Soul Power and the People
Reading by Jenice L. View
Vincent Fagin Sr., age 80, one of the first followers of Elijah Muhammed; Akbar Sharreriff II, age 35; Jenice View, age 10; Thomas View III, age 9, and Charles View, age 6; Nov. 16, 1969. Personal collection of Jenice View.
In 1967, Washington, D.C. public schools Were court-ordered both to stop tracking students by ability and to bus kids from overcrowded, poorly funded, largely Black schools in far Southeast to nearly empty, well-funded, largely white schools in upper Northwest. We moved back to D.C. that same year after three years in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, and my parents chose to be part of an experiment in housing desegregation. They had good government jobs and were hoping to raise their children outside of the poverty that had been their childhood. My brothers and I were among a few Black kids at Janney Elementary, and among a tiny handful who lived in the white, middle-class neighborhood. Most of the other Black kids who attended were bussed in.
The first year of the court order was my 4th grade year, 1967–68. The teacher, Miss DiGuilian, was mean and gave most of her attention to the Green reading group, which consisted of all but one of the white kids plus the only Asian kid. The Blue reading group had me, Lydia from Southeast, Carol (the only white kid with a divorced mother), and some of the Black kids who lived in the neighborhood. The Red reading group had nothing but Southeast kids. When Dr. King was killed in April 1968, we got to see Miss DiGuilian be really scared, especially when she called on one of us Black kids — for a change — and Lydia scowled and said, “My mother told me not to speak to white people today.” Later that day as the riots spread through parts of the city, schools were let out early. Miss DiGiulian had to wait for hours for the school bus to transport the scared Southeast kids home. The next week she was nicer to us, but we knew it was temporary. Soon my dad was back to making surprise visits to the school to make sure Miss DiGuilian was treating his baby right. All that year we had to relearn how things were in the South.
The 5th-grade teacher, on the other hand, was so good that we didn’t really know who was in the smart or slow reading groups because she mixed us all up. Mrs. Hankins encouraged us to bring in articles for current events, and we still had “show and tell” on Fridays, even though some students thought it was corny. During social studies, the few Jewish students fiercely debated Middle East issues that were completely unknown and too complicated for me. In November, we held a mock presidential election, with most students voting for Hubert Humphrey over Richard Nixon or George Wallace. After school I was invited to sleepovers at some of the girls’ big houses. One night a week I got to stay up past bedtime to see Julia on television; she was the first primetime Black woman to star on a show who was not a maid (as my grandmother had been), and she had a cool apartment and a cute son. Fifth grade was getting to be a good school year.
Spring arrived. I had a screaming fight on the playground with Amy, who was white and my best friend, and she called my mother a Black bitch. Normally one who encouraged peaceful resolutions to conflict, my mother shocked me by encouraging me to smash Amy’s (or anyone else’s) face in with a brick if I needed to do that for self-protection. Then one Friday, the Southeast kids announced that they’d brought a 45 for show and tell. Mrs. Hankins was delighted and pulled out the classroom record player. It was the first time that year that Lydia and Maurice offered to share. They danced and popped their fingers and snickered at the nervous silence: “Say it loud, I’m Black and I’m proud! Say it loud, I’m Black and I’m proud,” they and James Brown hollered. At the time I was both amazed and embarrassed; they had a lot of nerve bringing the Godfather of Soul up in quiet, white-bread Janney Elementary School!
Then, one day later that spring, my mother showed me a photograph of a woman with a huge Afro and said, “This would look cute on you. Would you like to wear your hair to school like that?” For all of 10 years Mom washed and pressed my hair on a regular basis and warned me about swimming pools, rain, and sweat. Did she mean wear my hair to school nappy? On purpose?
(l-r): Virginia View, Carolyn Smith, and Jenice View in Rock Hill, South Carolina, summer, 1979. Personal collection of Jenice View.
Afros were what militants wore, and college radicals, and people who just did not care about what white people called “respectable.” Middle-class Black people who wanted to be accepted by whites; hard-working, working-class Black people who wanted to keep their jobs; and Black hairdressers who had spent nearly 75 years defining beautiful Black hair through a straightening comb feared and hated Afros even more than whites. Displaying wild, woolly African naps was nearly like giving the middle finger to anyone who asked.
It rained the day of the experiment, so the little Afro was crushed under a hat and umbrella. The Southeast kids peered at me, uncertain, as we stood in line waiting to file into class. When I could no longer find an excuse to leave on the hat, the wrinkled, matted poof was revealed to all, liberal and conservative alike. Lydia said, “Your momma let you come to school like that?” I muttered that it was her idea. Quietly, slowly, Lydia said, “Daaag! My momma won’t let me,” sounding both amazed and embarrassed by my nerve.
And poor Mrs. Hankins. Nervous and overly kind all day, she must have thought that if this little upwardly mobile child was wearing an Afro, Black pride and the revolution must have finally arrived. n
© Jenice L. View