked my rental car for a Texas shopping spree. Thank you for being my bedrock during every step of this process. I cherish your friendship. Richard Wollfe and Paula Cuello Wolffe provided strong shoulders, delicious food, and valuable wisdom. You are trusted confidants, dedicated parents, and adopted members of our extended family tree.

James Ferguson and Marcia Jones-Ferguson were always there with love, laughter, and guiding hands for our young kids. Sharon Malone and The Honorable Eric Holder helped me understand that our children deserve our time but they
need
our history. Cheryl and Eric Whitaker reminded me that simple stories have
great power at the moment when this project took a sharp left turn. Jim Halpert, Karen Kornbluh, Marilyn Milloy, Arvyce Walton, Christie Worrell, Maggie Michael, Dwight Bush and Toni Cook-Bush, William and Michelle Jawando, and Andy and Glay Blocker must have special powers because you all knew when I needed a word of encouragement and swooped in at just the right moment. Once I found the truth, Robert Raben helped me understand it.

From start to finish, I was buoyed by a fabulous team of researchers, first readers, and guides. Jim Baggett runs the Department of Archives and Manuscripts at the Birmingham Public Library, and I suspect you might find wings if you look under his well-pressed shirts. He is truly an Angel. Karl Evanzz is the best researcher a writer could ask for. He deserves his own superhero cape for his dogged work and his lovely way with language. I can’t wait to read
your
books. I have long been impressed with Marilyn Thompson’s writing, research, and editing skills, which she put to great use in guiding me as I wrestled this story to the ground. Pamela Jones taught me much about Birmingham history
and
clingstone peaches. Jessica Alpert helped get this project off the ground, and Chris Benderev helped me get to the finish line. Deb Reeb transformed hours of tape into documents I could devour. Thanks to Janna Worsham in Senator Christopher Bond’s office for helping me navigate the military personnel records center in Missouri. The Douglas County Historical Society in Minnesota was amazingly helpful, particularly Verne Weiss.

Thanks also to the long list of researchers and guides who provided their expertise, including Brian Nosek, Maurice Manring, Marilyn Kern-Foxworth, Ken Smikle, Catherine Fosl, Margaret Burnham, Horace Huntley and the staff of the Birmingham Civil Rights Institute, Kristen Pauker, Tony Greewald, Mahzarin Benaji, Radhika Parameswaran, Alvin Pouissant, Henry Louis Gates, Thomas Guglielmo, Jennifer Richeson, Tiffany Johnson at the Alabama State FOP, Ruben Davis, James Armstrong, the Alumni of A. H. Parker High School, Joe Picharillo, Douglas Blackmon, Deborah Willis, and Michael Eric Dyson.

Thoreau had his cabin in the woods. I had Tom Wetherell’s special place on Martha’s Vineyard.

Chris Nelson and Andrea Hsu helped me tackle the technical requirements for taping and storing interviews in all kinds of complicated situations. Melissa Gray and Dorie Greenspan helped me understand the power of food to coax delicious conversations. Ellen Silva twice gave this a loving once-over.

Everyone needs friends like Susan Feeney and Madhulika Sikka in their world. Mine is an immeasurably better place thanks to them.

I am indebted to NPR and the staff of
All Things Considered
for the tolerance that allowed me to work on this project while juggling the demands of a daily two-hour news program. There simply are not enough Fridays or enough pizzas or adequate words to say THANK YOU. Working with you is an honor and a heck of a lot of fun. I love you all. Special thanks to Robert Siegel and Melissa Block, Rhonda Ray, and in particular to our executive producer, Chris Turpin. You did not hit the ceiling (at least not in my presence) when I asked for “a bit more time to finish,” and you offered your unending support for a project that created many complications for our staff. Thanks for letting me frolic temporarily in a different playground. Most of all, thanks for believing in me. Ellen Weiss has taken NPR to new heights, and she is not close to being done yet.

I should have known my partner in radio, Steve Inskeep, was up to something when he started asking me a series of questions about my past. Those conversations helped kick-start this project and cement what I hope is a lifelong allegiance. The residents of York, Pennsylvania, who demonstrated enormous courage when they accepted our invitation to sit down and talk about race, gave me the guts to look over my shoulder and delve headlong into family history.

To the members of St. Augustine Catholic Church in Washington, thank you for providing the guiding light that ever burns bright. And I am grateful for all those Maret parents and teachers who through their love and friendship provide the community quilt that shelters my children when duty calls. Hugs to my circle of sister girls, Gwen, Lisa, Sharon, Sheryll, Cheryl, Ertharin, Susan, Ann, Athelia, A’Lelia, Arjelia, Dez, Toni, SuSu, Marilyn, Amy, Kathy, Tia, Gena, Lynne, Donna, Michelle and the Cassandras.
Enchanté! Heartfelt appreciation to all those, too many in number to name here, who are there for me when I am standing in the need of prayer, laughter, advice, a soothing hand, or something good to eat.

For Daddy,
your grace has been my best guide in life.
Finally to my Mother,
you are my North Star.

1.
“Only Negro Alexandria High Graduate Portrays Version of ‘Aunt Jemima,’ ”
Park Region Echo
(Alexandria, Minn.), October 3, 1950.

