My Paper: “Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can’t ride you unless your back is bent.”1 --Martin Luther King, Jr.
Sitting in her favorite chair on her front porch, Sarah Mosley smiles as she recalls the outcome of the 2008 election.
“I thought I’d never be here to see it,” she says with a smile in her voice. “Like the word say, ‘the bottom gone come to the top’. We finally made it there. We just got to pray for him that he stay in there and do what’s right. We really made history there. A lot of blacks thought we’d never live to see it. We had to tolerate what we had to go through to get to where we are. We thought we’d never see it done, but the Lord fixed it so we could.”
Many people, including African Americans, shared in Sarah’s rejoicing when they heard the news—Barack Obama had won the election and had become the first Black President. Realization struck quickly that the world was actually beginning to change. There was no denying it. But, there were times when it didn’t seem as though things would get better. All one could do was hope.
Sarah Mosley remembers clearly what times were like before integration. The water fountains and bathrooms were labeled as “colored” and “whites only.” Schools were separate. Many of the children didn’t realize until they reached high school that whites were ahead of them in education. But, they kept moving along.
“I didn’t get mad. I just tried to get what I could get. I just said, ‘Further on down the road, we’ll get what we need to get.’ I never did try to fight against it. I just said, ‘That’s their way and we just gotta go along with it until we can do better’. ‘Cause I always said that they own everything and they was gonna run it the way they wanna run it. I never got mad about none of it. I reckon I should have, but I didn’t…”
Although she didn’t fight against the system, there are many that Sarah remembers did. When the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), came around, she stayed away from it because it brought terror among the people. Those that were affiliated with NAACP had crosses burned in their yards by the Ku Klux Klan.
The Klan had been known to make sure that those that weren’t white stayed in the lower levels. They were all for White Supremacy. Burning crosses isn’t the only way the KKK got their messages across. They were known for lynching. The mobs would take the law into their own hands and execute a person or persons. Many of the victims were hung from trees, tarred and feathered, or castrated. In Georgia alone, which is where Sarah was born, the recorded number of lynch victims was 458 between the years of 1882 and 1930.2
The KKK are not the only ones that have denied blacks equality. Before the Jim Crow laws, Blacks were treated as humans. Afterwards, they were treated as animals.
Many of the white people felt as though they were justified in their actions. They felt as though they were doing the will of God and that this is how He wanted it to be.3
Sarah Mosley was raised in a family of discipline and hard work. She has passed these teachings along to her children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren. Even those in the neighborhood call her G’ma or Bigma because she showers the grandmotherly warmth upon them also. Her home and kitchen were always known to be an escape, whether a person was looking to get away from the scalding Georgia sun or hunger pangs. Her hands have been known to “get down”, not only with cooking, but with punishment, also.
She lets out a hearty laugh when reminded of what she calls her “Grandma signature move.” Whenever a child was to act up, she would take and pinch the delicate skin under the arms and near the armpit. Nowadays, her children laugh at the memory, but at the time it was no laughing matter. The pinch was enough to make one not misbehave again, and it helped to establish obedience at a young age.
This is surely something she learned from her father, who was a no-nonsense man. However, he taught her that there were some things that you had to break the rules and misbehave for. At a young age, he taught her how to fight and defend her younger brothers and sisters, as well as herself. She recalls that oftentimes children would test her, but she made sure that they didn’t get the better of her.
“I wasn’t nothing but a straight up tomboy coming up. Them boys and thangs was scared of me ‘cause they know I’d beat ‘em up. And I could throw rocks just like one of them boys. They knowed not to bother me…My dad taught me how to fend for myself, fend for my brothers and sisters, so that nobody would hurt them.”
‘Bigma’ had to fight, but it was only African Americans that she had to fight. She never had much trouble with white people, mainly because she worked for them. They never showed her any disrespect and she returned the favor. One might wonder why this is: Why do some African Americans get along better with Whites than with those of their own color?
In this world where the crime rate is increasing and the education of blacks is decreasing, Sarah feels as though young African Americans have lost sight of things.
“They don’t think about what their parents had to go through to get them to where they are,” she suggests, with a sad shake of her head.
Sarah thinks that children nowadays try to have things too easy. Many are involved in gangs, sell drugs, or choose to steal, instead of trying to get an education or looking for a decent job to make ends meet. She feels terrible about the way things have turned out after all the hard work that has been put into making life equal among all. But, who’s to blame for the acts of children nowadays?
“It’s something they took up on they own because it ain’t come from the parents. It’s something they took up on they own. Just one goose started it and compelled the others to do it. All this gang stuff. I see plenty of children trying to go to school and get an education and then if you don’t get in their little group, they want to beat you up or kill you and all this stuff. That just don’t make no sense—blacks killing blacks when
ain’t none of ‘em got nothing.”
In the article, Crime Among Our People 4, Chine American socialist and feminine activist, Grace Lee Boggs, tells how Blacks got to where they are now. She explains that “crime and banditry are a common occurrence among all oppressed peoples, especially in times of transition.” When the Black Power Movement came about, people began to lose sight of what really mattered. They wanted to separate themselves from “the system” and do things on their own. They didn’t want to depend on the government. This is a good sight to have in mind, but when harm comes upon other hardworking individuals because of selfishness and independency, the “sight” has a damaging toll on everyone.
However, Sarah feels as though you can get along with anyone as long as you try. “I got along with the white people ‘cause I worked babysitting in the afternoon,” she says. “I never heard them call me out—you know, like they call the black people niggers—I never heard that word, unless it was somewhere passing though. But the ones I’ve always been around, I never heard them say that. They all seemed like they considered us as just being different colors.”
When asked, those that know G’ma will immediately say that she’s a hardworking woman and a kind soul. She doesn’t see employment as black and white jobs. She sees them as opportunities for advancement. However, those hands that used to serve food for family and friends are getting old. They’ve seen a lot of hard times and now she has arthritis. But, that doesn’t stop Sarah from embracing everyone she comes into
contact with or doing what she loves most, knitting. As she grows older, so does her wisdom. She shares this knowledge with many whom she comes into contact with. Sarah doesn’t do it because she thinks that she understands the world the best. But, she does know that there are certain helps. With the many grandchildren and adopted grandchildren that she has, she wants the best for them.
FDENG 101, LWA 2
Comment: GRADE: 190/200. Excellent
work! I loved reading this. Please let me
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