Colorization by Wil Haygood

Author:Wil Haygood [Haygood, Wil]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-10-19T00:00:00+00:00

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In the early 1970s, a young college student entered the Miss Colorado Universe Beauty Pageant. Beauty pageants were often avenues that led to acting jobs, so Pam Grier considered it a smart move. She wanted to break into the movie business, and, though she didn’t win that particular pageant, she did come in as runner-up. That was all the encouragement she needed to pursue her dreams.

Clarence Grier, Jr., Pam’s father, was an air-force man, moving his family from military base to military base. Pam was born in 1949 in North Carolina, spent time in her youth in Ohio, then moved to other locales with the family. Her mother, Gwen, trained to become a nurse in those early years. The family finally settled in Denver. Young Pam was also happy when there was the opportunity to spend time with relatives on family farmland in Wyoming. The Griers had about them a touch of the homesteading spirit of Oscar Micheaux: Pam rode horses, rolled in lofts full of hay, grew fond of the outdoors, enjoyed playing with Rodney, her little brother. But she also suffered sexual abuse in childhood, assaulted in a relative’s home while the adults were away. In the aftermath of the trauma, she grew sullen and often uncommunicative.

Clarence Grier was assigned to an overseas military base, and, in time, the family sailed for England; young Pam shrieked with delight during the ocean cruise. The Griers settled comfortably into an upstairs apartment. The white British women who sometimes watched over Pam when her parents were not at home shared stories with her about husbands who worked in mines, and memories of World War II. The white women were very curious about the mistreatment of Blacks in America, and especially about the news of racial murders that landed in their British newspapers. “These women impacted me deeply,” Grier would recall. “I watched them having a ball and cooking dinner together while they danced and laughed. I listened carefully as they carried on deep discussions about power struggles between the genders and how to survive the oppressive and aggressive ways of their mining and military husbands when they got home from a grueling day’s work.”

After two years, the Grier family returned to America. Pam’s life back in the States took a bitter turn when Gwen and Clarence divorced. Gwen, who had finally become a nurse, was intent on keeping her family together. Other relatives helped out while she worked her hospital shifts. Life for the teenage Pam revolved around school and church and physical activity, as she started taking karate lessons. She was blossoming physically, growing tall. In 1965, she was overjoyed to be on a bus with other members of a Denver church choir heading toward Los Angeles, where they were to perform in Compton and Watts. The Compton event went well. But the Watts uprising erupted on August 11, as soon as they arrived. There were shrieks and howls from inside the bus as bullets whizzed by.

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