me dressed as Thomas Jefferson, in a picture taken by my mother
before leaving our apartment for an elementary school theater event at St. Matthew
Black Kid Jefferson
At twelve years old, I had an experience that I never forgot. It has always remained very vivid.
I went to an integrated parochial school, from first to eighth grade. Although it varied, the student population at St. Matthew (a Catholic elementary school that is no longer in existence) changed considerably in those years. In the beginning my school was majority white at about 60 percent, with 25 percent black, 10 percent Hispanic, and 5 percent Asian. By the time I graduated, the statistics for black and white students had reversed. It was gradual, masked by continued educational excellence, but in the 1950s and 1960s whites were rapidly moving away from the West Side of Chicago.
Nevertheless, my educational experience included daily interaction with white students who were friends for a long time. Our priests and nuns were all white throughout. The public school down the street was bigger, more crowded, almost entirely black and had a bad reputation. We never interacted with public school students and it felt unsafe to do so because of the potential for fights after school on the way home. We were different primarily economically, because our parents paid tuition for us to go to a Catholic school. The church, were we attended mass and where I became an altar boy, was next to our school, along with a rectory where priests lived and a convent where nuns lived. Race was something I was aware of but did not really think about.
But one evening I had to recite famous words as a brief speech during a theater event at my elementary school . Three students were chosen to play U.S. Presidents. The other two students were white and I was black.
I was assigned the role of Thomas Jefferson. All three of us had memorized our lines and we were taught that the words lived in history. My quote was most likely taken from the Declaration of Independence, written largely by Jefferson:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness."
The gymnasium had been converted into an auditorium and the play began in front of an audience of predominantly white parents. Eventually the three of us Presidents, all dressed in period clothing including shoes, socks and wigs, took the stage one by one and spoke in the spotlight.
When I appeared and began to speak, most of the adults, all visible to me from the stage, began laughing loudly at the sight of a young black kid in a costume imitating Thomas Jefferson. I didn't understand at all why it was humorous. It seemed totally against what I had been taught about the importance of the speech. Nevertheless, I spoke my lines and I didn't lose my character or stumble on the words. My mother, who had helped me get dressed and photographed me before the evening's event, was naturally proud.
I went to an integrated parochial school, from first to eighth grade. Although it varied, the student population at St. Matthew (a Catholic elementary school that is no longer in existence) changed considerably in those years. In the beginning my school was majority white at about 60 percent, with 25 percent black, 10 percent Hispanic, and 5 percent Asian. By the time I graduated, the statistics for black and white students had reversed. It was gradual, masked by continued educational excellence, but in the 1950s and 1960s whites were rapidly moving away from the West Side of Chicago.
Nevertheless, my educational experience included daily interaction with white students who were friends for a long time. Our priests and nuns were all white throughout. The public school down the street was bigger, more crowded, almost entirely black and had a bad reputation. We never interacted with public school students and it felt unsafe to do so because of the potential for fights after school on the way home. We were different primarily economically, because our parents paid tuition for us to go to a Catholic school. The church, were we attended mass and where I became an altar boy, was next to our school, along with a rectory where priests lived and a convent where nuns lived. Race was something I was aware of but did not really think about.
But one evening I had to recite famous words as a brief speech during a theater event at my elementary school . Three students were chosen to play U.S. Presidents. The other two students were white and I was black.
I was assigned the role of Thomas Jefferson. All three of us had memorized our lines and we were taught that the words lived in history. My quote was most likely taken from the Declaration of Independence, written largely by Jefferson:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness."
The gymnasium had been converted into an auditorium and the play began in front of an audience of predominantly white parents. Eventually the three of us Presidents, all dressed in period clothing including shoes, socks and wigs, took the stage one by one and spoke in the spotlight.
When I appeared and began to speak, most of the adults, all visible to me from the stage, began laughing loudly at the sight of a young black kid in a costume imitating Thomas Jefferson. I didn't understand at all why it was humorous. It seemed totally against what I had been taught about the importance of the speech. Nevertheless, I spoke my lines and I didn't lose my character or stumble on the words. My mother, who had helped me get dressed and photographed me before the evening's event, was naturally proud.
However, I never forgot the strange and far less than welcoming reaction by whites in the audience to my appearance and how the reading of eloquent expressions by a founding father of the country seemed completely beside the point to them. Instinctively, without anyone ever telling me, I felt that my race was a major factor, that they could not accept a black kid in the role of president. To them, it was funny.
I hadn't seen any of this coming. I was disappointed in the audience although not myself. I always considered it to be the first experience I ever had in life where I felt racism in a visceral way. The big night was smeared because it was not taken seriously and I was mocked by the white parents.
More than fifty years later, reflecting on this story while retelling it more thoroughly again in this writing, much has changed. I have since learned much more of an accurate history of our country. Crucial details about the men who brought America into existence, left out of books and lessons when I was a kid, are now widely available and discussed during a renewed time of widespread protest and racial reckoning in the country. For example, we never learned that Thomas Jefferson and virtually all of the white males of power at the time were slave owners. The significance of that and of slavery itself was not only never taught, the kidnapping, sale and the awful lives of slaves who were my ancestors was never discussed at all in school.
