“Faith, Grace and Heresy – The Biography of Rev. Charles M. Jones” by Mark Pryor (2002)

Here I go again, writing about a book I haven’t read. But the story of Charlie Jones (1906 – 1993) is so far under the radar that I feel obliged to write about it now. Charlie (Preacher) Jones was an early participant in the Civil Rights struggles of post-World War II America. 

I don’t ever expect to read this book in its entirety, since it includes a detailed discussion of Jones’s (theological?) battle with the Presbyterian Church. But I’m interested in his life for personal reasons as well as concern over current issues of racial justice. 

I sometimes describe myself as “Southern by marriage”. Raised in New England, I left home in 1967 with a snobbishly negative attitude about the American South. Eight years in Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Europe mellowed me a little, but when I first visited North Carolina, I felt cautious. Gradually, I got to feel comfortable in Chapel Hill and I learned a bit of its history, along with the history of the family I married into.

My husband and his four younger siblings attended an unaffiliated Community Church in which their father held a position of responsibility, as an “elder” or “deacon”. What does it mean for a church to be unaffiliated? Believe it or not, Wikipedia tackles this subject in a short article titled “Nondenominational Christianity”. AFFILIATION means that a church belongs to a recognized denomination, like Baptist or Episcopalian, and gets credentialed ministers from that parent organization. The Community Church had separated from Presbyterianism and “Preacher” Jones was its spiritual leader. It was a completely independent organization.

How did this happen? The long story is recounted in Faith, Grace and Heresy. 

Charlie Jones was a radical social reformer inspired by Christian values, and he agitated vigorously for racial justice and women’s rights.

Both the Presbyterian Church and the US War Department considered Jones dangerous, and the Presbyterian Church decided to silence him. Unwilling to admit that Jones’ civil rights activities were the problem, they accused him of HERESY. Eventually, Jones and his congregation turned away from Presbyterianism and the independent Community Church was formed.

I’ve oversimplified this, but it will have to do for now. 

Twenty plus years later, in the 1970s, I visited Chapel Hill and learned that the Community Church had a problem. After Charlie Jones retired, they had trouble maintaining membership and finding someone to replace Jones as minister. Affiliation with a recognized protestant denomination was discussed. When my father-in-law learned I had grown up in a Unitarian Universalist Church, he asked me many questions about it. Eventually, the Community Church joined the Unitarian Universalist Association, and there it remains. Memorial services for three beloved members of my family were subsequently held at the Community Church. 

Faith, Grace and Heresy was written after Charlie Jones died, by his grandson Mark Pryor. I regret that I can find no further writings by Pryor, and I don’t know what path he may have followed in life.

Charlie Jones exhibited extraordinary leadership, the kind we need in our troubled times.

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“I Passed for White” by Reba Lee as told to Mary Hastings Bradley (1955)

When I compiled my list of blog posts about race in America (November 1, 2020), a memory crossed my mind. I remembered a book entitled I Passed for White, which I glanced at but didn’t check it out of my hometown library. I remember a photo of a girl about my age, 12 or 13, and reading that she told a (white) friend that her dark-skinned Dad was not her “real” father, but rather her stepfather.

Sure enough, I found the book for sale on Amazon.

To my surprise, the title led me (via Wikipedia) to a movie version of the book, which was referenced as a novel, not (as it seemed to be) a memoir. The 1960 movie adaptation was salacious. It made a much bigger splash than the book. A poster shows a negligee clad young woman lounging on a bed. The caption reads “I look white…I married white…now I must live with a secret that can destroy us both!” This from Fred Wilcox, the director who brought us “Lassie Come Home” and “The Secret Garden”! It was his last movie.

I couldn’t find information about Reba Lee. I found more than one obituary, but none that mentioned publication of a book.

Mary Hastings Bradley turns up in Wikipedia, but I’m not certain of the match. Bradley was a prolific writer of travelogues and novels, several of which were made into movies. Her last novel was published in 1952, and she lived in Chicago, the initial setting of I Passed for White. 

According to the movie plot summary, the protagonist left her community, married a white man, lost a child to stillbirth and divorced without revealing her mixed race heritage. Thereafter, she returned to her previous home and identity. 

