How the South was won

Before Brown v Board of Education, before Rosa Park and the Montgomery Bus Boycott, before the Civil Rights Movement, there were a group of Black farm hands in the small farming community of Tibbs, approximately 10 miles east of Brownsville, Tennessee who had had enough of being afraid in their own homes and declared enough. It had been common practice for blacks to fear being in the wrong place at the wrong time.   It had been common practice to teach their children what to do and what not to do in the present or even the eye-sight of the “bosses”.  It was common practice to see bodies dangling from trees and not be able to even cut them down.  It was common practice to live with the fear of beatings or death constantly everyday.  That was common practice until a small group of those same farm hands decided that they were not going to take it any more.

I never knew how close I was to this part of history until the conversation began between my mother and me.  I guess I really never had a reason to ask her about growing up in Tibbs Community until recently.  The conversation started because I was trying to understand why my mother, the lady who raised me never to look at the color of anyone’s skin seemed to be still harboring some radical race feelings of her own.  I had this conversation with her thinking that finally, I might be able to help her shed some of her demons and it ended up helping me probably more than it helped her.  I had thought, growing up, the tide turned when the FBI became involved.  I took the movies “Mississippi Burning” and “Rosewood” as the signal of that change.  I was wrong because the time frame for the beginning of change happened in Tibbs occurred in the late 1920s early and mid 1930s long before any of the well-known events mentioned above.

There was a particular group of whites in the community that all blacks were warned to stay away from.  There were stories of beatings where any black suspected of anything whether proven or not were taken into the woods and beaten so badly that they could not even make it back home.  The “N” word spewed from hateful mouths as if it was the same as bidding a person good day but behind that word was beatings and lynching’s.  The “N” word replaced the government names of many blacks and it became so prevalent that some were even answering to it.  There were house raids by those who thought they knew better how to keep these people in line and even thought there were no telephones available to the black community in Tibbs; they knew when the raids would come.  They knew what homes would be targeted but they did not know if theirs would be hit as well because of proximity.

Only after it became known that this group was standing up and not running away, did things begin to change.  There were no help in the form of local authorities, governments or even federal aid.  There was no legal avenue available for those to protect their own.  Fifty-five years after the Civil War, these blacks were still emerged in a war.  Maybe not the typical war that many are used to but a war nonetheless.   It was not about the freedom of a country even the freedom of a people; it was a war of survival.

Today’s events references back to those times because we are still in a struggle for survival.  This struggle is not limited to one race or another but to this nation as a whole.  We are under assault today as venomous as past years.  We are under assault by big corporations who places profit over people and environmental preservation.  We are under assault by those who believe that “all men are created equal” means only a select few.  We are under assault by the disappearance of civility, compassion and justice.  We are under assault form any thing that threatens our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.  We are under assault by gangs, drugs and tricksters who would rather get something for nothing instead of earning it.  It’s time for us to stand up and say enough.  We are under assault by those who would approve workers to come here and do their bidding but would deny them a piece of the “American Dream”.  Its time for a few to ring the bell of true freedom for all and not just for the privileged or wealthy.  The Civil Rights Movement showed that major changes can be made through non-violent means so knowing this we should exploit that knowledge and through it finally deliver on the responsibility placed upon us by those that came before and those who will follow.  If you truly believe that this nation is truly the beacon on the hill, it’s time to stand up and prove it from sea to shining sea.