The seven-year-old girl and her two sisters (6 and 5 years old) were traveling home to Pennsylvania after a two-week visit with their grandmother in North Carolina. Their father and uncle had driven down, and the girls anticipated the fun of the long drive home. It was 1949 and I-95 was not yet completed. The route home included crossing a river on a ferry in Norfolk, VA. to resume the drive home to Philadelphia. At dusk, they arrived at the ferry and perhaps signs and boat workers directed them where to go. They entered a large room that looked like an empty inverted shipping container. The door into the box was on one short wall. The only other opening was a large cut-out square – no glass – just a cut-out square that was a third of one of the long side walls. Passengers silently entered the box and found a place to stand. The “triplets” had been given no specific instructions from their father or uncle, but the engulfing silence clamped their mouths. The little ones cuddled and held onto their father and uncle. The seven-year-old girl and her sisters were unexpectedly afraid.
The sun had gone down. The ferry was moving. There was no lighting inside the large box; light from the deck beyond the “window” gave a spray of light onto those directly in front of the huge square hole, but beyond that the box was dark. Beyond the “window” people walked up and down the brightly lit deck outside the box. They talked and laughed and passed by the “window” as though it were invisible. Inside the dark box, not one person said a word or moved about, including the three little girls. Presently, a fullback-built man stood at the “window.” He had a large flashlight which he shone into and all around the box. He did not speak and the people in the dark room uttered not a word. The triplets clung to their father and uncle. Without any verbal instruction, the girls knew not to utter a sound. The light from the flashlight intruded on the dark space for less than a minute, but the methodical movement of the light signified that all was as it should be. Satisfied with his inspection of the dark box, the huge man and his flashlight left the “window.” White people on the deck talked and walked on by. Black people in the dark box, including the “triplets,” remained in place standing and silent, because their lives depended on being invisible. On that ferry ride, the seven-year-old and her sisters met the laws and etiquette of Jim Crow.
The North won the Civil War which abolished slavery and Reconstruction in the South failed because the nation was tired of trauma on behalf of the freed slaves. Jim Crow laws were passed throughout the in the North and South that advocated separate but equal education, facilities, restrictive voting laws, transportation. “Equal” was a myth. Jim Crow etiquette dictated how Blacks were to interact with whites and sharecropping ensured economic hardship for former slaves. Racial segregation was a way of life in the United States. Violence insured the existence of Jim Crow. Lynching was the ultimate punishment for any infraction of the Jim Crow laws and behavior.
In 1899, James Weldon Johnson (1871-1938) wrote the poem, Lift Every Voice and Sing, to give encouragement, inspiration, and courage to Americans who were black. A year later, his brother composed music for the poem as part of the birthday celebration for Abraham Lincoln in their hometown of Jacksonville, Fl. It was performed by a choir of 500 school children at the segregation Stanton School, where James Weldon Johnson was the principle; he was also an important leader in the NAACP.
Reflection
During Black History month, February 2021, we will explore the meaning of the verses of Lift Every Voice and Sing, the poem set to music that has become such an inspiration to Blacks Americans that it is referred to as the Black National Anthem. It is an expression of determination, struggle, hope, striving and spirituality.
Lift Every Voice and Sing. Lyrics, 1899: James Weldon Johnson; Music, 1900: John Rosamond Johnson
Lyrics: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/d0/22/9e/d0229e1c228ca216251dedde1ff2396c.jpg
The Wardlow Brothers- Tribute to Black History https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTuRsq7Zf9Ahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTuRsq7Zf9Ahttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTuRsq7Zf9A
Dorothy Watson Tatem, D.Min., ACC
Senior Associate
Next Step Associates, LLC
Cassandra W. Jones, Ed.D.
CEO & President
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