Instead, we recited the Pledge of Allegiance. Our education was based on the idea that the country was totally good and flawless. The USA was the best place in the world. Our enemies in those days were Russians, evidenced by air raid sirens every week and practice sessions on what to do (hide under our desks or gather in a closet) if an attack (including with a nuclear bomb) actually occurred. The history of the United States was thoroughly sanitized and presented as benevolent. Just as when we played cops (good) and robbers (bad) or watched them on TV, just as when whites (good) fought Indians (bad), the normal world order was that America and its nearly exclusively white male leaders were correct in everything they ever did.
I know now that Thomas Jefferson, despite all his accomplishments, was thoroughly enabled by a system of white superiority and control, where wealth resulted directly from the bondage at gun point and the violent enslavement of other human beings who were considered mere property, far less than human. Thomas Jefferson enslaved over 600 human beings throughout the course of his life. 400 people were enslaved at Monticello; the other 200 people were held in bondage on Jefferson’s other properties. At any given time, around 130 people were enslaved at Monticello. Slaves were subject to being whipped and "physical violence took place, sometimes brutally so".
Jefferson bought and sold human beings. He directly profited from the labor of enslaved people on his four quarter farms and at his retreat home. Of the 600 people Jefferson owned, he formally freed only seven. During his lifetime, Jefferson freed two enslaved men. At his death, Jefferson bequeathed freedom to five men in his will, two of which were his sons.
Slavery allowed children to be taken away and families could be separated forever because they were considered commodities worthy only of what the market said was their value. If they resisted in any way, slaves were hunted down, tortured and killed as an example to other slaves of the consequences of any kind of rebellion. There was so much ruthless, unspeakable horror and death for centuries, on slave ships and after arriving in America, too much to be recounted here.
But none of this was ever mentioned at all when I was in elementary school. Instead, imitating Thomas Jefferson was for a black kid like me supposed to be a great honor.
I now know the immorality of the founding fathers who we were supposed to revere. I know the dishonest story that America deliberately taught me back then. I now know why the white parents derided and ridiculed me, a young black kid. I know why I felt on a certain level irrationally targeted for gleeful humiliation. I know why I was wise not to succumb to it, even though I was so young and it had an undeniable impact on me. I know not to let anyone define me. I know not to blindly admire the birth of this country and its economic prosperity built upon but never shared with black people. I have experienced racism countless times since I was first exposed to it during that evening at the school, and I know that at any time racist words and acts can be aimed at me again. I know that Thomas Jefferson and America itself did not include me in his words that "all men are created equal". I know the truth.
I hadn't seen any of this coming. I was disappointed in the audience although not myself. I always considered it to be the first experience I ever had in life where I felt racism in a visceral way. The big night was smeared because it was not taken seriously and I was mocked by the white parents.
* * * *
Instead, we recited the Pledge of Allegiance. Our education was based on the idea that the country was totally good and flawless. The USA was the best place in the world. Our enemies in those days were Russians, evidenced by air raid sirens every week and practice sessions on what to do (hide under our desks or gather in a closet) if an attack (including with a nuclear bomb) actually occurred. The history of the United States was thoroughly sanitized and presented as benevolent. Just as when we played cops (good) and robbers (bad) or watched them on TV, just as when whites (good) fought Indians (bad), the normal world order was that America and its nearly exclusively white male leaders were correct in everything they ever did.
I know now that Thomas Jefferson, despite all his accomplishments, was thoroughly enabled by a system of white superiority and control, where wealth resulted directly from the bondage at gun point and the violent enslavement of other human beings who were considered mere property, far less than human. Thomas Jefferson enslaved over 600 human beings throughout the course of his life. 400 people were enslaved at Monticello; the other 200 people were held in bondage on Jefferson’s other properties. At any given time, around 130 people were enslaved at Monticello. Slaves were subject to being whipped and "physical violence took place, sometimes brutally so".
Jefferson bought and sold human beings. He directly profited from the labor of enslaved people on his four quarter farms and at his retreat home. Of the 600 people Jefferson owned, he formally freed only seven. During his lifetime, Jefferson freed two enslaved men. At his death, Jefferson bequeathed freedom to five men in his will, two of which were his sons.
Slavery allowed children to be taken away and families could be separated forever because they were considered commodities worthy only of what the market said was their value. If they resisted in any way, slaves were hunted down, tortured and killed as an example to other slaves of the consequences of any kind of rebellion. There was so much ruthless, unspeakable horror and death for centuries, on slave ships and after arriving in America, too much to be recounted here.
But none of this was ever mentioned at all when I was in elementary school. Instead, imitating Thomas Jefferson was for a black kid like me supposed to be a great honor.
I now know the immorality of the founding fathers who we were supposed to revere. I know the dishonest story that America deliberately taught me back then. I now know why the white parents derided and ridiculed me, a young black kid. I know why I felt on a certain level irrationally targeted for gleeful humiliation. I know why I was wise not to succumb to it, even though I was so young and it had an undeniable impact on me. I know not to let anyone define me. I know not to blindly admire the birth of this country and its economic prosperity built upon but never shared with black people. I have experienced racism countless times since I was first exposed to it during that evening at the school, and I know that at any time racist words and acts can be aimed at me again. I know that Thomas Jefferson and America itself did not include me in his words that "all men are created equal". I know the truth.
1P6503
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