None of which, I guess, was particularly surprising for America in the 1950s. Reba Lee was probably scantily compensated for her story (whether fictional or actual), and her personal history was, I suspect, sensationalized. I’m glad there are still copies of the book available. Perhaps there’s more to be learned here. Recently, the book I Passed for White has attracted some academic interest. 

“Wilmington’s Lie: The Murderous Coup of 1898 and the Rise of White Supremacy” by David Zucchino

 I should read this book. While a close friend was reading it, he disappeared into somber gloom. It’s bad news, fully documented, and way too close to home.

In 1898, the democratically elected city government of Wilmington NC was overthrown and at least 60 African Americans were murdered. Hundreds of families were driven out of Wilmington.

One Amazon reviewer described the events as “an atrocity against God.” Other descriptions included “depraved” and “unsettling”.

In human experience, evil sometimes triumphs. White supremacy came out on top. Perhaps I’ll read this when I feel stronger.

Say her name: Lillie Belle Allen, murdered in York PA, July 21, 1969. Race in America #1

As we agonize over the murder of George Floyd, the names of victims of police brutality are being listed in the media. I want to honor the memory of a woman who may be overlooked, Lillie Belle Allen. She was not killed by police, but the Mayor and Chief of Police in the City of York, Pennsylvania, had created an atmosphere so racially tense and poisonous that driving down the wrong street led to her death.

I wrote about this previously, here and here. I learned this tragic history in 2018, many years after the fact. It shocked me to realize that I moved to York in 1973, lived there two years, and never heard of Lillie Belle Allen, Henry Schaad or the York race riots.

What led up to the York riots, which are described in Wikipedia? In 1962, the City had imposed a discriminatory policy of aggressive policing in black neighborhoods, including the use of dogs. I don’t know why. I speculate that the white residents of York couldn’t tolerate the changes that came upon them in the 1950s and 1960s. African Americans from the South moved to York for work in its many factories. Suburbanization “hollowed out” the downtown. Schools were integrated by busing. Resentment festered. Gangs coalesced.

I am grateful to the York Daily Record and journalist Kim Strong for their reporting.

Some York residents regarded the summer of 1969 as a “draw”. One death on each “side”. I can’t accept this. Lillie Belle Allen was an uninvolved by-stander, not even a resident of York. Henry Schaad chose employment as a police officer. I regard his death as a particularly grim and awful case of the sins of the fathers being visited on the sons. One analyst, writing 30 years after the fact, concluded he died because he was a police officer, not because he was white. (York’s police force was not 100% white in 1969.)

I’m saddened by the death of Lillie Belle Allen. If she hadn’t been shot, she might now be 78 years old. Who knows what those lost decades might have brought? To her family, I offer sincere condolences.

In Honor of MLK Day (2) – Remembering Lillie Belle Allen and York, PA

In my January 16 post, I mentioned the danger of employment in the factories that I inspected. What were the hazards?

• Dust. Most of the dirt was non-toxic, but I gained an appreciation for the concept of “while collar” work. Once in a while, I came home grimy.
• Gases, vapors. Once I had to wear a mask. I was exhausted after a few hours. Once I exited a plant that made sticky labels with a definite buzz. What if I had worked there daily?
• Hot metals. Foundries made me nervous. No two ways about it. I got a few burns in my clothing from sparks.
• Equipment, including forklifts. OSHA style safety lines were in place, but I learned to stay close to my escorts.
• Falls, overhead cables, ladders, tripping hazards. I wore a hard hat and developed a keen eye.
• Noise and heat.

I learned that almost everyone likes to talk about his/her work, and most were willing to answer my questions, even outside the narrow focus of air pollution. I heard discussions about accidents. There were one or two fatalities in York during my time there. The first response always seemed to be to suggest that the victim had been drinking alcohol.

Once I was at an asphalt factory when there was an explosion. I went out with the manager, and watched an injured employee carefully evacuated by ambulance. He was in pain, but his life was not in danger.

Oddly, I had no contact with any OSHA inspectors, and didn’t know how to report the workplace hazards I observed. My estimate was that York County needed maybe three times as many OSHA inspectors as air pollution inspectors. Maybe 10 OSHA inspectors would have been enough to do the job right. Where were they?

I was also unable to report employees who looked too young for employment. I think the legal working age was 16. And I didn’t know how to report water pollution. It’s ALWAYS about communication.

