Marching Boldly Into ... The Past

In a number of state legislatures, there has been a strong effort to reverse previous years of social legislation.  We see this especially true in states like Arizona, Kansas, and increasingly North Carolina, along with a smattering of other southern/plains states on particular issues.  Certainly there are some longstanding ideas that may need to be reassessed, reset, or rethought.  But is a wholesale casting out of this legacy legislation really smart?

We see these reversal movements focusing on topics such as opposition to gay/lesbian rights and marriage; access to voting; the state’s role regarding women’s health; equal legal rights and pay for women in the workplace; and support programs for those in financial jeopardy.  In the push to undo many of the changes made over the last 60 years regarding these issues, one has a sense that the goal is a nostalgic return to an America of long ago.  Not quite “The Waltons,” but more of a “Leave-It-To-Beaver” America transported to the great rural farmlands of America.  But one has to wonder, did any of these legislators ever study American History in high school as my classmates and I did?  Because much of the reverse legislation being proposed does not quite jell with the post-World War II America I lived through.  It may come as a shock to some, but the Beaver’s world was not real.  Ever.  A simpler time – yes, in many ways.  But an idyllic and fair time – no, also in many ways.

It was a time when African-American demand for long-promised civil rights broke wide open, unable to be contained after 300 years of waiting.  In my hometown in western Arkansas, I remember Blacks being restricted to the back of the buses; sitting in their own “reserved” 2^nd balcony at the movies; attending separate, inferior schools that never led to any college; consigned to living in the tiny, rickety-framed houses in the “Negro section” of town.  There were the “Whites Only” signs in public facilities and buildings that limited access; the polling places that were effectively closed to Blacks through a variety of deceptive ruses encoded in law.  A large Black population lived in our midst; yet the only two I knew personally were Charlotte, hired as a maid for our extended family, and Roy who did our yard work.  Young White children were taught that this was simply the way Life was; our normalcy.

The civil rights demonstrations grew, and so did White resistance to them, often with increasing violence – the murders, the bombings, the bus burnings, the fire hoses, the beatings, the federal troops required so that Black children could enter a “white” school.  I remember clearly the twisted, angry look I received from a White woman when I, by reflex, respectfully held the door open so that an elderly Black woman could enter the hospital ahead of me.  And the Black family sitting alone in the dead center of a restaurant, the surrounding tables conspicuously empty, with all of the White families blatantly seated in booths along the surrounding walls; not a word spoken.  This was after young Black men had been turned away from a public lunch counter because “calling them ‘equals’ and serving them as anyone else was [supposedly] contrary to one’s ‘religious views’ which prohibited intermixing the races” (not unlike the current misguided rationale of legislators in Arizona regarding gay couples).  It took a Supreme Court decision to end the laws prohibiting interracial marriage.

I remember as a teenager asking my mother why the family of a good friend, his father a business client of my father, did not belong to the town’s country club.  Her answer was apologetic but straight-forward: “They’re Jewish.”  I never went back to that country club again, except to attend my brother’s wedding reception.  (I pray that today that rule has now been eliminated.)  All public prayers in schools and public meetings ended with “In Jesus’ name we pray,” unconcerned about who might be the “we” actually in the audience.

In history class, the internment of thousands of Japanese-American citizens during World War II was never mentioned.  Regarding Native-Americans, our history lessons acknowledged the fact of the Cherokee’s “Trail of Tears” without any discussion as to its real meaning or impact; Custer’s “heroic” Last Stand was celebrated as an example of Indian savagery, never mentioning all the treaties broken by the White settlers and their governments.  The “melting pot” of European immigration gave noble purpose to America’s story; the “Irish Need Not Apply” signs and the Italian big-city ghettos did not make it into print.  Yet the noble cause of Southern secession was given full play, “Lest we forget.”  History was what the school boards told us it was.

In the 1950s, as a practical matter my mother had virtually no legal rights or status on her own without a father/husband’s endorsement.  Divorce was rare; domestic violence never talked about; “You made your bed, now sleep in it” was the prevailing social attitude.  After my first wife and I divorced, I had to sign a written document certifying that she had been an active partner in the use of our jointly-named credit; otherwise she would not be able to get any credit in her own single name.  (I still have a copy of that letter to remind me of its inanity.)  Yet it was only 10 years ago that my then-partner, when she was looking to buy a car, was told to “go home and come back with ‘your man’ and then we can talk.”  Needless to say, that salesman lost that commission.

Women’s career choices back then were minimal: e.g. nurse, teacher, office assistant, garment worker, phone operator, maybe real estate salesperson – if she was “allowed” to work at all.  A “woman cop” was actually only a parking meter collector.  They were, conveniently enough, all lower-paying jobs – even if she was able to get “a man’s work.”  Today’s women have virtually any career path open to them, but pay and advancement often still reflect that 1950’s mentality.

At least back then the State mercifully stayed out of prescribing women’s health and treatment.  Those decisions were left fully to the doctors (who back then were actually self-employed) and their patients.  Except that it took another Supreme Court decision to allow women to have access to “the pill” – a new form of birth control that started a sexual / economic / societal revolution.  One exception was abortion.  It was officially illegal in many states.  But, like the earlier attempted legal prohibition against alcoholic drink, it did not stop the practice, it just moved abortion underground into other jurisdictions or to back alley “fixers” whose work threatened women’s health and lives.  None of the women I have personally known who have had abortions did so thoughtlessly and casually.  Unwed motherhood was a serious stigma with major social consequences nearly unimaginable today.

These are merely selected examples from a long list of our true past realities.  Going back to “the good ol’ days?”  No thanks.  Not for me.  Been there, lived that.  A lot of good experiences in those times, but they are past.  A lot of regrettable experiences in those times, but we have thankfully made many corrections to take us forward.  Corrections not yet finished.  Corrections easily undone if we should slip back into old human habits.

We must always be on guard for humankind’s continual inclination to return to old distorted memories; it is the familiarity of the past versus the uncertain cloudiness of the future.  But there were significant reasons that changes were made in America 50 years ago.  We should not be tempted to believe that those reasons simply no longer exist.  We can fine tune our direction, make needed adjustments in our course.  But no U-turns are allowed on this road.  Too many have worked too hard to get us to here.  Our map is in the history books.

“It may be true that the law cannot change the heart.
But it can restrain the heartless.”

(Martin Luther King, Jr.)

©  2014   Randy Bell