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Mother Dear, Mama, and Me
Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Lifeās longing for itself. They came through you but not from you and though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
āKahlil Gibran, The Prophet
Although I was only four years old, I clearly remember my mother, Edna Parker, explaining to me why she had to leave Memphis for Chicago and how I would become part of a new family:
āI canāt get a job here unless Iām scrubbinā some white folksā floor.ā
Her work schedule wouldnāt allow her the time to take care of me properly. She didnāt know where she was going, but she knew that she didnāt want me to be raised by babysitters. The job opportunities for poor black women then were slim to none. Even though Memphis was a hub for people coming from the surrounding rural areas to find work in the factories, that work was mostly for men. I easily accepted the move, as it seemed that everyone around me in Memphis was moving north, to Detroit, Chicago, or New York.
Staying with my birth father, John White, who died when I was five years old, was not an option. White was originally from Mississippi. When he moved to Memphis, he opened a club on Beale Street. He wasnāt the kind of guy who was going to work at the big forty-acre Firestone plant in north Memphis, nor was he going to become a Pullman porter. According to local legend, he aspired to be the āAl Capone of black Memphis.ā He became a gangster, a mean gangster. In my limited interactions with him, he was also a mean father. On one occasion, trying to escape a beating, I ran into the closet and hid in the corner, concealed by hanging clothing. Looking down, I saw a pair of bright green shoes. They looked magical. I was captivated by them.
When my mother left Memphis at the age of twenty-one, she put my small yellow hand in Miss Robinsonās big, soft black hand. āYou mind Miss Robinson now,ā she said with tears in her eyes, leaning down to give me a kiss on the cheek. Somehow her face seemed smaller, and the room seemed larger.
Elvira Robinson was a wide lady, just over five feet tall, who I would call Mama until the day she died, while my birth mother became Mother Dear. Mother Dear had God on her side, which gave her the good instinct to leave me with Mama. Since Mother Dear was only seventeen years old when she had me, being left with the mature Miss Robinson turned out to be the first blessing of my life. Sweet, tender, godly, and strong, she was a gift to me.
For black people born in the 1930s and ā40s, it was not uncommon to be raised by your grandmother, and for many years I would refer to Miss Robinson as my grandmother. It offered a neat and tidy way to explain my upbringing in Memphis, away from my birth mother.
I got my strength from Miss Robinson. She had a lot of wisdom. Book education is one thing, but wisdom is something different. She was always saying things like āBe true to yourself,ā āKeep your life clean,ā āKeep the house clean,ā āGod is always with you,ā and āKeep stepping,ā meaning moving forward. She didnāt treat me as a child, hugging on me and all that, but her words compensated for the lack of physical affection. āWhatever you have, God can use,ā she would remind me. Most of all she would tell me, āSandyāāmy nickname was Sandy, because of my blond hair and fair skināāyou are going to be a successful man, and youāre going to get the worldās attention.ā
I think Mama had a sixth sense. She instinctively knew I needed those affirmations. I was a profoundly shy child. I donāt know if I was born that way, or if shyness was awakened within me when Mother Dear left.
Mama stressed order on every level. She would only need to gesture to me to clean up. Sheād look down at the floor and raise her hand and slightly point, as if to say, Pick this up and put that away. I am a neat freak to this day, as a result.
As part of our routine, every evening the shabby spring-loaded screen door would fly open and loudly slam against the house. A second later Iād hear her voice ring out, āSAANNNDDY!ā like an air-raid horn. Everyone on my street could hear her calling me in for dinner.
Mama worried about me being out in the streets. She had a strong presence in the neighborhood, which provided some safety early in my life. She also had strong skills with a switch. I had to be home at a certain time, or there would be hell to pay. I didnāt get away with anything.
One winter, my whippings came to an end. I had missed my curfew the night before. I was twelve years old, and it was cold in our meager apartment that morning.
āWhat time did you get home last night, Sandy?ā Mama asked.
āMama, I was only about fifteen minutes behind,ā I said, although Iād really been over an hour late.