How many people remember than Martin Luther King was in Memphis because of an occupational safety “incident” which led to a strike by sanitation workers? On February 1, 1968 two Memphis city employees collecting garbage had been crushed to death by malfunctioning equipment on the truck they drove. Safety features had been bypassed, the trucks improperly maintained. The workers died horribly, crushed and mangled. Even on a good day, a garbage collector’s working conditions and pay were abysmal. Rioting and confrontation in Memphis were inevitable.

What about the York riots? Were they similarly inevitable?

I refer you to the newspaper York Daily Record (www.ydr.com) which, on April 19, 2016, ran an article titled “Silent no more: The murder of Lillie Belle Allen”. See link with my earlier blog post. Ms. Allen is the African-American woman who died in the York Race Riots of 1969. She was 27 years old, just a little older than I was when I moved to York.

The cast of characters in this tragedy is extensive, and if you really want to follow it, you may need to sketch out a time line.

• Lillie Belle Allen was visiting her sister when she drove into York.
• Tom Kelley was a prosecutor who worked for the York County District Attorney, 30+ years later. He brought eleven men to trial.
• Donnie Altman was part of the crowd that fired at Ms. Allen’s car. No one knows whose bullet killed her. Altman took his own life in 2000, when the murder case was reopened.

Why did York erupt in riots in 1968 and 1969? One trigger was a decision (several years previous) to adopt a very aggressive (punitive? military?) policing style. Beginning in 1962, barking police dogs patrolled York’s African-American neighborhoods night after night after night. Black leaders appealed for relief. It was denied. An officer fired on (or above) a group of Black teens who threw rocks at a police car. The officer faced no disciplinary action for his irresponsibility.

One thing that strikes me about these riots is that they were a form of “proxy” war. Not everyone was involved. Mostly, young men carried out the fighting, teenaged Black male youth against the White male police department. I’ve read the theory that war, in general, is a way that old men with power get rid of the young men who (inevitably) challenge their leadership over time. The subtlety is that two groups of old men oversee the destruction of EACH OTHER’S young challengers.

I can’t recount the whole history here. The York Daily Record article by Kim Strong provides a good summary and profiles a number of individuals, but I suspect there’s more to know. Wikipedia has an entry under “1969 York race riot”.

After the shooting of 22 year old Officer Henry Schaad (he died 2 weeks later), white police officers incited vigilantism on the part of white youths, telling them to “protect their neighborhoods” and raising the specter of Black militants (the Black Panthers) trying to “take over” York. Over time, a mob of armed white youths coalesced around the home of a white gang leader.

Lillie Bell Allen and her family unwittingly drove into this “ambush”. Many shots were fired in a short time.

York, a shocked and devastated city, somehow retreated into uneasy peace. There were no riots the next summer. No one was charged in either of the two riot deaths. Some people saw the outcome as a draw, one Black person and one white person dead. I don’t know if a comprehensive list of seriously injured people exists. Property damage, almost exclusively in African American neighborhoods, was extensive.

This was the city I moved to four years later.

What did I observe? I lived and worked in the City of York proper, not in a suburb. I saw de facto segregation in housing. (It seems to have been a feature of every place I lived until I reached Pomona, NJ.) I took an exercise class at the York YWCA. There was one black woman in a class of 30 or so women. There was noticeable poverty and considerable deteriorated housing. My church was located on the border of a dense urban neighborhood. All the attenders were white. Street crime seemed minimal. I heard ONE racial slur, from a blue collar, factory worker neighbor, but I also picked up less explicit white hostility. If there were gangs, they kept a low profile.

So whatever the racial situation was in York, I pretty much missed it. Two years is a short time to live in a community. I moved in a small orbit. It never occurred to me to go looking around outside of it.

Many years later, in 1999, the murder of Lillie Bell Allen attracted the attention of a young York County prosecutor. With very little information, the case was reopened (there is no statute of limitation on murder) and the murder was investigated. Many of the people involved were still living in York and the vicinity. Eleven men were charged, some with murder, others with lesser crimes There was one suicide. At least two men were sentenced to prison for second degree murder.

Additionally, two men were convicted of second degree murder in the death of Henry Schaad.

What did I learn by looking back on this? Hard to say. That the appearance of a community can be deceiving. That it takes a long time to understand what we now label as “white supremacy” and racism. That I still have a lot to learn.

