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Authors: Michele Norris
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radio, more than the three black suits he owned (two more than most men on his block), my grandfather treasured this ritual of walking with his family to church.
In my mind’s eye I can see Belvin and Fannie leading their sons to the First Baptist Church on Avenue G, nodding at neighbors, walking slowly but with purpose in the Alabama heat, gently waving fans glued to Popsicle sticks. I see my grandfather, one hand in his pocket, the other intertwined with his wife’s. And I see six boys ambling behind them, all with slightly knock-kneed gaits, poking and elbowing each other as they secretly pass mints and chewing gum back and forth. The scene is easy to imagine, for on two occasions, the boys returned to First Baptist to bury their parents. As often happens at funerals, children revert to their earliest family roles. The jokester. The pacifist. The cheapskate. There they were, middle-aged men, each with one of Grandma Fannie’s lace hankies in his breast pocket, passing Chiclets and breath spray around. They stood in the church vestibule, joshing with one another about their expanding waistlines and receding hairlines, signifyin’ before assuming their pallbearer duties. Sometimes you do have to laugh to keep from crying.
I spent part of every summer in Alabama from when I was in swaddling clothes until I entered junior high. When I turned five years old, my parents began sending me by myself. I would fly unaccompanied, and they would drive down to meet me two or three weeks later. It was complicated travel; the airlines had names that aligned with a compass: Northwest out of Minneapolis to Atlanta, then a flight on Southern Airways for thelast leg to Birmingham. While the bombings and racial tumult at the time may have prevented us from going to certain parts of town, the chaos could not keep us away from Birmingham.
“You got off the train. You went to the black neighborhoods and you kept your butt in the black neighborhoods until it was time to go home,” my mother said. Whenever we ventured downtown, we’d always map out a route so that we’d know exactly where to find colored restrooms in case someone couldn’t hold their water. And when we visited relatives in the country, there was always a coffee can in the trunk.
Until recently, I never understood how much of Alabama lives in me. I always identify myself as Minnesotan. But the spirit of Ensley resides in my soul. The rock-solid sense of community. The way everyone on the street claimed you as their own. The safe harbor on every porch along the block. Neighbors who went out of their way to talk to each other every day, saying, “C’mon up here, girl, and have a cool drink” or “Why don’t you sit down and snap some peas with me?” or “I got the Braves game on the radio, want to sit for a spell?”
I sensed more communal love raining down on me in Ensley than at any other time in my life. Maybe it was a childhood illusion, but back in Alabama, I felt as if everywhere you turned someone cheered you on—and not just family members. Everybody was in the same boat, rowing in the same direction, determined to get somewhere better fast.
The irony is that when so many of us got there, the community bonds began to fray. A generation that had championed pioneers—the first professional black baseball player, the first black Supreme Court justice, the first black city council member, the first black this or that—knew all too well, in the early days of integration, that only a chosen few would get to the top.
As universities and law firms tiptoed toward diversity, only a handful of slots would be available to blacks. So parents who’d publicly championed black progress in general would secretlykneel in prayer at night, begging the Lord to let their children be among the lucky few. “Let opportunities rain on all our children, but please, Lord, if they’re only taking one at the law or medical school, or just one in the National Honor Society or at
In my mind’s eye I can see Belvin and Fannie leading their sons to the First Baptist Church on Avenue G, nodding at neighbors, walking slowly but with purpose in the Alabama heat, gently waving fans glued to Popsicle sticks. I see my grandfather, one hand in his pocket, the other intertwined with his wife’s. And I see six boys ambling behind them, all with slightly knock-kneed gaits, poking and elbowing each other as they secretly pass mints and chewing gum back and forth. The scene is easy to imagine, for on two occasions, the boys returned to First Baptist to bury their parents. As often happens at funerals, children revert to their earliest family roles. The jokester. The pacifist. The cheapskate. There they were, middle-aged men, each with one of Grandma Fannie’s lace hankies in his breast pocket, passing Chiclets and breath spray around. They stood in the church vestibule, joshing with one another about their expanding waistlines and receding hairlines, signifyin’ before assuming their pallbearer duties. Sometimes you do have to laugh to keep from crying.
I spent part of every summer in Alabama from when I was in swaddling clothes until I entered junior high. When I turned five years old, my parents began sending me by myself. I would fly unaccompanied, and they would drive down to meet me two or three weeks later. It was complicated travel; the airlines had names that aligned with a compass: Northwest out of Minneapolis to Atlanta, then a flight on Southern Airways for thelast leg to Birmingham. While the bombings and racial tumult at the time may have prevented us from going to certain parts of town, the chaos could not keep us away from Birmingham.
“You got off the train. You went to the black neighborhoods and you kept your butt in the black neighborhoods until it was time to go home,” my mother said. Whenever we ventured downtown, we’d always map out a route so that we’d know exactly where to find colored restrooms in case someone couldn’t hold their water. And when we visited relatives in the country, there was always a coffee can in the trunk.
Until recently, I never understood how much of Alabama lives in me. I always identify myself as Minnesotan. But the spirit of Ensley resides in my soul. The rock-solid sense of community. The way everyone on the street claimed you as their own. The safe harbor on every porch along the block. Neighbors who went out of their way to talk to each other every day, saying, “C’mon up here, girl, and have a cool drink” or “Why don’t you sit down and snap some peas with me?” or “I got the Braves game on the radio, want to sit for a spell?”
I sensed more communal love raining down on me in Ensley than at any other time in my life. Maybe it was a childhood illusion, but back in Alabama, I felt as if everywhere you turned someone cheered you on—and not just family members. Everybody was in the same boat, rowing in the same direction, determined to get somewhere better fast.
The irony is that when so many of us got there, the community bonds began to fray. A generation that had championed pioneers—the first professional black baseball player, the first black Supreme Court justice, the first black city council member, the first black this or that—knew all too well, in the early days of integration, that only a chosen few would get to the top.
As universities and law firms tiptoed toward diversity, only a handful of slots would be available to blacks. So parents who’d publicly championed black progress in general would secretlykneel in prayer at night, begging the Lord to let their children be among the lucky few. “Let opportunities rain on all our children, but please, Lord, if they’re only taking one at the law or medical school, or just one in the National Honor Society or at
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