"Ceremonies In Dark Old Men" Theo (Robert Aston) explains a new money making scheme to his brother Bobby Kevin Broughton) in this 1973 college production.
A half-century ago a bunch of white bread kids from the suburbs were about as out of place as you can get. Six white teenagers carrying paint cans and a ladder in Mantua, Philadelphia. After dark. In the winter of 1968/69. Coming back to the base home after dark from a work project (a big no no), we got challenged by several local gang members. They were intimidating and threatening. We stammered a lot. We explained we were coming from a job with the Young Great Society and Mr. Wrice. We shifted around some. They postured some. Then one of them told the others to back off. Leave us be. We told our leaders of the encounter when we returned. Mr. Wrice snorted a laugh and shook his head as he walked away. Our host, a local minister, gave us the “what for” about violating the “back before dark” rule. He was a patient man and I wish for the world I could remember his name. (Update: A reader reminds me it was probably Reverend Riley. What a great Community.)
How did I get here? A suburban high school student carrying paint cans and a ladder, after dark, in arguably one of the most depressed sections of Philadelphia. There were six us on that project. I remember there were two girls and three other guys. Same profile. That day we had been painting the halls and stairwell of a bedlam.
Part of our education was the reality of shootings and stabbings in the area know as Mantua. Only later did I learn that over the years more than 10 gangs laid claim and fought over Mantua turf.
One weekend I was part of a small group in a side discussion with Herman Wrice. Mr. Wrice was a community organizer and a major force in West Philadelphia. He launched campaigns to get drug dealers out of Mantua and worked with the police to stabilize the neighborhood. Later in his career he was hired by the Department of Justice to explain his grass roots anti-drug approach to communities across the country. Today a thirty foot mural of him appears on the side of a home at 33rd and Haverford Avenues.
At some point during a wide ranging conversation about race, poverty, social justice and absentee landlords he looked at me and said, “You’re already successful. You inherited the System.” As a high school student, it was a perplexing statement. It took several years of on again, off again reflection; campus race protests, a church take over and other life forming events to fully appreciate his statement of fact. Today we call it White Privilege. A comment from one man gave me a radical new perspective.
One of the volunteer options available to me was a Weekend Work Camp. Work Camps began in 1940 by David S. Richie, a Quaker activist. By the 1960s they were allied with the Young Great Society program founded by Herman Wrice and the Mantua Community Planners founded by Andrew Jenkins. On weekends, all year round, high school students from surrounding communities converged on Mantua and volunteered for the many repair and cleanup projects the neighborhood needed. We arrived Friday evening and lived in neighborhood homes.
We cleaned up abandoned lots to prepare them for conversion into tiny parks or play grounds. Or we would paint blank walls with primer for later use a mural space. We chipped lead based paint and applied latex. Godfrey Cambridge or Richard Pryor had a routine about little kids eating a breakfast of paint chips. True but not funny. Lead poisoning was rampant in most large cities and linked to learning disabilities among other things.
Mr. Parker (William Cook) tries to reason with his two sons, Theo and Bobby. Mr. Cook, later PhD, became the Chair of African American Studies at a major university.
Neighbors worked next to us. Sometimes kids our age; but the dynamic of teenage Black kids working with a bunch of white suburban kids was sometimes strained and suspicious, despite our presence no longer being a novelty. The 8 to 12 year olds were less intimidated and became willing helpers. We got to see a little bit of what life looked like in an American ghetto of the 1960s. One night we left a job (late again) and followed a blood trail in the snow. Blood from a local stabbing or possibly a gun shot. The trail continued past our base house.
While on one of our abandoned lot projects - a narrow strip where a row home had once stood - we heard loud arguing from out on the street. Foolishly, a couple of us went to the sidewalk and looked up the street. It was summer. Philadelphia is known for its tree lined streets - even in Mantua. Across the street and down the block a man dressed in a long flowing coat was arguing with a man on the sidewalk. The guy with the coat pulled out a 45 caliber semi-automatic and fired one round at the guy. (Yea, at this point in my young life I could recognize a GI issue side arm.) Coat Man stuck the pistol in his belt, got into a maroon sedan with a white half landau top and drove away. Slow and easy. Close enough that we got the license plate. The debtor kept repeating, “He didn’t have to shoot me, I’d get the money. Damn mother fucker didn’t have to shoot me.” As he turned away we could easily see the back of his upper arm was a shredded mess of blood and muscle. A .45 makes a pretty good size hole going in, but on the way out, it makes a mess.
We excitedly told our group leader what we saw and the license number. He directed us back to work and told us we didn’t see anything. “No but, really, we saw . . .” “No. You didn’t.” End of discussion.
