RECALLING MY OWN BLACK HISTORY
Entering into 2017 winter solstice , I look back upon persons and events of my life that were extraordinary.
First, the people were: Mrs. Bernadine Smith Davis; Ms. Lydia Brooks, Mr. Buddy Webb, Rev. Christopher Columbus Butler, Wiley Harris , Dr. James Edward Cheek, and Professor Samuel E. Yette.
Why were they extraordinary?
Mrs. Davis was our 4th grade teacher at James Milton Turner Elementary School, near St. Louis, Missouri. She spanked me on the first day of class. Her love for us was manifested in her having lain down the "rule of law" through me to my classmates, from the start! I was chastened, humbled, obedient from then on, as were we all! At the end of the school year, she gave to us, who were interested, a summer curriculum to complete by moving from house-to-house on a weekly basis, to keep us mentally sharp.
Ms. Lydia Brooks taught us in 5th and 6th grade. She brought to us a reading expert into our classroom, who had just been in Florida at a writer's convention. She asked us which authors we had read on our own. When I told her of "Walter Farley," who wrote "The Black Stallion." She smiled, whispered to Ms. Brooks, and said that Farley had been an assembly speaker in Florida! Mrs. Brooks had also stated publicly, later in the spring of 1963, "Don't any of you 'little fast girls' let any of these boys get you hemmed up in dark corners." No one said anything. Luckily for me one of those "little fast," 6th grade, girls hemmed me up , after school, in a stairwell ! There she rolled, we rolled, in ecstasy fully clothed, quickly, fearing discovery! At the end of the 6th grade, I was also reading on a college grade level in comprehension, thanks to Mrs. Davis' and Ms. Brooks' tutelage.
Mr. Buddy Webb was our excellent Civics teacher at Webster Groves High School. Each day, we read or discussed in class syndicated opinion makers like James Reston, Tom Wicker, and more. To my delight, I suggested that we add SNCC's President, H. Rap Brown's book, DIE NIGGER DIE to the classroom litany. He agreed, and ordered it! Shock! Decades later, when I was a practicing attorney, he invited me back to our high school assembly, where I spoke to the student body. We had founded the "Students for Black Awareness and Action" there in 1968. It was still ongoing after 30 years!
Rev . Christopher Columbus Butler was the pastor of St. Matthews C.M.E. Church, in Meacham Park, Missouri, our family's home church. At 16, I asked him for permission to teach a black history course to the youth. He not only said "no," but he also preached a sermon against the idea, saying "Black is ugly! Stick your hand in a jar of axle grease. That's ugly!" That seemed ludicrous to me, but my protests to my parents were unavailing . So, I stopped going to the church, any church, till years later. However, in my law school years in Washington, D.C., he came to the city to visit on business. Mama called me, told me to entertain him, while he was there. We had dinner together. I asked his interpretation of "For he that has, the more shall be given, and from him that has not, even what he has will be taken away?" He replied "faith." I said it meant money. He then said that I was a "philosopher." I had never been called that before. But I now realize how right he was in retrospect!
My next impresario is "Uncle" Wiley Harris, now deceased. He was my first wife's maternal uncle. He literally shamed me into applying to Howard University, in the fall of 1968, during his visit to St. Louis from Cleveland, Ohio. While I was waiting for his niece to descend the stairs for our date, he asked me if I was planning to go to college, after I graduated? Sure, I said. Where? he asked. Oh, somewhere with a big strong black student union , I replied. Oh! You like black people, he asked. Of course, I said. I am black myself! Then, why not go to a black university? I was stunned and shamed by the directness of his inquiries probing my blackness! He quickly followed up: "Matter of fact, go to the best! Go to Howard!" Of course, I knew of the many, many famous, honorable, graduates of Howard. He was merciless. Sensing weakness, he said: "That solves it! You like black people, so go to the best black school." Just then, into the living room came my date, his niece, Frankie, to rescue me from her astute Uncle Wiley Harris. This wise and noble man, who had so greatly affected my life, although he did not attend college, himself!
Howard University is everything that they say that it is, and more! I arrived on the yard in August 1969.
