The Color Fades

By Jerry Mack Grubbs
 
"Whites Only" was posted just above the drinking fountain. Next to that cold water dispenser was a small porcelain bowl hung on the wall. Above the bowl was printed "Colored." I grew up with those signs and generally thought little of it. Most likely that was because I wasn't colored and could always find myself on the better side of those barriers. I didn't agree with segregated drinking fountains nor did I think I would catch some dreaded disease from drinking after a black man.  But I didn't see it as my responsibility to try to change the world's perception. Anyway, what could one boy do?

I no longer believe that the influence of one person can't make a difference. I have lived long enough to realize that to change one attitude, one person, to improve the circumstances of a situation even if only for a few moments, makes a difference.

The summer of my sophomore year in high school I took a job working for Evans Corner Market. The market sold groceries and feed products. I earned forty cents an hour and was happy to be employed. Two other young men worked in my same capacity with Evans Market. One was white and the other black. Marvin, the white boy made the same wage as I did while Jesse, the black boy, earned only thirty cents an hour for the same work. Marvin and Jesse were both already working at the market when I started my employment. I'm not sure that I was needed at the store but the mother of my girlfriend persuaded Mr. Evans that I would be a good employee. She always had a higher opinion of me that I held of myself.

We sacked groceries, stocked shelves, delivered sacks of feed and bales of hay. The summer was hot and I didn't look forward to the feed deliveries. I preferred to stay inside the store where the ceiling fans stirred the air and cooled the sweat on my back. The old ladies who needed help with getting their groceries to the car were pleasant and I enjoyed teasing them. As much as I wanted the tips they offered, I knew that most of them needed the money more than I did. I took pleasure in closing their fingers back around the coins that they offered. It didn't take them long to learn my name and I became friends with many of them. It is amazing what the refusal of a tip consisting of a couple of nickels can buy. Those smiles of appreciation were worth far more to me than what their tips could have ever purchase.

I received quite an education in the short time I worked at Evans Corner Market. Although Jesse had a driver's license, he was not allowed to drive the delivery truck because he was black. Either Marvin or I had to go on those deliveries with him. Jesse never complained that when Marvin drove he had to do all the unloading while Marvin just sat in the cab of the truck and listened to the radio. Marvin loved to make the deliveries because it was easy duty for him. I preferred to stay in the store so it appeared that everyone was happy.

One day I saw Marvin steal two comic books from the magazine rack and stick them under his shirt just as he was leaving for the day. When I asked him why he took them his response puzzled me. "Old man Evans isn't paying me enough for the work I do around here so I steal once in a while to get even," he said. I had never bumped up against that concept before. I said, "If you aren't happy working here why don't you find a job somewhere else?" With a sneer on his face, Marvin said, "Get real, idiot." I asked Jesse if he knew that Marvin was stealing from the store. Jesse acknowledged that he did know of Marvin's stealing but had never mentioned it to anyone.

The following morning I asked Marvin if he was aware that Jesse also knew that he was a thief. "I'm not worried, that nigger ant tellin' nobody. If he does he knows I'll get him fired," responded Marvin. "My daddy owns the vacant lot next door that old man Evans rents for additional parking so I have a job here as long as I want it," he said. "What does a nigger lover like you care anyway? I learned a valuable lesson at that moment: calling a black man a nigger has much more serious degrading connotations than I had ever supposed. I had called my brother and friends the "N" word before but I had never addressed a black man with such words. Turning to Marvin, I said, "I'd rather be a nigger lover than a thief."

The color of Jesse's skin faded from my view that day. He had become my first black friend. I was fifteen years old. I lived in a town that was thirty-five percent black yet I had never even carried on a meaningful conversation with a black before I met Jesse. He worked harder than either Marvin or me. He made twenty-five percent less an hour for the same work. He never complained about his situation.

Not all blacks are like Jesse and not all whites are like Marvin but they each taught me valuable lessons in the summer of 1962. I have often wondered what became of Jesse. I even miss Marvin and contemplate where he might be today. I often quote an old saying, "If I had to go to war who would I want defending my back side?" I never had to fight in the jungles of Vietnam, a war that waged in the remote land of Southeast Asia and tore the heart of America apart when I was a young man. But if I had found myself in that war or any other hazardous situation, I think you could figure out which of those two men I would want standing by my side, black or white. When we allow people to become human, accepting their failings and shortcomings along with their strengths, the color fades.