Our education continued. That night back at base, the shooting and the dynamics of the neighborhood became a protracted discussion. Numbers running, casual drug use, hard core drug dealing, addiction, low level shake downs of neighborhood merchants just trying to feed their families. Economic inequity, political power, the System, Black Power, white flight. These all became recurring discussions as white suburban kids cycled through the Work Camps. Some came once. Some made it three times. Some made it past a dozen weekends.
We brought sleeping bags and slept on the floor. We ate exotic foods like collard greens and chitterlings. We played endless games of Nibbly-Bibble at night. We were an audience for The Dozens. The Reverend made us go outside for that. On Sunday we went to church and sat in the back. Instantly I fell for Gospel music. I mean foot stomping, hand clapping, heart pounding, dance in the aisle, can I get an Amen Gospel. Always fun to watch the rookies first exposure to that. Living in a neighborhood home, for a brief moment, we got to see and hear what residents saw every day from their porch.
“You Inherited the System.”
Trying to explain to friends what I did on the weekend was difficult. “Why would you do that?” The Civil Rights Act was less than six years old. In the words of Pearl Bailey to Dick Cavett, “There got to be ten of us everywhere now honey.” A quip on the requirement for government contractors to have at least ten percent minority employees. The summers of ’65 to ’68 saw the frustration of the Black inner cities boil over and burn. National Guard troops patrolled the streets to stop looting and burning. Most white Americans only saw the inner cities on TV when they were on fire.
My town had a youth center that sponsored dances and activities for high school students. I went occasionally to listen to the live bands and try to dance. There was an African-American girl who hung around with me. We danced and I bought her Cokes. I was too stupid to recognize she was flirting and really liked me. It was just fun. A couple Black schoolmates had a serious talk with me about her. Leave her alone. But at the next dance; there she was. That week they had a blanket party for me in the boy’s room. “Leave her alone, there ain’t enough Sisters to go around.” So I had the perverse experience of working with Black folks in the inner city and getting beat up by Black kids in my suburban high school.
Skip ahead. Somehow I got into college. Fall 1972 the college president calls me in. At the time I worked on the college paper. It was an era of continued unrest. Vietnam protests, complaints about abortion advertising, racial accusations against the college, there was a militant Women’s Lib faction, a faculty member had been removed for sexist reasons and a couple buildings burned. The student newspaper was trying to do right by the various controversies and issues, but we weren’t exactly a good recruiting tool. So I was suspicious about the meeting. There was the college President, the Director for Minority Affairs and another assistant. They asked me to help set up a minority newspaper. Yea, really. But I couldn't tell anyone. It was all on the DL. This was an era of the Black Panthers and Black militants. While SNCC was working in one way, others in the Black community took more radical action. So I got thrown into the lion’s den of unsympathetic, suspicious students. It was like they were all from Missouri. “Great. Whitey gonna show us how to run a newspaper.” Oh, great.
Mr. Parker confronted by a character only identified as “The Girl” (Suzette Taylor).
The college had about 9,000 students. Fewer than 400 were Black or people of color. The college paper had exactly two Black staffers out of about fifteen regulars. One guy dropped off his stories and never hung around the office. The other guy transferred after the first year.
Helping start a minority newspaper was an interesting experience. Starting any newspaper from scratch would be. I wasn't there to tell them how or what to write, rather the mechanics of producing a paper that would look "authentic" and credible to their audience. The minority paper was provided office space but was to share production equipment. The college paper had a phototypesetter and did all the layout and typesetting in house. A big deal in 1972. I was to show them how to create a budget, how the equipment worked, how to make photo captions, headlines and design an eight to twelve page weekly tabloid. But I was sent by “The Man” and immediately suspect.
Herman Wrice set me up for awareness of the privilege I enjoyed simply because I was white. I lived in the home of Black folks, went to their churches, worked on run down homes. I was exposed to Black people more than my white peers. Being around Black folks was not a new experience. Now, being the lone white in a sea of Black fellow students, made me wrestle with my “whiteness.” My Father never had the “talk” with me and planning the family vacation didn't require the Green Book.
Over the years, there are feelings that stick with you. It is difficult to explain the dynamics, discomfort and angst during this time. The staff was eager, enthusiastic and wanted to learn everything all at once. Eager to have the paper look right and visually reinforce the writing. Nearly every time I walked into the office, the room went silent. The stare. The buzz of the room returns while I looked for a familiar face. In a perceptive moment, one of the editors asked me, “You uncomfortable?” “Yea, kinda; sometimes.” He responded, “It never goes away.”