Dr. James Edward Cheek, formerly of Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, was a freshman with me in 1969. We had pursued separate paths until the spring of 1970, when black students at Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi and Southern University in Baton Rouge , Louisiana, were killed by police, for demonstrating against the Vietnam War, after the "Kent State Massacre" in Ohio.Howard was renown for its politically conscious student body, dating back to the 1940s, at least. Howard students had taken over the Administration building in 1968. The core group of leaders was still there. That student takeover had brought in Dr. Cheek, who had been involved in student protests, himself, before acquiring his doctorate. We raged about what to do being that we were the black university! We met and came up with the idea of shutting down Howard, in sympathy with Kent State, Jackson State and Southern. Of course, there was the issue of finals and graduations that were complications! Not everyone was a freshman in Liberal Arts, as I was. There were graduate students, medical, dental , law students to consider. The matter was taken to Dr. James Cheek. "Cool as a cucumber," he agreed to close down normal classes and to suspend final exams. Students had the option of accepting their then current grade or accepting a "P" for "pass" with complete academic credit. That floored us, flipped us. He had outdone us in his daring! One bad dude was he! No finals, but, mandatory class attendance, in which we discussed being black in America from that class' subject matter perspective. My 3.75 grade point average at the end of my first year, 1970, was due in substantial part to Dr. Cheek!
Professor Samuel Yette , author of THE CHOICE, and formerly a reporter at "Newsweek Magazine" was my journalism professor in 1972. I had enrolled in the new School of Communications, and I was then-Feature Editor of the "Hilltop," the student newspaper founded by Howard alumna, Zora Neale Hurston in 1924. Dr. Yette was a great teacher! We had a quiz every day that he graded and returned. We also read Plato's REPUBLIC as a class assignment, my first reading of the classics, which I had formerly scoffed at as Greek, thus, "white," out of my ignorant naïveté . Plato's ideal philosopher-king government was modeled upon those in ancient Egypt, a black civilization, where Plato was educated . I have had occasion to use the teachings of Plato's "Republic" in several allied spheres, legal, historical, theological. I owe it to Dr. Yette! And to Howard U.
This vignette is longer than I had hoped it would be. I wrote it upon the prompting of the Holy Spirit. I have not gone beyond 1972, my undergraduate days. That is enough; more would be too much. I owe too many people who helped!

As it is, I thank you, Dear Reader, heartily for sticking out year's end walk down memory lane with me!
Friday, December 15, 2017
RECALLING MY OWN BLACK HISTORY
RECALLING MY OWN BLACK HISTORY
Entering into 2017 winter solstice , I look back upon persons and events of my life that were extraordinary.
First, the people were: Mrs. Bernadine Smith Davis; Ms. Lydia Brooks, Mr. Buddy Webb, Rev. Christopher Columbus Butler, Wiley Harris , Dr. James Edward Cheek, and Professor Samuel E. Yette.
Why were they extraordinary?
Mrs. Davis was our 4th grade teacher at James Milton Turner Elementary School, near St. Louis, Missouri. She spanked me on the first day of class. Her love for us was manifested in her having lain down the "rule of law" through me to my classmates, from the start! I was chastened, humbled, obedient from then on, as were we all! At the end of the school year, she gave to us, who were interested, a summer curriculum to complete by moving from house-to-house on a weekly basis, to keep us mentally sharp.
Ms. Lydia Brooks taught us in 5th and 6th grade. She brought to us a reading expert into our classroom, who had just been in Florida at a writer's convention. She asked us which authors we had read on our own. When I told her of "Walter Farley," who wrote "The Black Stallion." She smiled, whispered to Ms. Brooks, and said that Farley had been an assembly speaker in Florida! Mrs. Brooks had also stated publicly, later in the spring of 1963, "Don't any of you 'little fast girls' let any of these boys get you hemmed up in dark corners." No one said anything. Luckily for me one of those "little fast," 6th grade, girls hemmed me up , after school, in a stairwell ! There she rolled, we rolled, in ecstasy fully clothed, quickly, fearing discovery! At the end of the 6th grade, I was also reading on a college grade level in comprehension, thanks to Mrs. Davis' and Ms. Brooks' tutelage.
Mr. Buddy Webb was our excellent Civics teacher at Webster Groves High School. Each day, we read or discussed in class syndicated opinion makers like James Reston, Tom Wicker, and more. To my delight, I suggested that we add SNCC's President, H. Rap Brown's book, DIE NIGGER DIE to the classroom litany. He agreed, and ordered it! Shock! Decades later, when I was a practicing attorney, he invited me back to our high school assembly, where I spoke to the student body. We had founded the "Students for Black Awareness and Action" there in 1968. It was still ongoing after 30 years!
