Black and White
Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.
Robert Frost
I joined the Girl Scouts when I was in second grade—we were living on Mather Air Force Base in Sacramento, California. Of course, I wasn’t old enough to be a full-fledged Scout. Instead, I became a Brownie—the program for younger girls. We had trim, little brown uniforms—dresses with a scarf, hat, knee socks, and badges just like the big girls. I was immensely proud of my Brownie membership. An airmen’s wife who lived down the block was our volunteer leader. I don’t actually remember what she looked like, but I remember the delight I felt every week when she introduced us to another craft or skill. It was a sad day when my dad was transferred to Dallas, Texas. My mom assured me—over and over–there were Brownie troops in Dallas, too.
She was right. She enrolled me in a local troop, and I headed off down the street to my first meeting all decked out in my freshly laundered and ironed outfit. In less than ½ an hour, I was back. Sobbing. It wasn’t the real Brownies, I told my mother, gulping back the tears as I tried to explain. The head of my new troop was a nice lady who looked like my mom, not at all like my leader in Sacramento–who was had beautiful dark skin. Didn’t my mom know that’s why they called them “Brownies?” It was my first introduction to race in America.
Even a fourth grader could tell most public schools for black children in the South didn’t come close to the quality of the ones populated by white children. I clearly remember when my brothers and I sat in front of our old black and white Zenith TV mesmerized by Chet Huntley and David Brinkley reporting on the 5 o’clock news as Governor George Wallace of Alabama stood effectively blockading the entrance of Foster Auditorium against two black students into the University of Alabama. We watched the Army tanks and fire hoses used to enforce the Supreme Court ruling that “separate was not equal.” Mostly, I remember my parents watching innocent children being escorted to school by military troops and police. There were tears in their both eyes.
Years later, my family spent my junior year in Las Vegas while my dad was on an “isolated” tour in Greenland. My all-time favorite public-school teacher was Mr. Kirkland, whom I think was the math department chair at Western High School in Las Vegas. I was not his best student—a serious embarrassment for a normally outstanding scholar. I barely managed a “C”, but I loved Mr. Kirkland anyway. He talked to me like I was an adult and really listened to my frustration at the at the inconsistencies of mathematical equations. (I remember him laughing when I told him that.) His classroom was safe, challenging, sometimes hilarious, and always engaging.
On his birthday, a few of my geeky Honor Society girlfriends and I decided to take him a homemade birthday cake. It was a Saturday, a warm day in the early 60’s. All dressed up in our pastel colored shirt-waist dresses, we piled in a friend’s car, excited and chattering about how surprised he would be. He lived in a modest home in North Las Vegas. When we knocked on the door, he was stunned. And not happy.
“What are you girls doing here? Don’t you know it’s not safe for you to be in this neighborhood? Now you get yourselves home as fast you can, and don’t ever come here again.” With a quick glance up and down the street, he took the cake, said a perfunctory “thank you,” and ushered us back into the car without another word. We were shocked. Monday morning, our class went on as it always had. He never even mentioned, much less explained, what had happened
Several years later while I was in college at BYU, I was horrified to watch again the 5 o’clock news as civil rights protests broke out all over the nation—in Dallas and Detroit, both cities I had learned to love as a child. Watts in California. Even North Las Vegas. Burning, looting, violence. Storefront windows shattered, businesses which had been the result of lifetime of sacrifice now gone—literally up in flames. Young men throwing Molotov cocktails which devoured the homes of families with children. Fury exploding up and down what had been quiet neighborhood streets.
In the back of my mind, I had known that Mr. Kirkland was a leader in the Nevada chapter of the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). But I had had no idea what that meant or even why the organization existed. Watching those black and white images—so clearly a metaphor for what was happening across America, I unexpectedly heard once again the sound of his calm, steady voice–a beacon of quiet to quench the fires of rage with reason. I was a child; I had no idea what difficulties he had faced as the waves of life had washed over him, but the outcome was clear: he had chosen the more difficult road of peace. I knew his careful step-by-step deliberation could have the power to defuse the anger around him and begin a dialogue for change–just as he had helped me when I could see no path to solving complex math problems.
At last, I understood. Five silly girls waltzing into a community seething with unrest, poverty, and hopelessness. In a moment of blinding insight, I realized how much Mr Kirkland must have loved us to watch over us with such tender concern. Until that moment, I had believed that math was only the lesson he taught. Thank you, Mr. Kirkland. From all of us.