To be present at the beginning of any endeavor is exciting. But this was not my endeavor. I was not of be part of it, but only a catalyst and go away. So much to cover; quickly.
They told me the paper should look “Black.” They wanted to write stories “Blackly.” I presumed that meant they wanted writing that was authentic to the Black experience. Others would help them find their voice. And they would eventually arrive at a design format that made a strong visual statement. During one of our coaching sessions, I said something that stopped the room. I have no idea today what the phrase was, but they wanted to know where I got the line; the words. I explained Mantua a little bit. After that they loosened up - some. Time exposed to a different world let me do my assignment in a way I could never anticipate.
Photography. The college yearbook and newspaper shared a dark room. With the addition of another weekly paper, there had to be a schedule. That quickly dissolved into a loose fraternity of photo geeks from all three publications. Photography in the mid-twentieth century was a White Privilege hobby. Or at least the darkroom side of it was. A decent camera cost money. Extra lenses cost money. An enlarger, space to work and equipment was a rarity even to a kid from the suburbs. The three groups of photogs worked together and around each other. We tried to bring the new guys up to speed as fast as we could. The Black photographers tended to be veterans who bought good equipment on the way back from Vietnam. We talked about lens with a faster F stop. Argued the advantages of screw mounts vs. bayonet mounts. We discussed documenting stories vs. art. We bulk loaded black and white film and talked about “push processing.” There is a point to this.
In early 1973 the African American Studies Department collaborate with the Theater Department to produce Lonne Elder’s, Pulitzer Prize nominated “Ceremonies in Dark Old Men.” A vivid drama reflecting the Black experience set in a Harlem barber shop. It was the first African-American theater production in the history of the college. Actors, director, crew. It was a big deal. They even imported an age appropriate English teacher from a local high school to play the father. He eventually got a PhD and became the chair of African American Studies at a large university.
Theaters display cast photos in the lobby and perhaps a photo of some dramatic moment on stage. None of the head shots were acceptable to the director. Not the composition, but the contrast; the blacks and gray tones were unappealing. Not flattering at all. Somehow I got involved in this and arranged a photo shoot a few days before opening. Ironically, light metering for black and white film apparently had a skin color bias. One of the actors looked at my lens. “What’s the deal with the green filter?” The technical details don’t matter here. What matters is recognition of a flaw in my coaching. I was making assumptions based on the bias of privilege. There were techniques to get highlights and various skin tones to pop in a black and white print. Time for an overdue darkroom coaching session. Today we have Photoshop.
Epilogue
So fifty years on, does any of this matter? Somewhere in the DK Rules of The Road is encouragement to write about what influenced your political views. Bringing a bunch of suburban white kids into the neediest part of a city created an opportunity to see a world few white Americans have seen close up. What I learned from the Mantua experience is no doubt more than I contributed. Oh sure, if you reference the Starfish allegory; the old guy walking the beach throwing starfish back into the surf - the hallways with fresh paint, the lots cleared, the front porch repaired - “it mattered to this one.” In some ways the point of the Work Camp experience was to also raise the consciousness of the volunteers. I’d like to think those early events created thoughtful action over the years. My work placed me in a position to direct funds, and push them toward Black arts, literature and culture. My diplomatic skills were pressed when the boss complemented a Black job candidate with, “Well, he’s very well spoken.”
How much has changed in a half-century? Not enough. I volunteer with a man who was a vice president for a Fortune 500 company. There are more Black anchors and reporters. Commercials are much more inclusive or reflective of the plurality in society. There’s more than one TV show with key Black characters. But then there are “some very good people,” and tone deaf Confederate flag wavers and the general war on POC continues. And the National Guard is back on the streets.
And then there is a Black doctor unloading boxes in front of his home and gets arrested. A Black man with a mask. What can go wrong? And there’s Steven Taylor and Ariane McCree and Trevon Martin and Tamir Rice (12) and Michael Dean and Jamee Johnson and Michael Brown and Antown Rose (13) and Sean Reed and William Green and Julius Johnson and Gregory Gunn and Sean Bell and Alton Sterling and Walter Scott and Ahmaud Arbery and, and . . .
. . . George Floyd.
Post Script:
I started writing this Diary in early May. George Floyd was murdered May 25th. The Diary was put aside. It felt unimportant; irrelevant. The news cycle has passed, as it does, and 143,000 Americans are dead who were alive on March 2nd.
Are Diaries allowed to have a Post Script? Didn’t see anything the guidelines. This Diary emerged from a comment made in April. I was encouraged to make a Diary out of it. At best, it is a reflection on events a half-century ago. At worst, it is simply an irrelevant memoir of an old man.
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