From my desk in Ms. McMillan’s grade 5 class at Dan D. Rogers
Elementary School in Dallas, Texas, I gazed over at Mike; he was adjusting the leg braces that he wore
due to a debilitating muscular affliction.
Mike was preparing to rise, an event that always elicited a dim fear
rising from my mental file of my fellow 10 year-old’s many past struggles.
Mike rose to go drop off an assignment at Ms. McMillan’s
desk. While he typically made such
forays without incident, he had also crashed to the floor many times. This time was one of those occurrences. Mike ticked the leg of the desk in front of
him. His knees buckled. He fell with a firm thud on the hard tile floor. Mike let out with a blood curdling
scream. Beside him, to his right, I rose
and then bent over to place my hands gently under Mike’s armpits and lift him
off the floor. Tears were streaming from
the child’s eyes and he continued to cry out in agony. Ms. McMillan came up the aisle and together
we settled Mike back in his seat.
Mike gradually got more comfortable but it was what my glance
around the room brought to my astonished eyes, accompanied by the sounds that
assaulted my ears, that now most got my attention.
Many students were smiling mockingly.
Others were making faces and pointing Mike’s way.
Not a single student seemed empathetic.
I noted the difference in the prevailing classroom attitude with
the deep horror and sorrow that I felt, for Mike’s struggles, and for the
students’ insensitivity.
There were more such incidents, unfolding similarly every two or
three weeks.
I never forgot.
Theses occasions stuck with me throughout the years and have
remained vivid throughout my life. If
this was how my classmates reacted to the physical and emotional pain of a
crippled boy who bravely came to school each day, excelled academically,
contributed many thoughtful comments to class discussions, and strove with
every fiber of his being to be normal and to gain acceptance, then I had little
use for these children.
I was actually a popular classroom presence but this brought me no
joy.
I was different from these people.
If they judged me to fit in, so be it.
But I did not care. Lurking
beneath their smiles and amiable comments to me was a cruelty that I could not
abide and would not understand more fully until other worldly cruelties in like
manner offended my soul.
To be liked brought certain advantages but no satisfaction.
From those days forward I never again cared what other people
thought.
My own responses and decisions would have to be un-refereed,
except by the Divine.
Other than Her, I was on my own.
…………………………………………………………………………….
Dan D. Rogers was comprised of middle-middle class students hailing
from neighborhoods of like description.
But the school had something of that academic quality identified with
schools centered in upper middle class communities. Expectations were high and specialized
classes began early. Even in grades 1
through 3 (I had attended a church kindergarten but in those days public
education began in grade 1), we had specific classes in art and music, then
beginning in grade 4 we also had specialized mathematics and science classes.
At grade 5, then, this would necessitate leaving the base class in
which we learned history, current events
(not so much wish-washy social studies at Dan D. as in elementary
schools of year 2020), and English, and walking to math and science
classes. To do this, Mike would more
safely thrive with an escort.
Ms. McMillan asked for volunteers.
I paused to look around.
There were smirks on many students’ faces. There we no volunteers.
I raised my hand and said, “I’d be glad to walk with Mike.”
Mike was a bright and capable guy.
He was overly thankful for my just doing what was right. He invited me to his house many times, and we
became good friends. His joy amidst
life’s challenges were forever an inspiration.
The inspiration that I felt from Mike, in tandem with the contempt
that I had for my other classmates, proved instructive throughout the ensuing
years.
…………………………………………………………………………………….
With the iconic Southland Life Insurance building towering over
other buildings in downtown Dallas in the northward view as Mom, Dad, sister
Jan and I traveled along Central Expressway in our Studebaker, I glanced to the
west. There, close to North Dallas High
School (so established when North Dallas was the appellation applied to the
area just north of the city, not the area now so designated, surrounding and
stretching northward toward Richardson from toney Highland Park), was a large
park with basketball courts, baseball diamonds, and a swimming pool. The month was late June, by which time temperatures
Fahrenheit were already ascending to 100 degrees and more. The calendric year was the same as that
ending an epiphany-laden grade 5 academic year:
1961. The pool was full of
humanity, all of it African American.
I asked my parents, “Momma-Daddy, why do all the colored folk swim
in their own pool? Why don’t any of they
come to ours?”
Mom answered rather tautologically”: The nigras swim in their own pool. We swim in ours.”
“But why’s that, Momma-Daddy?”
“That’s just the way it is , Gary.”
“But it’s not right.”
Dad spoke with final-word authority: “That’s the way it is, son; that’s just the way it is.”
I spoke no more on the matter but thought plenty, summarily,
“Ain’t right. May be the
way it is, but ain’t the way it oughtta to be.”
I took Sunday School and sanctuary services at East Dallas Christian
Church seriously.
In my head was playing a song that we sung frequently at grades 4
and 5:
Jesus loves the little
children---
all the children of the
world.
Red and yellow,
black or white,
they are precious in his
sight:
Jesus loves the little
children
of the world.
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