Masaryk university faculty of education

Evening: 18 p.m. – 22 p.m.

2.3.1. The end of the day in the 21^st century

Richard’s day continues in the way of the entertainment after his job. He goes to the park where he meets his girlfriend and they go together from the park to the club to dance. This simple live that is taken now for granted for young people, especially for students, is for the Black people far from the true during the segregation period.

2. Segregated evening

What would happen if Richard falls in love with a white girl? What if they wanted to go to the local ball? What if they wanted to go just to the park? The painful restriction for the black people took place also in this area and prevented white people from getting in any touch with colored people.

The relationships between the Black and white people are complicated since the slavery period. The strict laws in segregation period were constructed to prevent the contact between two races and their mixing. However, these laws could not pre-empt everything. The evidence of biracial people has been here since the slavery time. As Woodward shows, mixed balls and masked balls were popular in the times of the slavery (15)

Interesting explanation of the relationship during the slavery gives Kenneth B. Young in his interview with Paul Ortiz:

Every now and then you had what you called an issue free Negro, never was a slave. He was born free. Now they don't discuss that much because that's kind of a dark side to the white folk's history. It usually meant a white girl had an illegitimate child. As a rule she gave it to a black family... They didn't discuss it because that was a black mark on a white family to have a black child in that family. They were privileged. …They could buy land, move around where, now they never meddled with white people… But the white folks respected them much more than they did the ordinary blacks. (“Interview with Kenneth B. Young and Mai Young (btvct11100)”)

The Jim Crow law in the state Alabama from 1923 set the penalty for the relationship between the Black and white people which was at least two years in the prison. One of the most repugnant crimes that happened in the South in Mississippi will always remind how hateful the atmosphere in the South was and how far the white people were willing to go to “protect” their women. (“The Rise and fall of Jim Crow: Interactive maps”)

Case: Emmett Till

Emmett Louis Till was fourteen years old when he went from Chicago to Money, Mississippi to visit his uncle Moses Wright. On 24^th of August Emmett went with other children to the Bryant’s grocery and Meat Market. Emmett stayed inside a bit longer than others and he bought a bubble gum. Later witnesses say that they heard a whistle. It was Emmett whistling at the wife of the owner, Carolyn Bryant. (Timeline: Murder of Emmett Till” pbs.org) By this action he “broke one of segregation’s rules. He talked fresh to a white woman… He was a Northerner and he didn’t understand. ” (“Eyes on the Prize Awakenings”) Four days later in the middle of the night, Carolyn’s armed husband and other man came for Emmett, drove him away from home and brutally murdered. His body was discovered 3 days later in the Tallahatchie River. The body was almost impossible to identify. The body was naked, badly damaged and the only way how to identify it was a ring with Emmett’s initials.

The funeral was an open casket because Emmet’s mother wanted to show, what these men did to the young fourteen years old boy. People were fainting when they saw Emmet’s mutilated body. The part, where Mississippi showed its shameful attitude and injustice, was about to come. Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam were arrested and brought to a court. The trial in Sumner was a huge public event. Even here, the courtroom was segregated and when the Congressman arrived at the trial, they did not want to let him in. The court took five days. The defense advocated the charge that the body was so disfigured that it could not be recognized if it was Emmett Till. Moses Wright witnessed at the trial, but he was in the danger due to many frauds and intimidations, so he travelled out of the Mississippi before and after the trial. Despite Wright’s witnesses “the jury found the men not guilty”. (“Eyes on the prize Awakenings”)

The final decision appears to people nowadays as impossible. The case of Emmett Till will always remind a cruelty that existed in some places in the South.

The joy of the day ended in the park in the 21^st century. It was possible to go to the park also in the 20st century but in some states there were restrictions. Some of the parks were segregated and the Black people were not allowed to go there. Mr. Charles Austin Gratton describes in his interview the situation:

They also had a park. It was about a block from where I was born and raised and where I lived, and it was known as the white people's park. They had a tennis court there and nice park trees, and blacks wasn't allowed in that park. I mean, we just couldn't go there. (“Interview with Charles Austin Gratton (btvct02026)”)

The end of the day was for Richard common in the 21^st century but it has to be considered that in 1952 there were not many clubs and it was not common to go to a party or a bar once or twice a week. More common ways of entertainment were theatres, cinemas, circuses or billiard rooms. If colored people were allowed to go to these places, they did not occupy the first rows.

Mr. Gratton remembers that on 4^th Avenue in Norwood there was a movie theater, where they could go. 4^th Avenue was known as “the black business district” and colored people could go there to have a meal, to shop or to spend a free time and as he says “to enter the front door”. He explains that in the rest of the town, in the segregated places, people had to enter the back doors and their seats were not in the best places. Usually there were reserved some back seats, in the theatre it were for example balconies. (“Interview with Charles Austin Gratton (btvct02026)”)

The day of Richard is over. Richard was limited during the transformed day at least in 9 activities that were normal for him in his ordinary life. There were other restrictions as in trains, hospitals or jails, but for the credibility of the story they were not included.

3.