Man, Meteor, and Message

Come Sunday morning I’ll be leading the second class on “Encounters with Jesus.” Nathanael’s story from John 1 is the focus this week. It is a curious story.  Placed in the middle of three or so “days” in sequence, it tells the story of one guy, Philip, telling another guy by the name of Nathanael that they had found the Messiah. It is a profound though short story, and he is never heard from again.

As an introduction to the class, I’ll ask, “What is a story of your encounter with another person that shot like a meteor through the sky, but still resonates with you even now?” Depending upon the conversation that is created, I may or may not tell my story of Doc Washington. Here it is for those who want to read it.

Mr. Washington began teaching at the white high school where I attended as a transition from a black high school and a white high school to one school. As I was told, there was an exchange of teachers, some going to Westside High School and some coming to Trinity High School where I went as a prelude to complete integration. He was black.  I was white. He was a teacher. I was a student.

I had all of my science courses with him, biology, chemistry, and physics. Most who know me know that I am not a “science guy,” but for some reason, Mr. Washington saw something in me.  He told me on more than one occasion and in more than one way that I could do science, that I had a good mind. I can still see him now in his white lab coat, and me in my white lab coat, the one that he bought me.  I can still see the lab he set up, and the one in which I mixed chemicals to create hand lotion for the local county fair entry in science. He was engaging, articulate, and to me, he was brilliant and a man ahead of his time. Later I found out that he’d earned a masters from Sam Houston State University and a doctorate from California Berkley. He was an educator for 35 years and he was a veteran of the US Army. 

Beyond all of that, he was a mentor at a challenging time in my life as well as a challenging time in the history of my high school. As a black teacher in a white high school, I heard that he was ostracized by both communities. I, too felt some of that sort of thing, but mine were slight by comparison to what I assume his microaggressions and macroagressions were. I was called on one occasion, “Mr. Washington,” and read it as an insult.  On another occasion I was called a “N****r lover,” and for sure that was an insult. The white lab coat was an invitation to insult both him and me.  No one else had a lab coat at that time.  I was sort of his lab assistant. There was a price to pay.

Besides being on the end of those insults, and I have no idea what kind of insults he experienced, he taught me to believe in myself. He taught me to improvise. When conducting a lab experiment, if everything was not in place, improvise, or use skills of ingenuity. He actually passed out an award for that every so often.  My name was on his awards board more than once. He taught me how to mentor and how to engage with people of different persuasions.  He taught me that learning was imbedded in relationships. He taught me that music is a part of life. He played the saxophone. One evening I walked into a house where my brother and his band were playing.  There sat Mr. Washington. What a moment.  Seriously what a moment. I also learned that the young and the older can hang together.  The last time I saw him I was 18 years of age and he was 43 or so.

I am indebted to him.  A black man living in Jim Crow south believing in a white kid who did not yet believe in himself. He transitioned on March 16, 2010. Oh, to have one more conversation with him.  Just one more.

Prayer, Persistence, and Change

Sometimes things intersect. In reality, or just in my mind. Today that happened. The text of Luke 18 and the parable of the persistent widow is one.  A friend from Trinity High School is another. The Jim Crow south and separate but equal another.

No one was taking care of the widow. She appeared frequently before a judge who was powerful and fearless before God, one who disregarded people. Her persistence amounted to wearing him down or beating him up. She had no bribe money, or that would have made things easier. The setting for the story is most likely a typical small village through which Jesus would walk. Four times in this text a unique word is used. Transliterated in various forms it is ekdikesin, or vengeance, or justice. “Grant me justice against my adversary,” verse 3; “I will see that she gets justice,” verse 5; “will not God bring about justice,” verse 7; and “he will see that they get justice,” verse 8.

For some time now, I have been pondering a task.  Call me foolish or call me a dreamer, or call me a whatever. My wish would be to find an African American male student at Westside High School from Trinity, Texas who graduated in 1968. Perhaps he and I could discuss our paths to and from school and life in Trinity, Texas. I graduated from Trinity High School that same year. THS was a mere five or so blocks from WHS, but they were worlds apart. The white school was on the main highway that ran north and south through town. The black school was off to the west by several blocks.  I seldom saw black students, as I recall, anywhere around Trinity, except for that one time on a Saturday night I heard, along with a lot of other whites of the community, the football game on the THS field played by the Westside team. We got up on top of the animal barns and watched part of the game. Cheering was different. The teams were different. The band played different music. I was enthralled, but not enough to ask questions. This team, so history bears out, was one of the best in the state of Texas. Those students were invisible to me in my narrowmindedness. Was I invisible to them? The racial divide was there even in a town with a population of 1,776. For that, I repent.

I suppose that Black citizens prayed persistently like the woman did in Luke 18. Surely they persisted in prayer against the injustices of Jim Crow south and the egregious separate but equal system that only served to make the distinctions even more distinct. During my senior year in high school, Phenita Dennis, 10^th grade; Priscilla Dennis, 9^th grade; Tom Whorton, 8^th grade; Dwight Dennis, Artie Mae Mayse, and Cynthia Wheeler, 7^th grades; and Carolyn Thomas, 6^th grade, had integrated the white senior high and junior high. How much courage did they and their families possess? How persistent were their prayers? How persistent were their actions?

I have met via social media, a gentleman who was in the last graduating class of the 8^th grade from Westside Junior High. He grieves that there is nothing there at WHS to signify that a school was ever actually there.  No monument, no marker, no buildings. I grieve with him. He mattered. His school mattered. It apparently does not matter enough for someone to erect a historical marker there. I am encouraged by Otis Walker, THS class of ‘72 and his pursuit of righteousness.

My world then was small, very, very small.  So small it was and for probably good reasons.  I was more focused on survival, or so it seems.  I did not have much of a social consciousness other than that part of me revealed when the black church minister and some of his members attended the white church of Christ gospel meeting, or when my dad’s three friends included one white guy, one black guy, and one Hispanic guy.

So, did anyone pray the prayer of the persistent widow for justice against their adversaries, and did the unjust judge ever grant their wishes or they’d wear him out with their persistence.  I hope so. Separate but equal is dismantled. Jim Crow is dismantled, at least in the laws. It remains on in the hearts of people and is intensified during this time of political strife.

Did they pray for justice? Were their prayers answered? Did Jesus’ words ‘always pray and never give up’ mean something to them?

These things just make me wonder. What makes you wonder?