The Power of Memory

Over the past few years I have found myself holding tight to the book of Hebrews, finding that when my faith seems insufficient, it can rest on the power of memory. I have found this theme to permeate throughout the Old Testament as I've been studying under Dr. Davis. There is something about memory that is absolutely profound. What is equally terrifying for me is realizing that memories that are negative can be equally profound and can tear away at the foundation of any sense of hope.

As I've made my way slowly through my material for the South and Black and White class, I'm finding that it is either the perversion of false memory (the glorious Antebellum South or the "evils" of political changes after the Civil War) and instances and threats of violence to keep people in check so that white supremacy would prevail that fulfill much of the memories that Southerners have of the past. The propaganda of these tactics were both meant to rile up whites and to weaken and castrate blacks (and even those who would "side" with "them"). What I find incredibly interesting is that these tactics are alive and well in today's America.

--I think I was about 11-12 when I had my first run in with the KKK. Having grown up in the city school system rather than the county school system, I was surrounded by people who did not look like me. As a student in what had previously been the "old black high school" named after Dunbar, the MLK Jr. holiday was something that we never missed celebrating at school. There was a lot of hype around school over the first annual MLK parade in downtown. I feel certain that we went to the parade that year, but it wasn't until after running a few errands in town and were making our way back home in the car when we passed the Courthouse which was plastered with men in white sheets and Confederate flags. "What are they doing here Daddy?" I asked, wondering why someone would allow people who I'd learned in school hated others would be allowed to approach the Court House steps which only an hour or so before had been the best spot along the parade route. I innocently thought that if we as a people believed they were so bad, then why don't we stop hatred where it was allowed to grow? I can't remember exactly what Dad told me, but I knew he was uncomfortable and was perhaps heartbroken to have to explain such a rough history to his daughters--one which was probably all too close to home to him given that his own father was given the task of integrating by force one of the last segregated schools in NC and therefore the country. That was my first time feeling that maybe this world was not so safe.

--A few years later my sister and her black and white friends were put in danger as they made their way into a hotpocket of KKK activity when they were cheerleaders making their way to the visitor side of the football field. Trucks of white men raced passed them, taunting them with salutations of the N word and 'N-lovers.' Perhaps it sticks out more deeply in my own memory than hers because I remember reading and hearing about the dangers of the KKK and maybe she didn't know the whole story and only remembers her white cheerleading Coach preparing the team for what they might encounter. "They're ignorant," she was told. "Don't worry about them, just ignore them." The team was used to being comforted with hugs and encouragement from their Coach so perhaps my sister lived in the reality that was painted for her by such a positive adult. But I didn't get the speech or the hugs, I just heard the story afterwards and I realized that I could be grouped and identified as a white person by who I associated with and my skin color would not save me. I remember that after that day, if another school taunted us or disliked us, our own everyday groups of preps, nerds, athletes, goths, black, white, hispanic, asian, etc. fell apart it and we became an "us"--a united front that was taunted together.

--When I left my little smalltown for college, I found myself missing the "us." When I recieved news that the bones of a former basketball standout had been found in the sparse woods where he had gone missing after being racially profiled, misidentified with the actual suspect they were looking for, crashed his car and chased into the woods--I knew that not one of us was safe any longer. I knew that Tedric had been murdered for the color of his skin by the deputies who pursued him under a policy of "pulling over anyone not whiter than snow" which we found out months later when the Sheriff was indicted on numerous charges. Yet not one of them included the death of this young man who went off to college, claimed his children (and the children of his girlfriend from previous relationships). And I lost complete hope and live still terrified and angry when I see a white governmnent official who has a holster.

--To write my undergraduate thesis, I spent a lot of time at the Archives at UNC-CH. I remember finding an account of a lynching in my Dad's hometown back in the 1920s that many had called 'very suspicious' and 'dangerous.' I called my Grandfather assuming that I could get some leads into what happened. And sure enough he remembered the event and how it was spoken about at the barbershops around town--even when he lived about 15 miles away at the time. "Jennifer, don't you go digging that stuff up that people don't want to talk about." And from his tone I could tell it was because 80 years after the event he was aware of the memory and felt great fear for me and our family if I exposed anything that others didn't want to become common knowledge.

The burden of these memories of the South weigh heavily on us still. Heavily enough that I fear and heavily enough that I hope for change. Heavily enough that I have to say to myself, "I will not put my hope in education, in my privilege, or even in my own idealism--but unto you O Lord I must commend my spirit--there I will put my hope."