Reluctant Neighbors by E. R. Braithwaite

Author:E. R. Braithwaite
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2013-12-10T05:00:00+00:00

“What then? Did you try to find another job?”

“No. Another job found me.”

The fees from the newspapers and broadcasting had been enough. Nothing wonderful, but altogether not much less than what I received from teaching or from the Welfare Department. Then there was the money from the publishers. An advance on royalties. A few hundred pounds but, at that time, a small fortune to me. The pieces I wrote and broadcast attracted a lot of favorable attention. Together with the wonderful publicity from my book. Letters poured in from readers of all kinds, especially teachers, nearly all of them very complimentary and encouraging. I received many invitations to address groups at colleges, schools, readers’ clubs, churches, everywhere. After one such address I was introduced to a young man named Maurice Frost who told me he operated a lecture agency. When he learned that I had been asking no fees for my lectures he invited me to join his agency. I did.

So now it was writing and lecturing. Traveling around Britain­, meeting and learning about others black like myself. As a welfare official I had met only those who sought help through me. Now I was meeting others. Men and women who had settled­ in Britain after being active in some branch of the armed services­. They too had lived through experiences not unlike my own, emerging disillusioned but determined. Two dentists. A midwife. Electricians and automobile servicemen. Skilled and unskilled. Laborers and others. Employed and unemployed. Some youthful, enthusiastic and bulging with hope for better times to come. Others disillusioned, dejected and demoralized. Manchester. Birmingham. Liverpool. Cardiff. North. South. East and west.

During the time of my own desperate search for employment I’d never thought that others, black like me, were experiencing the same rejections and frustrations. I was preoccupied with myself, my pain and my need. I had no black acquaintances or intimates with whom to share or compare my daily experiences. It was me, uniquely me, against the world of whites. Then I’d found a job as teacher and, occupied with its challenges, it was still me, uniquely me, proving myself. Even when working with the Welfare Department my primary and perhaps only concern was proving myself capable, imaginatively capable, sensitively capable. Regular employment diverted my attention from hurt, rejected me to ambitious, intelligent me.

The chance encounter with the young black man on the bus affected me far more deeply than I at first realized. The depth and power of his despair were so familiar, so painfully familiar. He merely wanted a job. Any job. I’d had education, specialized training, wartime service and experience in living within the white society, but, at the final reckoning, he and I were one. We were black, and in that brief encounter, with so few words, he could say it all to me.

Now, free of departmental oversight or control, I began to look into conditions which so intimately and painfully affected him and me, and others like us. Particularly employment and housing, or

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.