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| Watts Towers made by Simon Rodia in his Los Angeles backyard. Rodia began constructing the towers in 1921. There are 17 interconnected towers made from collected junk completed in 1955. The site is designated a State Historic Park and open to the public. |
The first time I heard the word "nigger" I'm sure it was during my years growing up in Pomona in the Fifties. There was only one black kid at St. Joseph's during my grade school years. My tract neighborhood was entirely white. The word came up in street talk and it was always derogatory, the butt of a joke or comparison to something indecent.
Stereotypes included: They don't know how to handle money, as in, they're poor yet drive Cadillacs. They're ugly. And of course they bring down the value of the neighborhood.
I listened to these stories and wondered about the truth. My parents were old-school of Irish and Scottish ancestry. They were prejudiced in a softer sense. They never used the "n" word.
In my mother's eyes, the wedding of a black and white person would create a serious problem.
"I feel sorry for their children," she said. In her eyes, such kids would not belong to either race, not have an identity.
This may seem ridiculous today. The mixing of races has produced beautiful children. Their parents have probably had a more difficult time adjusting in a nation whose roots are based on segregation and slavery. We fought a Civil War over it.
During the summers of 1963 and 1964, I took a job as a student worker for the Los Angeles Unified School District, the second largest in the U.S. The district included predominantly black areas like South Central L.A. and the community of Watts. It was my first opportunity to work with black kids my age and visit schools of predominantly black populations.
It was thrilling and scary. It opened my eyes to communities that were as foreign to me as another country. The project apartments on Imperial Highway were the most dismal living quarters I had ever seen, faded brown buildings, surrounded by dirt, baked by sun and smog. No trees or plants.
The summer of 64, I was an introverted naive 17-year-old assigned to assist a black man named Charles Johnson. Our job was to drive to various schools and pick up office machines that needed repair, bring them back to central maintenance in downtown Los Angeles.
Johnson was of average size, wore a baseball-style cap that was always askew and had a jovial, outgoing personality. His lower lip protruded most likely due to the omnipresent cigar that hung from his mouth. The black student workers all wanted to be assigned to Johnson. I was the lucky one.
Johnson didn't fit any stereotype that I knew. He was unique. If anything, his sloppy dress and quirky demeanor were that of an absent-minded professor. He promoted education and claimed to have a masters degree from UCLA, which at the time I found hard to believe. I've since changed my mind.
We traveled the freeways and surface streets of greater L.A. in a green Ford panel truck with identifying yellow letters: Los Angeles Unified School District. He drove like a maniac which had me gripping my seat in terror. I didn't know what to say. I was gagging from the foul smelling smoke from his cigar.
He went out of his way to show me the now-famous Watts Towers that a man had constructed in his backyard. We drove up the alley behind the modest neighborhood house. "Look at that! Isn't that something, built with junk.”
I wasn't impressed. I was focused on sports. I wish I could have appreciated it. It struck me as a very funky tower of mortared metal. I can only guess how Johnson perceived my indifference.
Still, wherever we went, Johnson had my back. One time a group of black guys sitting on a wall began heckling me. "Surfer! Surfer! What you doin' here surfer!" I was being stereotyped in my white T-shirt, Levis and blue tennis shoes -- today called Vans.
"Drop outs!" Johnson yelled at them. "You're just a bunch of drop outs!” To my relief and surprise, they shut up.
He loved strawberry ice cream and treated me to ice cream cones at his favorite place. He showed me a large, rambling pet cemetery. "Celebrities have their pets buried here," he said. "Can you believe it?" He thought that was the strangest thing.
I had to think about that. A pet cemetery seemed to me an affectation for the wealthy. A money-making scheme. I paid attention and internalized most of what I saw and felt.
Johnson had a girlfriend who lived in Watts and nearly every afternoon around 3 we would head there on the Harbor Freeway at speeds of up to 90-mph. The panel truck would start to shake on its axles which made me very nervous. We would pick up his girlfriend and take her back to town where she was employed as a maid. Her eyes were as wide open as mine when we arrived.
She lived in a small white house and there were always a bunch of men hanging around the front yard which was scattered with car parts and other odds and ends. They collected and sold junk to make ends meet. Later, the popular Sanford and Son TV show was an accurate depiction. The guys wore knit caps and porkpie hats. Stubbly beards covered their chins like Motown singer Marvin Gaye. I thought they looked very cool.
They reminded me of the jiving black guys whom I had admired at the invitational track meets I had competed in and attended as a spectator. They were slender with long legs and demonstrated an infectious camaraderie. They spoke their own brotherhood slang.
We lugged a lot of mimeograph machines, typewriters and the like up and down stairs, through school hallways while summer classes were in session. I prayed that the bell wouldn't ring and I'd be swarmed by unfriendly teenagers.
One time while sitting in the panel truck waiting for Johnson, I fashioned myself being black. What would that be like? I was fascinated by the idea. In my reverie, I lifted my arm imagining that it was black. Seeing my own skin the color of coal shattered my illusion. I would be somebody else. Of course I would. The power of color had never seemed so strong. I dropped the idea.
The following summer of 65, a six-day riot began in Watts (later called The Watts Rebellion) in which businesses were burned to the ground, buildings were destroyed, the community had burst with cries of mistreatment by police, discrimination in housing and employment. It all started with a black man being pulled over for alleged drunk driving. I couldn't help but think of the previous summer with Johnson behind the wheel.
I haven't been to Watts since 1964. I don't know what it's like today but our culture seems to have become more integrated. We don't use the "n" word. We've elected and re-elected a black President. Johnson with his masters degree may have found better and safer employment following the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He wasn't meant to be driving a panel truck.
I recently read Percival Everett's excellent 2024 novel, James. It's a reimagining of Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn told from the point of view of the slave, Jim. Some would classify the story as "woke." I would agree in the complimentary sense of the word. If we do not know where we come from, how are we supposed to know who we are.
The summer of 64 gave me a glimpse.
