to cheering for the winner, Royce was the one I chose. After my sixth-grade year, I was actually sad to leave Royce Elementary. I had established many friendships.
I sometimes wonder if the students and faculty at Royce Elementary ever really accepted my race at that time. Did they like me because of who I was as a person or only as a good basketball player? In the end, it really doesn’t matter because the students, the faculty, and I left there better people. We all became more aware of cultures different from our own.
Chapter Two
Bluster
My mother’s father, Arnett Henry Sr.—whom we all called by his nickname, “Bluster”—grew up in Mississippi in a very poor family. My grandmother would joke that when she was a child, she and her family would pass by the Henry place on their way to church on Sunday mornings, and they would see Bluster and his siblings running around their yard naked. The children would run and hide in the bushes until the horse and buggy passed by. It wasn’t that they didn’t know any better; they simply didn’t have many clothes, and what outfits they did own were kept nice in a closet, not used at playtime when they could be soiled or torn.
My grandfather never denied the story. On the contrary, he himself often told stories about how poor he was growing up. Once he was reading a magazine story about the famous basketball player Wilt Chamberlain. The magazine featured pictures of Wilt’s fabulous mansion, and it was reported that in Wilt’s bedroom he could push a button and the ceiling would open up to the sky. Bluster was unimpressed. “Shoot,” he commented, “when I was a little boy I could see the stars through my ceiling too, but we had holes in the roof; we didn’t need a button to push.”
Bluster was a religious man and often shared life stories that had a meaningful message. He often talked of life during the Jim Crow era, the time when all over the South, racist legislation known as “Jim Crow” laws kept blacks separate from whites. While these laws were in effect, from the late 1800s to the late 1960s, blacks were forbidden to use the same restaurants, bathrooms, and drinking fountains as whites. They had to occupy separate railroad cars and sit on seats at the back of the bus. They also faced restrictions in employment and voter rights, to name just a few.
Bluster grew up when things were separate but definitely not equal. He was blessed to have gotten a truck-driving job, making deliveries overnight and into the early hours of the morning in the early 1940s. Bluster said that often he would get hungry while driving and wanted to stop for something to eat, but he had to be very careful because stopping at the wrong locations could cost him his life. He would look for colored-owned restaurants or take a chance at a white establishment that might serve colored people in the rear of the restaurant. Bluster said “there was many a night” he just kept driving and went hungry because it was not safe to stop in certain towns or restaurants. He was always delighted when he found a colored-owned establishment.
Until the day he died in 1988, Bluster always spoke to white people with exaggerated politeness, addressing them as Mr. or Mrs. and saying “yes, sir” and “yes, ma’am,” no matter what their age. This bothered me when I reached high school, and one day I built up enough confidence to challenge him on these mannerisms. I had always viewed Bluster as a very strong man, but I felt he displayed weakness when bowing down to white people.
“Bluster,” I said, “Why do you address whites as sirs and ma’ams? Times have changed! It’s the ’70s now. You don’t have to do that anymore.” I then got cocky and said, “If I had grown up during your era, they would have had to kill me, because I never would have bowed down to nobody.”
Bluster sat me down and explained a few things. He said that all his life, and especially during his time of driving trucks, he had to do or say whatever it took to get a paycheck. Even though in his heart he knew he was equal to them, he had been conditioned during his young years to take an inferior role to white people in order to survive in a world where whites held all the power. He took the dehumanizing treatment for one reason and one reason only—he had four little children who depended on him, and he loved his family enough to sacrifice anything for them—even his pride. “There is nothing greater than the love of Christ and the love you have for your family,” he told me.
Bluster was the greatest grandfather I could ever have had. He was diagnosed with cancer in 1988 and given six months to live. When he told me about his diagnosis, he said, “Boy, I’m not scared to die, but what I will miss is that I won’t get to see my family anymore.” A month later, he died. We miss Bluster.
Chapter Three
Big Momma
My maternal grandmother’s name was Opal (Ball) Henry, but she was always known as “Big Momma” to her family and friends. Big Momma was a loving, caring, jolly woman who would find humor in the many struggles of her past, but I know deep down inside they bothered her.
The second youngest of 10 children in Mississippi, Big Momma had lost both her mother and father by the age of 11, and was primarily raised by older siblings. Unfortunately, she did not have photographs or many memories of her parents to share with her children and grandchildren. Like many black people in the South, the Balls had white blood in their family. In fact, several of Big Momma’s siblings had blue eyes and fair skin, and some of her cousins were 100 percent white. Big Momma recalled how the white and black cousins never acknowledged one another in public or even in private. I once asked her how hard was it for her and her siblings to know these were blood cousins and they could not talk to them because they were black. “There was love from both sides of the color line,” Big Momma said, “and it was known and felt. But the way of the South at that time would not accept the family bond.”
All her life, Big Momma worked hard. As a child, she’d had to do her share of chores on the farm. Her work ethic was “Work and work until it gets done.” She had a presence and a touch that could heal a wounded heart, and a spirit to motivate the unmotivated. As an adult, Big Momma was known for being a great cook and housekeeper. She not only took care of her own children, but was also the “Mammy,” or nanny, to the white children in the “big house” on the plantation where they lived.
All throughout the later years of her adult life, Big Momma spoke of a little girl named Betty Alice, one of the white children she cared for back on the plantation. She had a special bond with Betty Alice, whom she loved almost as one of her own children. One evening when Betty Alice’s parents had gone out to dinner, Big Momma prepared a fancy meal as a treat for her and the little girl to share. She thought that since the two of them were alone, they could have some fun together. After the dinner was prepared, she made a plate for Betty Alice and set it on the table in the dining room. Then Big Momma made one mistake. She prepared a plate for herself and placed it at the table next to Betty Alice. The girl looked up at her with scorn in her eyes. “What are you doing?” she demanded. “Niggers don’t eat at the big table, you need to go in the back and eat your dinner.”
After she finished sharing that story, I said to Big Momma, “I know you let that little girl know what time it was, didn’t you? What did you do, Big Momma? Tell me!”
And I remember the expression on Big Momma’s face when she said that she took her plate and went to the back of the house to eat her dinner. Even after all these years, I can still see the pain and hurt in my grandmother’s eyes, reflecting a sorrow that had stayed with her all this time. To this day, it pains me to think of my own grandmother being treated this way by a child she loved, and it sickens me to think of how this innocent child had been poisoned by racism and ignorance to believe she was superior to a black person.
I speak today for my grandparents, who, living in a profoundly racist society, were never given the right to speak up for themselves. My grandparents made me what I am today as well as what I become tomorrow. I thank my grandparents for teaching me to love and not to hate. Even though they encountered countless injustices during their lifetime, they never lowered themselves to hate whites or people of any other race. I thank my grandparents for teaching me to treat people the way that I want to be treated. I thank my grandparents for teaching me to love and respect everyone in the human race, and stressing