Once Upon a Time When We Were Colored by Clifton L. Taulbert
Author:Clifton L. Taulbert
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2012-02-02T17:19:00+00:00
The 1988 presidential race was interesting, and as a black American, I found myself very much emotionally involved. For many of us, there was only one presidential candidate, Jesse Jackson, the black preacher. His outspokenness, his campaign and his media visibility were jolts to my memory. When I was growing up in the colored section of Glen Allan, political activism was virtually nonexistent - a hushed and maybe secret tryst into the white world at best. I remember only one overtly threatening act on the part of the whites in our community; when they burned Hodding Carter in effigy in the white town park because he had advocated racial equality in his Greenville newspaper.
There were, however, quieter incidents. I remember one such incident on a hog killing day at the old house by the colored school. Nia Ponk and I had come over early to start the fire under the big iron pot. Today, she would be teaching my mother how to make pork chitterlings. All my uncles and a few cousins were there also. While the adults made ready to slaughter the two hogs, my cousins and I were playing Cowboys and Indians on the unfinished porch that was to be a room someday These cool fall mornings were good for playing cowboys and Indians, our favorite game.
With all the adults involved in slaughtering the hogs, we children were left virtually alone to go into the storage shed and create whatever world we could imagine. I loved going into the shed on the end of the back porch. It was filled with surprises. There was an old water-stained box that had been on the top shelf of the shed for many years. Today I was curious about what was in it, and we pulled it down and opened it. Inside was an American flag, with forty-eight stars. It was so big we could hardly spread it out. The bright colors of the flag, the red, white and blue, seemed such a contrast to the drab unpainted room. )Xe completely unfolded it over the hare floor boards. We were so involved in making the flag part of our fun that we didn't notice the adults had stopped talking.
"Don't let that flag tetch the ground!" my grandfather velled suddenly, as he moved from the backyard to the side of the house where we were playing. "Boy, don't you know if white folks see you messing with this here flag like this, they subject to kill
Stunned, we didn't answer. We just dropped the flag and ran over to the school ground. My Grandpa Julius must have folded it up and put it back into the water-stained box, but I never touched it again. I couldn't understand why we had a white persons flag at the old house, but it was never mentioned again.
Politics were seldom discussed in our colored world. The only thing that was openly talked about was the inequity of the poll-tax system which kept so many colored people from voting.
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