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Jake Brown thought back on those early days. He was one of the first twelve black kids to attend Clinton High School. He started in the Fall of 1956. It was pretty rough at first. Those white kids would throw paper wads at them when the teacher was not looking. They would hold their nose as they passed in the hall or even throw an elbow hoping to pick a fight. There were plenty of skirmishes where dozens of white kids would surround one black kid seemingly trying to provoke a fight and get the black kid thrown out of school. Sometimes your locker would be booby-trapped with ink, which would spill when you opened the door. We had to just take it and not fight back because to get into a physical fight was to lose everything we were fighting for.Jake wondered what ever happened to Charles Frazier? Charles was this white kid that had spent his whole hour in study hall each day just staring at him. He had stared back. Sometimes for a whole hour, their eyes would lock and neither would look away. He knew Charles was trying to provoke him. They had phys ed classes together and Charles would deliberately try to trip him when they were playing dodge ball. When they were bowling and Jake had his turn setting up pins in the manual pin setter, Charles would bowl early forcing him to jump out or be hit by the ball. It got to the point that he sometimes gave it back to Charles. One time he caught him good and slammed him into the lockers when he knew the little coward could not get a gang around in time to create a scene.
He recalled the last time he had seen Charles? Charles had transferred to a different school for his Junior year and then Jake had moved after that. It was at the county fair after their Junior year at different schools. He had passed Charles and their eyes met. He had simply said, "Hi, Charles."
Charles looked at him like he wanted to say more but all he said was, "Hello, Jake." Somehow he felt that Charles had changed but he never had any contact after that.
Charles Frazier was seventeen years old and about ready to enter his senior year of high school. This year he was going back to Clinton. He had attended Norris his junior year because the county rezoned the schools and he was forced to go where the buses took him. But now he had his drivers license and he was going to go back to Clinton and play football. As he thought about returning back to Clinton, he thought of how he had hassled Jake Brown for two years when he had gone to Clinton before. Why had he done that?At Norris, they had a whole different outlook on going to school with black kids. They felt they were missing out on getting to know persons from a different culture. They did not have any black kids in school and they wished they had some. Charles had spent two years at Clinton trying to run the black kids out of school. Why had he done that? They had never done anything to him.
He remembered the first thing he had heard about blacks was the saying, "Don't put that penny in your mouth. Some N-word might have touched it."
He remembered when he was about ten years old a group of black gospel singers had performed at the elementary school. It was a large family and very spirited. The father joked about trying to remember the names of all the kids in the family. Everyone had really enjoyed the performance.
He remembered when he was in the seventh grade, one of his classmates had told him he would have to go school with N-words and that something should be done about it. However, he was not concerned and his folks did not seem concerned.
When he was in the eighth grade, he remembered that the registration of the black kids had gone peacefully. There had been no trouble at all and everyone was willing to accept the law of the land.
But then a man from New Jersey named John Casper showed up and started making speeches on the courthouse steps. The local rednecks came out of the woodwork and there was violence.
Charles remembered being in Clinton on a Friday night after a football game waiting for his brothers to pick him up when hordes of white people would chase a car with black people in it. When the car stopped, they would surround the car and rock it to try to turn it over. The Governor of Tennessee Frank Clement, called out the National Guard to keep the peace and assure that the integration proceeded peacefully.
The next year, Charles had started high school as a Freshman. It just seemed the thing to do was to hassle the black kids. Why did he do it? How could he tell them how sorry he was and that it was a mistake?
Charles was walking through the carnival section of the Anderson County Fair as he mused about his past behavior.
Suddenly, ahead of him, walking with another guy and headed straight for him was Jake Brown.
He thought, "Should he stop him and tell him how sorry he was?" Would they want to pick a fight?
Before he could open his mouth, Jake was by him and said simply, "Hello Charles." and kept on walking. He seemed almost like they had been friends.
That had been thirty seven years ago in the fall of 1960. That was the last he ever saw of Jake Brown. Wonder what Jake was really thinking? Wonder what Jake is doing today?
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