I suspect that many of the
most successful efforts by black people to get white people to accept a
multi-racial society have been by one black person educating one white person.
All I remember about a
particular one black person who educated me was that she was pretty. I suspect
that’s the reason I went to church with her that Sunday night. I was a college student,
working in a settlement house in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. It’s
almost all Hispanic now, but when I worked there, it had the remains of the
huge Czech population that had originally settled it, before most of them moved
to Berwyn, plus inroads of Puerto Ricans and Mexicans, who did not like each
other much, some Appalachian whites, and Negroes from the South. The
neighborhood was still up for grabs, and everyone was grabbing. [1]
I think that’s how I met
the pretty Negro girl. She must have been involved in some summer church
program, too.
I must have said something
about never being to a Negro church. She must have seen that as an opportunity
to educate me, for I was awkward and ordinary and skinny, not a propitious
“date” or romantic prospect, not worth the opprobrium she might suffer, both
from Negroes and whites, for being out in public with a white boy. For whatever
reason, she invited me to go to a Negro church with her.
I couldn’t go on a Sunday
morning because I was preaching at the Bohemian Wycliffe Methodist Church in
Pilsen, its first English-speaking preacher, where the congregation was down to
a dozen or so leftover old people, and later in the morning at the famous
Halstead Street Institutional Church, a combination church and settlement
house, with a beautiful Gothic sanctuary that seated 500, and a swimming pool,
and a gymnasium, etc. It had been cut off from its neighborhood, and people in
general, by the new interstate right through the heart of Chicago, and so had
only 20 or so folks who were able to come to worship on Sunday morning. I
suspect I was the last preacher both of those churches had before they closed.
Most churches in the 1950s
still had Sunday evening services. It wasn’t “her” church we went to, but one my
girl friend picked, I assume, for being characteristic of all Negro churches.
I was used to preaching in
small, white, anything-can-happen country churches. I still was not prepared
for that black church.
What I remember most were
the ushers and the offering. The ushers were very large women in a uniform of white
nurse-style dress with blue Sam Brown style sash across their ample bosoms. I learned
later that they were not “ushers.” Only men could be ushers. These were the “doorkeepers.”
Once the service started, they stood in front of the exit doors, their ample arms
crossed over their ample bosoms. It was clear that no one was to leave before
the benediction.
Well, more importantly,
before the offering. There were no offering plates passed. We were required to
march up to the front and pass in front of a table where the church officers
sat and put our offering onto the table top, where they could see it.
Our first pass—although I
had no idea it was going to be our first—I got out a dollar, which was what… maybe
like $10 now? My “date” hissed at me, “Don’t put that much down.” I thought she
was just being cheap, so I laid it down in front of the officers, feeling quite
satisfied with myself, since most folks were putting down only change.
Which was not enough.
Apparently there was an unspoken goal, and we had not matched it. We were all
required to march by the table… it seems like several times, but probably only
two more times. I do remember that the last time, I was down to a nickel.
Black History month is
almost over, for this year. Its purpose is to educate all of us about our
obliterated and ignored history of race relations. As I reflect on my own black
history education, I realize that the best education probably does not take
place on TV or in classrooms, but just through one black person taking the
trouble to show one white person what her life and culture are like.
We all have the same
problems; we just deal with them in different ways.
John Robert McFarland
1] Negro was the
respectful designation then. As “black” became popular, many Negroes resisted
using it more than white folks did. “Black” had always been associated with
“bad,” like “a black heart.” I’ve always tried to stay up to date on the
correct name for any group, but sometimes it’s difficult, especially if there
are different ideas among the members of that group about what is correct.
No comments:
Post a Comment