My father was a tender hearted man. He would frequently share stories with me about his growing up on Rockmart Road in Rome, Georgia. When we would visit Rome, he would take me to places he had talked about; a sort of drive by illustration. Each time he would reminisce he got a certain sound to his voice, a look in his eye. He was reliving what he was telling me and it touched him.
One particular story, he felt so deeply he decided to write it down. Today, I was going through the treasure trove of family artifacts my grandmother had so lovingly kept for those of us in the next generations that might care to know. My cousin generously sent me a box of things for me to keep. In the box was a set of yellowed paper clipped pages my father had typed. I remember reading them when the pages weren’t yellowed. I remember his eyes filling with tears each time he told the story to me, my kids, family. He cared about it deeply and, as a young boy experiencing it, it affected the way he treated others the rest of his life. As a way to honor my father and his efforts to remember, I offer this story to you now.
Growing Up in a Segregated South
Willie Jay Cheeks sat in the back of the bus. My dad and I sat on the side seats which were adjacent to the long back seat which covered the width of the bus. Each time I think of that moment, I experience again the embarrassment I felt when, for the first time, I felt the impact of segregation.
I was about 9 years old. My dad worked in the water department, reading water meters for the City of Rome, Georgia. I was not in school on that day, either a holiday or a Saturday. Cutting school, for any reason, was not an option. I always enjoyed getting to go with my dad on one of his water meter reading routes.. On that particular day, we rode out in the water department truck to the beginning point for one of the routes Willie Jay drove. I sat in the middle, my dad to the right.
Dad was a cheerful person. We always had fun. He liked to tease and play practical jokes. We laughed a lot together. He and Willie Jay worked as equals. There was no indication of anything but equality. Willie Jay was not “his boy”. We walked from house to house, looking in the edges of lawns and on sidewalks for the oval shaped iron covers on the water meters. Willie Jay and I carried long screwdrivers which we used to pray the tops off the meters so we could read the numbers on the small round clock-like faces that registered the amount of water that flowed from the main water lines to the houses. The 18 inch long screwdrivers were also used to poke around in the thin layers of sand and silt that often covered the tops of the water meter covers. Dad and Willie Jay had traveled the routes so often, they knew where to look. The hollow, metallic “thunk” told us we had found the meter top. We would scrape around to find the edge, put the end of the screwdriver under the lid and pray it off.. Dad would take the reading and record it in his route book for that address.
We walked, talked and laughed as we enjoyed the fresh air and sunshine that day. We stopped at a little neighborhood grocery where my dad bought crackers and soft drinks. We sat outside under the trees, relaxing. All was right with the world, I thought. It wasn’t, as I was about to begin a learning experience that continues to this day.
Ordinarily, we would have returned to the city truck for the trip back to the water department. Today, there was a different plan. The truck was needed in a major project at another location. We were to take a city bus back. That’s when it happened. When the bus arrived at the stop, we stepped on, paid our fare and turned to walk toward the back. Willie Jay continued to the very last row of seats at the back of the bus. As my dad and I followed, we sat down on a seat long enough for 3 passengers which was placed against the side of the bus at a right angle to the rear seat. I had ridden the bus many times. For a few years, it was a daily event commuting to grade school. It didn’t occur to me that there was something deeper than choice or habit that made white people begin seating from the front and “colored people” to begin seating from the back
This time, however, with Willie Jay and my dad, we boarded a bus that was less than one fourth full. There were plenty of seats. Yet, Willie Jay went to the back. Suddenly, a rush of awareness overwhelmed me. I felt sick on the inside. I felt embarrassed. It seemed terribly wrong. It never occurred to me throughout my grade school days that there were no “colored students” in my school. I assumed the division was one of choice, if I thought to assume at all. That’s just the way it was and a 9 year old boy doesn’t delve into the philosophical “why” of life and culture.
I was in college in December, 1955, when Dr. Martin Luther King made the nation sit up and take notice of the gross inhumanity of segregation when he led the boycott of the bus system in Montgomery, Alabama. A black woman in Montgomery was going home from work. She was tired and the only seats left were in the “white” section. She sat down. The driver ordered her to move. She didn’t, and the world stopped. Our culture began a painfully redirected orbital plane. It should not have been necessary. But it was. As I watched the news of the cause and results of the Montgomery boycott, I thought of that day Willie Jay Cheeks, my dad and I boarded the city bus in Rome, Georgia. As I write, it is 1992. Only a few months ago, my mother, still living in Rome, Georgia, sent me an obituary clipping.
Willie Jay Cheeks had died. I wept. And again, I remembered.
Charles E. Gray, April 13, 1992