2.
M. M. Manring,
Slave in a Box: The Strange Career of Aunt Jemima
(Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1998), p. 112.

3.
Ibid., p. 118.

4.
Judy Foster Davis,
“Aunt Jemima Is Alive and Cookin’: An Advertiser’s Dilemma of Competing
Collective Memories” (Paper presented at the Conference on Historical Analysis and Research in Marketing: The Future of Marketing’s Past, 2005).

1.
“Kolombangara and Vella Lavella 6 August-7 October 1943,” United States Navy Combat Narrative
(Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Center, Department of the Navy), pp. 1–8.

2.
The Negro in the Navy in World War II
, United States Naval Administrative Histories of World War II (Washington, D.C.: Naval Historical Section, Department of the Navy, n.d.), p. 14.

3.
Ibid., p. 11.

4.
Ibid., p. 9.

5.
“Army & Navy: Black Sailors,”
Time
, August 17, 1942.

6.
Guide to Command of Negro Naval Personnel
(Washington, D.C.: Navy Department, Bureau of Naval Personnel, February 12, 1945).

7.
The Negro in the Navy in World War II
, p. 50

8.
Phillip McGuire, ed.,
Taps for a Jim Crow Army: Letters from Black Soldiers in World War II
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1993), p. 28.

9.
Lucille B. Milner, “A New Negro Will Return from the War: February 1944,”
New Republic
, March 13, 1944.

1.
Catherine Fosl,
Subversive Southerner: Anne Braden and the Struggle for Racial Justice in the Cold War South
(Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 2006), p. 73.

2.
Anne Braden,
The Wall Between
(New York: Monthly Review Press, 1958), p 24.

3.
Alabama Humanities Foundation and Auburn University, “World War II and Alabama,” The Encyclopedia of Alabama (September 2007), at
www.encyclopediaofalabama.org
.

1.
Steven F. Lawson,
Black Ballots: Voting Rights in the South, 1944–1969
(Lanham, Md.: Lexington Books, 1999), pp. 59–94.

2.
“Birmingham War Vets March Through Streets for Vote Rights,”
Chicago Defender
(national edition), February 2, 1946.

3.
Lawson, p. 92; and V. O. Key Jr.,
Southern Politics: In State and Nation
(New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1949), pp. 646–63.

4.
Letter from Eugene (Bull) Connor to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, August 7, 1946, Holdings of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Library.

5.
John Egerton,
Speak Now Against the Day: The Generation Before the Civil Rights Movement in the South
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994), p. 362; Robin D. G. Kelley,
Race Rebels: Culture, Politics and the Black Working Class
(New York: Free Press, 1994), pp. 51, 64–65; and Nell Irvin Painter,
Creating Black Americans: African-American History and Its Meanings, 1619 to the Present
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2006), p. 232.

6.
Anne Braden,
The Wall Between
(New York: Monthly Review Press, 1958), p. 29.

7.
Oral History Interview with Modjeska Simkins, July 28, 1976, Southern Oral History Program Collection.

8.
“Flogging Laid to Klan Group,”
Sarasota Herald-Tribune
, June 6, 1946; and “Klan Flogged Negro Navy Veteran Near Atlanta, Says Arnall Aide,”
Miami News
, June 7, 1946.

9.
Committee Against Jim Crow in Military Service and Training, memo to Legal Committee, American Veterans Committee, October 30, 1947.

10.
Martha Biondi,
To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New York City
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006), p. 47.

11.
Michael J. Klarman,
From Jim Crow to Civil Rights: The Supreme Court and the Struggle for Racial Equality
(New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), p. 274; Manning Marable,
Race, Reform, and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction and Beyond in Black America, 1945–2006
(Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007), p. 25; Patricia Sullivan,
Lift Every Voice: The NAACP and the Making of the Civil Rights Movement
(New York: New Press, 2009), p. 317; and Harry S. Ashmore,
Civil Rights and Wrongs: A Memoir of Race and Politics, 1944–1996
(Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1997), p. 58.

12.
Laura Wexler,
Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America
(New York: Scribner, 2003), pp. 57–69.

13.
Andrew Myers, “The Blinding of Isaac Woodard,”
The Proceedings of the South Carolina Historical Association
(Columbia, S.C.: South Carolina Department of Archives and History, 2004); and Andrew Myers, “Resonant Ripples in a Global Pond: The Blinding of Isaac Woodard,”
Isaac Woodard
, Sworn Testimony for Civil Lawsuit, November 1947 (NAACP Papers, Reel 30, Frames 121–33). Also newspaper citations from the
Aiken Standard and Review
, the
Charleston Daily Mail
, the
State
(Columbia, S.C.), the
New York Times
, the
New York Amsterdam News
, the
Charleston Gazette
(West Virginia), and the
Landmark
(Statesville, N.C.).

14.
Isaac Woodard Affidavit, April 1946 (NAACP Papers, Reel 28, Frames 1012–13).

15.
Isaac Woodard Statement to FBI, September 1946 (NAACP Papers, Reel 28, Frame 911).

16.
“Doomed Man Offers Eyes to Blind Vet,”
Pittsburgh Courier
, December 14, 1946.