Rev . Christopher Columbus Butler was the pastor of St. Matthews C.M.E. Church, in Meacham Park, Missouri, our family's home church. At 16, I asked him for permission to teach a black history course to the youth. He not only said "no," but he also preached a sermon against the idea, saying "Black is ugly! Stick your hand in a jar of axle grease. That's ugly!" That seemed ludicrous to me, but my protests to my parents were unavailing . So, I stopped going to the church, any church, till years later. However, in my law school years in Washington, D.C., he came to the city to visit on business. Mama called me, told me to entertain him, while he was there. We had dinner together. I asked his interpretation of "For he that has, the more shall be given, and from him that has not, even what he has will be taken away?" He replied "faith." I said it meant money. He then said that I was a "philosopher." I had never been called that before. But I now realize how right he was in retrospect!
My next impresario is "Uncle" Wiley Harris, now deceased. He was my first wife's maternal uncle. He literally shamed me into applying to Howard University, in the fall of 1968, during his visit to St. Louis from Cleveland, Ohio. While I was waiting for his niece to descend the stairs for our date, he asked me if I was planning to go to college, after I graduated? Sure, I said. Where? he asked. Oh, somewhere with a big strong black student union , I replied. Oh! You like black people, he asked. Of course, I said. I am black myself! Then, why not go to a black university? I was stunned and shamed by the directness of his inquiries probing my blackness! He quickly followed up: "Matter of fact, go to the best! Go to Howard!" Of course, I knew of the many, many famous, honorable, graduates of Howard. He was merciless. Sensing weakness, he said: "That solves it! You like black people, so go to the best black school." Just then, into the living room came my date, his niece, Frankie, to rescue me from her astute Uncle Wiley Harris. This wise and noble man, who had so greatly affected my life, although he did not attend college, himself!
Howard University is everything that they say that it is, and more! I arrived on the yard in August 1969.
Dr. James Edward Cheek, formerly of Shaw University in Raleigh, North Carolina, was a freshman with me in 1969. We had pursued separate paths until the spring of 1970, when black students at Jackson State University in Jackson, Mississippi and Southern University in Baton Rouge , Louisiana, were killed by police, for demonstrating against the Vietnam War, after the "Kent State Massacre" in Ohio.Howard was renown for its politically conscious student body, dating back to the 1940s, at least. Howard students had taken over the Administration building in 1968. The core group of leaders was still there. That student takeover had brought in Dr. Cheek, who had been involved in student protests, himself, before acquiring his doctorate. We raged about what to do being that we were the black university! We met and came up with the idea of shutting down Howard, in sympathy with Kent State, Jackson State and Southern. Of course, there was the issue of finals and graduations that were complications! Not everyone was a freshman in Liberal Arts, as I was. There were graduate students, medical, dental , law students to consider. The matter was taken to Dr. James Cheek. "Cool as a cucumber," he agreed to close down normal classes and to suspend final exams. Students had the option of accepting their then current grade or accepting a "P" for "pass" with complete academic credit. That floored us, flipped us. He had outdone us in his daring! One bad dude was he! No finals, but, mandatory class attendance, in which we discussed being black in America from that class' subject matter perspective. My 3.75 grade point average at the end of my first year, 1970, was due in substantial part to Dr. Cheek!
Professor Samuel Yette , author of THE CHOICE, and formerly a reporter at "Newsweek Magazine" was my journalism professor in 1972. I had enrolled in the new School of Communications, and I was then-Feature Editor of the "Hilltop," the student newspaper founded by Howard alumna, Zora Neale Hurston in 1924. Dr. Yette was a great teacher! We had a quiz every day that he graded and returned. We also read Plato's REPUBLIC as a class assignment, my first reading of the classics, which I had formerly scoffed at as Greek, thus, "white," out of my ignorant naïveté . Plato's ideal philosopher-king government was modeled upon those in ancient Egypt, a black civilization, where Plato was educated . I have had occasion to use the teachings of Plato's "Republic" in several allied spheres, legal, historical, theological. I owe it to Dr. Yette! And to Howard U.
This vignette is longer than I had hoped it would be. I wrote it upon the prompting of the Holy Spirit. I have not gone beyond 1972, my undergraduate days. That is enough; more would be too much. I owe too many people who helped!

As it is, I thank you, Dear Reader, heartily for sticking out year's end walk down memory lane with me!
