One of the things I did while I was at home for Moms funeral was to go through 3 big boxes of photographs with my brothers and sister. By in large it was a great afternoon full of discoveries and fond memories. Images ranged from the early 1900's going forward and were filled with family history. Given the sheer amount of material Father instructed that we take the images we wanted at this time... and I came back with 100 or so images of my early child hood. There was one image found that gave me great pause and stirred up some pretty powerful memories both good and not so good and I have been thinking about it for a couple weeks now trying to put some context of the events in my seventh year of my life, 1967.
Some of my earliest memories surround the eruption in Detroit on July 23, 1967.... The city had stumbled into the largest inner city race riot in american history. (until it was eclipsed by the 94 LA riots) The violence escalated throughout Monday, July 24, resulting in some 483 fires, 231 incidents reported per hour, and 1800 arrests. Looting and arson were widespread. Snipers took shots at firefighters who were attempting to fight the fires, possibly with some with the 2,498 rifles and 38 handguns that were stolen from local stores. To put it into total perspective over the period of five days, forty-three people died, of whom 33 were black. 467 injured: 182 civilians, 167 Detroit police officers, 83 Detroit firefighters, 17 National Guard troops, 16 State Police officers, 3 U.S. Army soldiers, 7,231 arrested: 6,528 adults, 703 juveniles; 6,407 blacks, 824 whites, 2,509 stores looted or burned, 388 families homeless or displaced and 412 buildings burned or damaged enough to be demolished. To say that this event changed Detroit forever is an understatement as 250,000 white people flee the city over the next 3 years, collapsing the tax base and sending Detroit into tail spin it is only now recovering from.
Being 7 I saw the images on the TV screen, heard the gun fire and saw the orange night sky from my home as Detroit burned. They looked just like the images we were all seeing in Vietnam. My parents tried to put it into perspective for me and my brother and sister but it wasn't until school started that I more fully understood the underling issues at hand. My school had become a the target of a boycott as the first black teacher had been placed to teach the second grade, Wilma Floyd. Before school could start there was an emergency meeting of the PTA with school officials, a vote of the parents would determine if Mrs. Floyd would stay and I remember my parents were very impassioned about wanting her to stay. I remember mother trying to explain to people why,the conversations sometimes breaking down into fights. Listening in on the adults was a pass time for me and it was through these conversations I got my education into the politics of race and prejudice, I remember thinking that adults had a knack for making things more complicated than necessary. In the end Wilma Floyd stayed and second grade started in earnest.
Forward to may of 1968, It had become clear that the year had been a struggle for me academically and when my parents saw my report card for the year they were convinced that it would be a mistake to send me into the third grade. A view not shared by Wilma Floyd or the principal of the school. The age of passing people through was in full swing and they were convinced that to keep me back would be damaging... My parents were not thrilled and insisted I be kept back. And I was. All of these upheavals only added to my dread of not moving forward with my class and that summer was awful. I was a gangly, nerdy, kid who had just been forced to wear these big ass black glasses (the mark of death) and now I had just failed second grade. Flunked! I hated my parents for making me stay back, I hated the school and I felt a failure. That summer I railed against little league, the cub scouts and anything else I could rail against!
Going into that class again in the fall of 68 was horrific and I was determined to make Wilma pay! For the first couple of months, I made sure my anger was registered in full with her.. this was her fault (or so I thought) One day she had picked on me more than a few times during class, and I simply lost it, throwing my pencil at the black board and uttering something uncomplimentary under my breath. Needless to say I had to wait till my parents came to get me... that night and in the interim Wilma Floyd gave me the come to Jesus lecture of life, replete with breaking my pencil in half as if to say that only one of us was going to survive this experience and it wasn't going to be me if I didn't straighten up my attitude. The beating I got when I got home helped to seal the deal.
When I went back to class Wilma Floyd made a deal with me that I never forgot. She promised me that if I put a better effort in that she would not only back off riding me, but would help me save some face in class by elevating me to the status of teachers aide, she told me that she thought I was smarter than I was acting and that she had confidence in me succeeding.
The pact played out and in the spring of 69 I moved on to a better summer and the third grade in the fall. I was a new man and by the time the last day of school came around I was in love with Wilma Floyd! I've tried for years to track her down, to tell her that she made a big difference in my life... but to no avail... Seeing this picture of her brought all of those memories back into crystal clarity for me...
Looking back I learned allot in the second grade, not just the usual second grade stuff, but some pretty adult lessons about race and prejudice, about failure and how to overcome and succeed in life as well, I hope by blogging it that some how she will know how much I appreciated her ... Thanks Wilma!
Photo of Wilma Floyd taken my my mother.
Note: All images and text (not specified) is copyrighted by Christopher Cushman. This site does not specify or denote the sexual orientation of any model and as such please post your comments accordingly.
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