In honor of MLK Day (1) – Remembering Lillie Belle Allen and York, PA

Silent No More

(The Murder of Lillie Belle Allen.)

First, the link above… an exceptional article.

What do I remember about York, PA? I lived there from 1973 to 1975, call it two years, my first two years after finishing college.

Why write about this? Because I just stumbled on a Facebook post pertaining to the “York race riots” of 1968 and 1969. I lived in York for TWO YEARS, only five years later, without know anything about this calamity. Without hearing a word about two people who died (Ms Allen, named above and a police officer named Henry Schaad) and the state of war that had existed between the police and government of York and its African American citizens. HOW DID I MISS THIS? And can I learn something from it now, almost 50 years later?

Why York, PA? What was I doing there? Why write about it now?

First I should explain that I “finished” college with two degrees, BS in Chemistry from Michigan State University in 1971 and MS in (Analytical) Chemistry from The Pennsylvania State University in 1973. I had graduated from high school in 1967, so you can tell I went through college in a straight line, four years for the BS and two more for the MS. But most of my summers were not devoted to study. I spent two summers working as a lifeguard (easy, but long hours), three summers traveling (8 glorious months, total!) and one summer on the Penn State campus, doing the laboratory work for my MS degree. I never returned to academe as a student.

Penn State was a great platform for job hunting, and 1973 was not a bad year for Chemistry graduates. I had numerous on campus interviews, traveled to visit some big name employers (like Dupont) and was invited by the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Resources to work in its Bureau of Air Quality at a district office in York. I accepted that offer.

For someone with my educational background, this was a career change, undertaken before I had a career. The first Earth Day, in 1970, while I was at Michigan State, had raised my consciousness (or at least altered it) and I was less interested in the science of chemistry and more interested in its application to the problems of environmental pollution. Required, at Penn State, to choose among the traditional disciplines of Chemistry (organic, physical, analytical and inorganic), I focused on Analytical Chemistry, for two reasons.

• I thought I could always count on getting a job in Quality Control, somewhere.
• And I thought the Chemistry of pollutants would be interesting and relevant.

So, at Penn State, I learned that pollution was studied by engineers, and I took a few engineering courses. Very few. Two air pollution classes, and three or four single credit seminars in water pollution and solid waste management. This meager list qualified me as an “expert” in those early days of environmental regulation.

I’ve no idea why I was assigned by the Bureau of Air Quality to York. I didn’t look very closely at the City itself. The office was new, located in a shabby rental downtown, and very small. We peaked at one supervisor (very young), four air quality inspectors and two support staff.

The work had nothing at all to do with chemistry, and I was on a fast learning curve. We inspected factories, reviewed emissions inventories, investigated complaints of smoke and malodors and serviced a few simple air sampling devices. We kept records when the state sent its stack testing team to our area. We testified in court when we caught a polluter in the act. It was varied and interesting, and we felt we were fighting “the good fight”.

What about York? A friend of a friend was teaching at York Penn State. An apartment was available in the house where she lived. I moved in with my meager graduate student furnishings. Adult at last!

What did I think about York? Well, compared to what? Suburbia? The campus of a large public university? I was decisively an outsider in York. When I called about moving into the apartment in my friend’s house, the owner asked me to meet her at the mall. We had a cup of coffee, discussed the rent and my desire to paint the rooms, and made a deal. The landlady asked “Are you a teacher or a nurse?” I explained about being an air pollution inspector, but I don’t remember her reaction. I knew (but I can’t say how), that the meeting over coffee had been a color check. I was a “desirable” tenant.

Having watched the integration efforts in off campus housing at Michigan State, I was not surprised.

York was a shabby industrial city, with all kinds of manufacturing mixed into the neighborhoods of apartments, row houses and slightly nicer homes. A cement factory loomed over West York, slowly turning it to stone. (Not kidding.) An iron foundry operated on the east side of town. A national corporation produced sports equipment and 500 pound bombs just north of the city. (Again, not kidding.) A smelly old factory turned out asphalt roofing. What else? Potato chips, and (!) York Mints. Yes, you can still buy them. Where are they made today? In all, about 1000 industrial sources operated in my working territory. A few dozen qualified as major pollutors.

