Learning colors
I remember it all very well, looking back to the summer I turned seven years of age. I lived in a rundown, rickety shack with my parents and my younger brother, Damon, in the state of New Orleans. Through out my childhood, we lived in poverty, our parents didn’t make enough money to give me three meals a day, let alone all four of us, so back in the nineteen-fifties, my parents saw a conclusion that’ll solve all of their calamities and so, we were both adopted by my grandmother and we moved to the state of Sharidan, Arkansas.
I assume my parents couldn’t handle us, well I guess it didn’t bother me that much, I was too young to think about this and when we grew up, too busy to think about them, so in our minds they simply cease to exist.
Me and my brother, Damond; who was four at the time, never recieved any form of education, neither one of us could read nor write, fortunately my grandmother was a teacher in our local school.
As a child, I remembered climbing up lumber stacks to look over at the white school. Huge school with a band, a football team everything that you can imagine, and in our side, here we were, with our two-room school with outdoor toilets and two teachers: my grandmother and her friend, Ms. Angelou Smith
Living in a predominantly white neighborhood, me and my brother never got the same, rights that the white children got, in my mind, it simply occured to me that if you had lighter skin, you don’t have to work under the sun and if you had darker skin, you had to work twice as hard, of course, being only seven this almost never bothered me, well, I remembered back then when my grandmother told me to go to the library to borrow a dictionary for our school to use, so I walked down to the library, which is of course a public, but for us black folks, was not so much, so when I was walking in there all these people started staring at me, I can tell you that they were genuinely shocked to see a seven year old, black girl in a bright, yellow raincoat walking to the counter, so I politely positioned myself in line to check out my book, then this old librarian, she said “ Well, you see, this library is not for people with color.”, Then I said “ That’s alright ma’am, I would just like to check out this one, single book.”, Then the librarian said that if I don’t get out of there she would call the cops to arrest me, so I propped myself up to the counter and I said “ I’ll wait ma’am.” and so she called the police and subsequently called my grandmother also. The police came down to see what’s the cause of the disturbance and the librarian pointed at the little girl on top of the counter reading a book, of course my mother rushed to the library, praying on the way that her grandchild won’t go to prison.
When my grandmother came to the library, she asked the librarian about what happened and she said that “ Well, you see ma’am, your daughter shouldn’t be in here.’’ and one of the police officer said “ you know, why don’t you just give the girl the book?” and my grandmother said “ she’ll take good care of them.” and she reluctantly gave me the books.
Gradually, my grandmother noticed that the population of black people in our neighborhood started decreasing, everyday more and more families move away because they lost their jobs or they couldn’t make enough money to support their family, The white folks never welcomed us here anyway, every day it was like that so, ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two and finally we were the only black people in our neighborhood, we were there till the last child, the last family left town.
My grandmother was the only teacher left in our local school, she was the principal, the janitor, the nurse, whatever needed fixing she would fix, whatever needed repairing she would repair. Me and my brother were the only students left studying in my grandmother’s school, I asked my grandmother why does she still teach us in her school then she came close to me and Damond and said “ Colene, Damond, you listen to me, as long as there is one black child that dreams of a better future, one black child that yearns for equality, one black child that rises despite of all the torments and judgments in this world, I promise that I will do my best to help them achieve it, and I thank God everyday, I was blessed enough to have two.” tears came rolling down from my grandmother’s eyes as she hugged me and Damon as tight as she could.
Apparently, due to the lack of students studying at my grandmother’s local school, it was demolished, my grandmother, despite all of this, managed to keep her promise though, she helped my brother and I graduate through college, I often saw her working herself to the her bones just so she can make a few pennies, in that moment, I made a promise, that one day I would see black and white children playing with each other, like the white, sweet flowers of a Magnolia tree blooming on it’s strong, dark branches and boughs, to this day I still hold on to that promise, so next time you visit or pass by our neighborhood in Sharidan, Arkansas, make sure to visit my school, I’m sure my students will be delighted to meet you.
