What Happened to the Village?

America under Indictment

William Mandella Roland

• Éditeur: Fulton Books, Inc.
• Année: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781649529084
• Sujet: Geschichte
• Sous-sujet: Sozialgeschichte

As time passes, we often forget or in many situations we never know the history of us as a nation and as a people. This book contains both positive and negative accounts of us as a nation of immigrants of whom many found success. It also tells the story of those who although worked hard found it as an unfriendly all too often a place of isolation and brokenness. There is, however, a hope that for what seems to have taken centuries to arrive-a hope that black people have wondered why have the believers in an almighty God taken so long to acknowledge by their actions to speak out and express what is wrong with us as a people, a nation, and a world! For the first time, we see the awesome shedding of influence of people around the world speaking to those who have for so long ignored the plight and indignity forced on segments of society by using our political system and unjust laws to violate basic human rights of its own citizens! America, we can do better; we must do better if we are to be that light that sits upon the hill for the world to see! If we continue as we have done historically; the question will not be one of what happened to the village but rather one the world will ask in what happened to America?

Osage Can You See

Depending on where you grew up, you may have come across certain fruit-bearing trees. This is common in the south as well, but I’m not going to speak about the southern trees that bear strange fruit; many of the readers will understand. This time, I’m actually speaking about a really strange fruit—my up-close and personal experience with the Osage orange. If you grew up on a farm or places where certain animals were raised, it’s possible that you have seen this strange fruit and never knew its name.

The Osage orange has other names; scientifically, it is Maclura pomifera—hedge apple, bodark, bowwood, monkey ball, monkey brains, yellowwood, just in case you have heard any of these terms. The term we used in Mississippi was horse apple. It is a very heavy, hard fruit with a sticky, milklike substance; although it is a fruit, it is not for consumption. My personal experience with this fruit was not a pleasant one yet memorable. If you have been in the south, you may have noticed that almost everybody speaks or waves as you encounter them or pass by. During my childhood, my mother worked for a white family; the needs of the woman of the house who had experienced early radiation therapy for cancer treatment required special care. The treatment damaged her nerves and rendered her paraplegic confined to a wheelchair.

This was a southern family with the last name Yankee—an oxymoron in itself. Mrs. Yankee was a serious Coca-Cola fan, and often my mother would send me to the local country store Wyatt’s Market to get a six-bottle carton for her. I didn’t mind the errand, but the location was another thing. Understand that Wyatt’s Market always seems to have four or five older white men sitting around inside socializing and there was what appeared to be a game among them to make the black kids say yes sir and no sir! I had observed the game and did not appreciate it, so I learned to expand my vocabulary in an effort to play the game also and win!

Often my mother would give me a note so I would not forget anything at this store. When I would enter, there would be these men drinking Cokes and Dr. Peppers, and immediately the game began for them. It was almost like a team interview; they would start asking questions that would have me say the magic word to them—yes sir, no sir. So I would do my best to be respectful but use the language to avoid saying those words, and I was very good at the game.

Q. Do you need me to read that note for you?

A. No thanks, I can read it.

Q. Is your mother doing alright at the Yankees?

A. She is thanks for asking.

Q. Anything else you need?

A. I think this is it, thank you.

Comment from them on my way out: “Tell Ms. Yankee hello from us.”

Reply from me: “I will do that, thanks.”

Games like this went on for months until one day the store owner was laughed at by his friends who watched him uncomfortably try and try to make me say yes sir but see me masterfully use respectful language that avoided it. Once I got to the door to leave, then it came, “Didn’t your mother teach you how to say yes sir and no sir to white folks?” In that moment, I proudly said my grandfather taught me to give respect to the people who respected me back no matter their color! Leaving them red-faced and angered, I exited the store!

This was without doubt dinner-table discussions within these families. Shortly after on my next trip from that store as I carried a six-bottle carton of Coca-Colas and a large brown paper bag in my other arm, I met a truck of older white men that I remembered from the store. Remember I told you earlier that everybody speaks or waves to you in the south!

As this truck meeting me approached, what I thought was a wave actually was a throwing motion and name-calling; you probably have guessed by now the “N-word.” Next comes the Osage orange hitting me in the chest from an oncoming truck moving thirty to forty miles per hour; when I awoke, I remember my body jerking and shaking trying to breath, bag torn contents all over, and the Cokes out the carton but not harmed—you know how solid those seven-ounce bottles were. I never said a word to my mom, did not want her to worry. To my best friends, however, this was a different story, and we waited for an opportunity for this ten-year-old boy to repay these teens and young adults.

Not with any violence but with sweetness! Exactly who did this was revealed the next time I entered the store; one of the men asked me, how did you like them apples? I understood his reference to mean that Osage orange! Later, I discovered the truck with the name on it belonged to that man in the store. His three sons and two others were those who had thrown the Osage orange and shouted profanity at me.

Three years later, we are now driving ourselves; remember at thirteen and fourteen years of age in the south, work comes early. Still considering how to repay the wave, I had a great idea. What better way to get even than costing them money? I told you it would be sweet! We went to three other small towns, and thirty pounds of sugar later, a plan was set. The following weekend as three tractors were left in the fields until Monday; those pieces of equipment got sweetened gas tanks. Watching a Goodyear team of mechanics work several days just about resolved our differences.

Although, I will admit to you I regret having done this; when I was a child, I thought as a child and did childish things. But when I became a man and found my voice, I put away childish things, and today, I have learned that words of truth spoken to power have a lasting and meaningful effect on the psyche of men.

This is why today I would rather write than fight. Soon after the fight, many people won’t remember what the fight was about but put it on paper, and decades later, new generations can read and get a historical perspective of what was occurring in our country and why people did what they did; ask relevant questions and demand real answers to the question; why was the village or in our situation why was our country the way it was? Who wants to give a truthful answer to questions like that?

What Father wants to tell his enlighten-minded child that it was this way because of large segments of the country were racist who feared if we all got a piece of the American dream that somehow it would not be enough for everybody. So your black friends and their families could not be partakers! Let’s look at America and the world c...