Chapter 14: Forty Acres and a Mule

"Knee Grow." It sounds pretty neat when you say it. Mom says they used to be called coloreds and some other things she won't even tell me, but now that's the correct term.

La Mesa has always been a mixed neighborhood. We have lawyers, people who run their own companies, carpenters, painters, you name it. People from all walks of life. Today I saw my first Negroes. There is a girl in my class and a boy a couple of years ahead of me. They're brother and sister.

I guess she's pretty smart. She was put in honors English and Chemistry with me. Well, not with me. In the same class I'm in. You know what I mean. She stood up in front of the class in English and told us about herself. They moved here from Texas. Her father was in the Navy there. I didn't even know they had boats in Texas. Live and learn. She's been to nine different schools since kindergarten. That's almost one school every year.

I think she's pretty in her own way. She has real smooth looking skin, almost the color of the wooden arms on the chair my grandmother left us. And her hair is dark black, kind of like a Brillo pad. And her eyes are so brown. She looks at you with those eyes and it's like they go on forever. Her hands are pink on the bottom. Like she rubbed the dark off on her pants or something. And her teeth look so bright against that dark skin. Almost like they'd shine in the dark.

So, that was the news around school today. Sandy and Roberta were telling everyone that the prices of our houses were going to go downhill and it wasn't going to be safe to go out at night and stuff like that. Yeah. Like a couple of kids could screw things up like that.

They didn't seem to make friends with anybody. They ate lunch by themselves, out on the lawn. Maybe they don't like white people. I don't know.

I saw Mr. Johnson as I was walking home from school today, out watering his lawn again. I swear, that lawn must be the best fed one in the neighborhood.

"Hi, Leslie. Got time to talk to an old man?"

"For you, Mr. Johnson, always."

"You know I don't like that. My friends all call me Donald."

"I know. It just seems so disrespectful."

"Leslie, you're one of my closest friends. I find it disrespectful when you call me Mr. Johnson."

He turned off the hose, but didn't roll it up.

"Sit down on the porch and I'll get us some lemonade."

"Can I help?"

"You just sit right there and rest. It won't hurt me to get a couple of glasses of lemonade."

I heard the soft tinkling of ice in the kitchen, then he came out with a couple of tall glasses. Donald makes his own lemonade and always has a pitcher in the refrigerator. It's both tart and sweet at the same time. I look forward to going to his house just for the lemonade. Well, I like him, too, of course. But I do like the lemonade.

"So, My Dear, what is new in your life?"

"We got a couple of new kids at school today."

"That's nice. I guess you don't get a lot of new kids once school starts."

"No, we don't, but that's not all. They're Negroes."

"You don't say. In good old La Mesa. I can't say that I'm surprised."

"I don't understand."

"Leslie, how much do you know about Negroes?"

"Not a lot. I used to like to listen to some of their songs on the radio. James Brown had some good songs and so did The Supremes. But my father told me he didn't want me listening to any of that jungle music in his house. There was no way I could buy any of their records. I wouldn't be able to listen to them."

Did your father like Benny Goodman or Glenn Miller?"

"Oh, yeah. He and Mom would dance to some of that stuff."

"Well, that style of music is called 'swing.' It's a direct descendant of jazz. Jazz is definitely Negro music. And most of the early band leaders who played swing music were Negroes. Louis Armstrong. Cab Calloway. Count Basie. And your father's father probably called it jungle music or something else just as derogatory."

"Boy, if he was still around, I'd love to tell him what you said."

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Leslie. People are very touchy about their prejudices."

"Oh, my father's not prejudiced."

"Leslie, you don't have to lynch people or burn crosses to be prejudiced."

"Lynch people? Burn crosses? I don't understand."

"Oh, my. Your education has surely been lacking. No wonder you're confused about Negroes. Didn't you hear about the riots in the Los Angeles area last year?"

"I don't think so. I heard something about some place called Watts."

"Watts is an area of Los Angeles. It's a neighborhood, but I think it's actually part of the city of Los Angeles. The Negroes in that neighborhood, about a hundred miles from here, were setting fires, destroying cars and buildings, protesting the way they've been treated. That's just the latest thing in the life of the Black man. There have been many good things they've been involved in from Rosa Parks to the lunch counter sit in at Woolworth's, to the Little Rock Nine. I'll bet you've never heard of any of those, have you?"

"No, I haven't."

"Well, My Dear, you are sorely lacking in education. You need to research the Civil Rights Movement and find out a little about the history of the American Negro."

"Donald, I think you're right. It sounds like I'm pretty ignorant on the subject. The only thing they ever taught us about in school was George Washington Carver. He had something to do with peanuts, but I don't even remember what. It sounds like I need to spend some time in the library."

"Why don't you stop by after you've done some research and we'll talk some more.

"I'd like that."

I spent time in the library the next two days, both my study hall time and an hour or so after school. Roberta saw me going in the second day after school and asked if I was on detention. She got real huffy when I told her I was trying to improve myself by learning something but she wouldn't know anything about doing something like that.

So, I learned about Watts. It was a real poor section of Los Angeles and they did have almost a week of riots. And Rosa Parks had refused to move out of the white people's seats on a bus. The lunch counter sit-in was a protest because black people weren't allowed to order food at Woolworth's. And those same people who protested were served at that same Woolworth's a couple of years later. The Little Rock Nine were nine high school students who the governor of Arkansas tried to keep from going to high school there. He made the national guard prevent them from going into the school. President Eisenhower took control of the national guard troop and they were allowed to attend the school. Three of them graduated, one girl got kicked out because she got into trouble and others moved to other schools.

What I learned was that the Negroes were supposed to have gotten their freedom at the end of the civil war but nobody really let them have it. And that it wasn't unusual for them to get hung from a tree, only they called it lynching. For the crime of being the wrong color. And if they moved into the wrong neighborhood or happened to look at the wrong woman, they might end up with a burning cross on their front lawn some night.

After spending two days in the library, I decided I'd had enough learning from books. The next day at lunch, I went over to them on the lawn.

"Hi. My name's Les."