āWell, go get the belt.ā
I got up from the table, walked that long stroll of eight steps, opened the closet door, gave her the dark brown leather belt, and sat down. I knew what was coming. She started walking toward me. I donāt know what came over me, but I wasnāt in the mood for a whipping. I stood up and said, āIām bigger than you, Iām taller than you, and you canāt even get your arm around me. Iām sorry for being lateābut I aināt taking no whipping.ā I sat down and ate my oatmeal.
It was one of only two times that I ever challenged Mamaās authority. I grew up in a time and place where the mother was king. While men and fathers were around, they were not dominant. Women worked. Women controlled the home. Women controlled the neighborhood. Many of the black women on my block also went to jobs where they fed, raised, and socialized white babies. Some of the women were lucky enough to get jobs in the many laundry service companies, like Loebās Laundry and Krause Cleaners. The work was hot and dirty, but it still paid better than being a domestic like Mama, and was socially a step above.
Mama loved Mahalia Jackson. She would play Mahaliaās popular āMove On Up a Little Higherā over and over again, especially on the weekends. Mahalia Jacksonās voice was definitely my introduction to music. I knew when Mahalia was singing about being up in glory, that meant after you die. I was scared of the concept of death. When Mama would sing along with the record, I thought it meant Mama was going to die.
Later, Mama bought Ray Charlesās āIt Should Have Been Me.ā I could tell by the way she sashayed her hips back and forth and bopped her head that this type of music made her feel something different than Mahaliaās songs. As I heard more and more Ray Charles, I began to distinguish the patterns of the repetitive piano, drum, and saxophone parts. There was other music, but Mahalia Jackson and Ray Charles became the sound track of our house.
The music wasnāt just at home. Mama would take me to church every Sunday and every Wednesday. I can recall the muffled sound of the upright piano playing as we walked up to the church. Gospel music had a melodic rhythm and rhyme that hypnotized me. There was a strong Negro tradition of spontaneous singingāsomeone would stand up and start singing, and the pianist and all the congregants would fall in. These were songs every black person knewāāHave a Little Talk with Jesus,ā āDonāt Let Nobody Turn You Round,ā āWeāll Understand It Better By and By,ā āRock of Ages,ā and a hundred more. It was hard not to be swept up by these powerful songs. I felt them in my bones.
I felt gospel music deeply at Rose Hill Baptist, but I didnāt see the point of all of the churchgoing. I heard a lot of fire and brimstone from the pulpit, a lot of do this and donāt do that, give yourself to Jesus or God is going to burn you to a crisp forever. Something about it just didnāt sit right with me. I had a healthy respect for the Creator, but I never, ever believed in the God of fear. The notion that God favored some and didnāt favor others rang false. I questioned not so much what was right or wrong but what was the way to actually know God.
In the Pentecostal church, women screamed and briefly fainted, which actually scared some of us kids. Avoiding the scene, I sometimes, to Mamaās disappointment and anger, would sneak out of the church and hang out with my friends.
Memphis during my youth was tough. Mama had a brother named Tuck who was a nasty dude. Big and black, he had a hell of a negative presence. He was loud, boisterous, and rude, and he also constantly had alcohol on his breath and a half pint of liquor in a brown paper bag sticking out of his pocket. He always carried a razor, the old single-edge barbershop style, which he would whip out at a momentās notice.
āSee this razor, boy, dis is why nobody fucks wit me,ā he said to me more than once.
I didnāt want to look at the razor, or at Tuck. He was like 90 percent of the males around me at that time, guys who would talk a lot of foolishness, spend their paycheck over the weekend, and not have any cash come Monday. They also would beat their women, sometimes unmercifully, then cry and ask for forgiveness. They were such jive-ass cats.
In contrast, Mamaās younger sister Edna epitomized cute. I would overhear Mama tell her friends, āMy baby sister is pretty and a little fast.ā She got a lot of male attention and always had a boyfriend. One of her boyfriends went by the name of Son. I repeatedly had run-ins with the forty-five-year-old Son, who didnāt like me from day one. I avoided him like the plague. Sometimes I was successful, sometimes I wasnāt.
āHey, half-breed,ā heād say.
āWhat?ā Iād say, turning away from him.
āStay out of my motherfuckinā way.ā
I said nothing.
āYou better say something, or Iāll beat your high-yellow ass right now.ā
I nodded yes.
His threats and name-calling were one of the first indicators that my fair skin was unacceptable. There were not many...
