I've read fifteen, maybe twenty books about the civil rights movement, particularly when it comes to what happened in Mississippi. A really disturbing thing happens when I do this: these books, they talk about people I've met, people I know, and sometimes people I know or knew really well. Events happen within organizations, and sometimes physical places I know, sometimes really well. This wasn't ancient history. This was my youth. MY youth.
When I go to Millsaps now, I see kids wandering around thinking about each other, or games, or their books, or their supper, and I think, "do you know what went on here? Do you KNOW?"
Every single book talks about Millsaps and Tougaloo. Every single one. More than Ole Miss, most of them. They almost never mention State or Southern or Belhaven, but always Millsaps, and more often than not Galloway.
I'd like to say that my school and my church were always on the side of right and good and love, but they weren't. They resisted. They sought the moderate path. I can say that both broached the color barrier considerably earlier than their neighbors. I don't mean breached, either. They broached it; they pierced this great vessel of hate and let gravity and time widen the orifice, every moment a pain to some and a celebration to others.
Whenever racial matters came up, dad would wince a little in pain. No matter what he chose, no matter what he did, someone was going to make a hateful phone call to him. Someone was going to apply pressure on him to do what they wanted and threaten to do something to hurt the school. Both sides. To other people, I'm sure it looked like his face never changed, but I could see it; my mother could, as did my brother, my sister, Rowan, Deaton, and Wingate. There were signs. Dad could never be a civil rights hero. He had to be moderate. He had to maybe not please both sides but appease them. The moderate path is not a heroic one, not outwardly, but inwardly; you're facing pressures and assaults from all sides that have to be maintained without overtly offending anyone.
George was just the opposite. He was still moderate but never stoic. He was bombastic, always. He said, and I heard him say it, "We follow every law, every rule, every goddamn regulation with regards to race." What he didn't say, but was very clear by his actions, was, "BUT, we will deal with almost anything else. We will not draw attention to Millsaps with this kind of strife." In his mind, he was protecting us. To many, that made him an asshole, a cultural fascist, but I think he was ok with that. In his mind, he was putting his body between the school and what might hurt it. He was strong enough to take the heat himself.
What George knew, what I've come to understand, is that in issues of cultural evolution, the majority never see those who seek change as heroes; at the moment, they're the villains, and only through the lens of history do they become heroes. In the moment, you don't want to be the guy who resists change either. You might be a hero in the moment, but history will paint you a villain. Consider Ross Barnett. He was a hero in the moment, but what is he now?
George was a little guy, but he was strong, and when he hunkered down, nothing would move him. Not even my dad. That's the moderate path, though. You're a stone in the stream. You let the water flow over and past you, but you resist it, slowing its force, protecting the weaker creatures living in the lee side of your life.
I'd love to say that George and my dad were firebrands for social justice in the civil rights movement. I'd love to say they were revolutionaries because history makes heroes of revolutionaries. That's not the case, though. In that moment, in that day, they had to protect what was and let the waters of revolution and change flow around them to their destination.
I'm proud of the place Millsaps and Galloway hold in the history of Mississippi and the revolution of the civil rights movement. It wasn't a straightforward path, though. There were times when we resisted and times when we let the water flow through, and we were always among the first to reach the goal of change but always criticized for not being THE first, although we sometimes were.
Traditionalists hate moderates, but sometimes revolutionaries hate them even more. They want to burn down the world and rebuild it with their philosophy, but that's not always the best path. There are people living in the homes revolutionaries want to burn, and it's the moderates who shelter them while the world changes. You don't become a hero. Nobody builds statues to moderates, but you serve the future and the past and shelter the present, which is a much more difficult task.
Conservatives build dams. Revolutionaries plow deep channels to let the water charge past with destructive force. Moderates build meanders and baffles in the stream to stop the flood but let the water pass by us into the sea. Conservatives hate us. Revolutionaries hate us. But the water gets to where it needs to go with as little damage as possible.
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