For me, every day was an adventure. I drove around York, Adams and Franklin counties, occasionally striking fear into polluters, who didn’t take their air pollution issues very seriously, and who hated being challenged by a young, female college graduate. I was ignored until the first “certified nastygram” arrived in a corporate office, threatening legal action. At most, fines of around $100 were levied, but business owners HATED to pay up.

If there was an obvious piece of the American social agenda unfolding around me, it pertained, not to race, but to workplace health and safety. The federal Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA) had been enacted two years earlier (1971) and the first enforcement “pass” through York had been fierce. So when I walked in to enforce air pollution regulations, the reception was frosty. However, the experience of being inspected and judged (and occasionally dragged into court) by a young woman was so novel that most business managers, entirely perplexed, treated me with reasonable politeness. My male colleagues were hassled a bit more than me, but none of us was harmed. (I had one close call.)

The federal government was in the process of taking over or at least regulating occupational health and safety, and environmental protection. These were big, important changes with significant consequences. I observed that the factories I inspected were rather dangerous places.

To be continued…

Women’s March in Trenton (2)

If you read my previous post, you know why I passed on the big marches in DC and Philadelphia… Another reason to go to Trenton was to help out a friend who is currently “mobility impaired”. We decided to attend the rally in front of the State House.

When we arrived, I missed most of what the speaker was saying, due to the quirks of the microphone in the open air. We moved forward a little before the next speaker, an African American woman, began. I wish I could tell you her name. I’ll take the liberty of calling her Elder Sister. I believe she was 90+ years old. Elder Sister spoke about her experiences in Trenton as a young teenager. She integrated two businesses by refusing to cooperate with segregated arrangements. One was a hotdog stand, the other a movie theater. It was good to hear her recount her successes. She offered encouragement to continue the struggle for equality and justice. I wish the setting had offered a chance for us to learn more about her life.

I was reminded of another account by a young woman fighting against racism. This account comes from the writings of Maya Angelou, probably from her first book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings. I’m giving you this from memory, having read the book within a few years of its publication in 1969. Maya Angelou went to live with her Grandmother in the deep South, and resented how meanly the white women in that town treated their hired housekeepers. One day she spoke up, told a woman she was unfair and that she wouldn’t work at that house any more. She returned home and, perhaps with pride (?), recounted the incident. Maya Angelou’s Grandmother took her immediately, before dark, to the train station and sent her away, back up north, for her safety.

Elder Sister and Maya Angelou were born around the same time. Their accounts differ, but I strongly suspect Trenton also resisted integration and other social changes. Maybe not as harshly as the rural South, but change can’t always have been as easy as Elder Sister’s brief discussion made it sound.

Wouldn’t it have been wonderful if these two women could have met, shared their experiences, poured out more advice for the younger generations! Maya Angelou, sadly, died in 2014, at her home in Winston-Salem NC. Wikipedia, in a LONG article, describes her as “…poet, memoirist and civil rights activist”. She recited poetry at the Presidential inauguration of Bill Clinton, received numerous prizes and was commemorated by the US Postal Service on a stamp.

What about Elder Sister? I don’t know! An account of her life story would be such a treasure. I expect she deserves awards and honors. All I can do is say THANK YOU here.

What a blessing to us all when wise women share their stories!

“The Color of Water” and “Kill ‘Em and Leave” by James McBride

The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to his White Mother was published in 1996. (I don’t remember when I first read it.) As the struggle for racial justice continues, this book deserves to make a comeback. If you missed it, read it now! First person writing at its best.

I just came face to face with Mr. McBride in the pages of the New York Times. His picture is self effacing, and I nearly missed him. The occasion of his appearance in the Times is publication (April 5!) of his latest book, Kill ‘Em and Leave, subtitled Searching for James Brown and the American Soul.

According to NYT reviewer John Williams, McBride found writing about musician James Brown, aka the “Godfather of Soul”, excruciatingly difficult. Not only was his life riddled with mysteries and contradiction, but after his death, his heirs clashed over distribution of his estate in a grim and wasteful debacle.

Between these two books, McBride wrote three books that sound like fictionalized history (not to be confused with historical fiction), drawing his inspiration from figures like Harriet Tubman and John Brown. His journalism careers includes writing for major newspapers (like The Boston Globe) and magazines including Rolling Stone. Also a musician, he plays tenor saxophone and works as a composer.

I hope McBride keeps working in all these media. He has a powerful voice and deserves to be heard.