Sometimes History Finds Us In the Midst of Life
“Those who do not remember their history are condemned to repeat it:” George Santayana
By Ben Alford, Albertville High School, Senior Class of 1966
On September 30, 2011, members of the Albertville High School Senior Class of 1966 gathered for a pre-homecoming game meal at the home of classmate, Harriett Dunn. One of those classmates was Robert Manzy, one of two black students who entered our class in the fall of our senior year. The following reflections are based on conversations among thirteen or so classmates who left the game just after half time and walked back to Harriett’s to visit for awhile. It is amazing what we all saw and felt during those days and how different our experiences were. It was enlightening to hear Robert’s memories of this day, the events which led up to this day and the year that followed. I hope and pray that it was just as enlightening for Robert to hear about our experiences as well. Not only did we get to know Robert better, and he us, but I believe that many of us came to know in a different way people we have know for over sixty years.
In the Fall of 1965, a group of seventeen and eighteen year olds, mostly interested in cars and football and members of the opposite sex found ourselves in the middle of events that shaped and changed our world and our lives. Public schools in Albertville, Alabama admitted thirteen Black children and teenagers. I write these reflections forty-six years after that late summer morning when a yellow school bus showed up in front of Albertville High School and four black teenagers, three boys and one girl, got off to begin their first school experience in a school with an otherwise all White student body and faculty.
As Robert talked about that first day and all that led up to it and as we, his White classmates, shared our experiences, all of us got to know one another better. Forty-six years of life has shaped and changed us all and we are different people and yet, the some people who gathered on that hot, late summer morning. My goal in this essay is to share last Friday evening’s conversation and reflect some on how this experience helped make us who we are.
Robert’s story begins in the summer of 1965 when a group of Black parents approached the Marshall County Superintendent of Education and told him that they wanted their children to go to school in Albertville, the school in their home town. The Superintendant, Wayland Cooley, informed the parents that he was a member of the Ku Klux Klan and asked them to continue sending their children to Lakeside School in Guntersville. All the black children and teens in the county at that time were bused to Lakeview. Lakeview had no science labs and no indoor plumbing. Roberts mother asked to speak and told Mr. Cooley that her children were smart and she wanted them to go to a good school, in their home town, where they could get a good education.
On the big day, a school bus showed up in the one “black neighborhood” in town and picked up the students. The bus was led by a police car behind which was a car with the mayor and other city officials in it. The bus was also followed by two more police cars with officers “brandishing shotguns.” None of the rest of us remembered this nor had any idea of the police protection and how dangerous this was for Robert and the other 12 Black students. There was probably some danger for us as well, but we were too young and invincible to know it. Robert told us that the police did pick up one person with a gun.
Some of our classmates remember that we all gathered at the flag pole to welcome our new classmates and that Frank Hughes walked over, shook their hands and welcomed them. Others of us do not remember this at all. Robert does not remember this either. Becky Lang Gore remembers greeting Robert in homeroom trying to make him feel welcome and again Robert does not remember this. Harriett Dunn told us that other “girls” in the class refrained from speaking to the Black boys for fear that they might cause trouble for them if they were seen talking to a “White girl.” It is fascinating to hear these stories forty-six years later. I sense that most of us did not talk much about these things when they were happening. We just did our best to live life a day at a time. We were seniors in high school, we wanted to study (a little), play a lot and move into the rest of our lives which lay ahead of us. And yet, this experience of being the first class in our school to graduate with black students changed us forever.
Over our short lifetimes we had all seen restrooms for “men, women, and Colored,” and water fountains for “White and Colored,” and we all went to the Carol Theater to watch the movies. Robert and his Black friends and family, however, had to enter by a different door and sit in the balcony. Some of our classmates did mention that they always wanted to sit in the balcony because they believed the view would be better. None thought it a good thing that Robert had to enter through a different door.
All of us had experienced segregated life in Alabama, but only Robert, among us, experienced segregation as the one who was “segregated out.” Robert and I first met at the Albertville Health Department when we were around six years old. We had gone there for our pre-school vaccinations. We were both skinny little six year old boys, but our experiences were very different. Robert shared with us Friday evening that a man had come up to him, taken his face in his hands and said, “I am not going to slap your face because you are a ‘nigger.’” Neither of us are quite sure what that meant but we are both sure that it did not happen to me. As Robert talked with us about having to use separate restrooms and water fountains, and being “bused” to Guntersville to go to school, and being told both verbally and non-verbally that he was worth nothing, I began to get a better sense of “the other side of segregation.” I saw not only how we as a society treated Robert and others like him, but how we continue to treat with disdain, hatred, fear and anger those who are different from us: people of other races, nationalities, religions, sexual orientation and any other difference we as human beings can find to set ourselves apart and to “make ourselves better” than “the other.” Robert told us that two factors in his life, his mother and his church, continued to impress upon him and remind him that he was worthy and that he was a child of God, and therefore as good as anybody else in all of God’s creation.
Many of our classmates served in the military forces of the United States during the late 1960’s, and many, including Robert and his brother, Bernard (Yeshua), served in Viet Nam. Robert told us one last story that broke my heart and I can only assume, the hearts of others in that room on Friday evening. Robert tells that, “after two years of serving my country and fighting for its freedom in Viet Nam, I came back home to Alabama. I went to Gadsden to visit my mother and while there, took my date to the Skating Center. I was told by the manager at the Skating Center that ‘niggers’ were not allowed to skate there. This was the most insulting and devastating experience of my life.” As we let this story sink in, all of us were quiet and thoughtful and reflective.
We are all, Robert, me, and the entire Senior Class of 1966, who we are today because of where we grew up and when we grew up and because of what happened on that historical day in 1965, and all that led up to it and all that has followed it over the past forty-six years. We have grown up a great deal since that day. Our Nation has grown up a great deal since that day. Have we grown to the full maturity God would have us reach? No. Has our Nation reached its full potential as hoped for by God and human beings alike? No. But, we have changed and we have grown and we are better people and the world is a better place. And Robert Manzy and the entire Albertville High School Senior Class of 1966 have helped to make this so and will continue to do so as long as God gives us life and breath. The even better news is that our children and grandchildren and all of those whose lives have crossed paths with ours will continue this legacy for as long as the world shall last and as long as the sun continues to shine. I am proud and blessed to have been and to continue to be a part of “this blessed company of faithful people.”
I hope that Robert and other members of our class will add to, correct and continue this ongoing conversation. HBA
