The shorter water fountain

    When I was a young boy growing up in Rome, Georgia, "downtown" was the shopping district. The first mall in Georgia, Atlanta's Lenox Square had just been opened, in 1959. It would be another twenty years before Rome would open a mall. So although Rome's downtown was only five blocks long, it was our Fifth Avenue, with a plethora of delightful and busy stores and eateries.

    I would often go shopping with my grandmother. There was one department store on Broad Street, the main thoroughfare in town. It was called Miller Brothers, and it was always a special treat because it had an elevator to the second floor. The only other elevator I knew of in town was in a hospital.

    So it was always a treat to go to Miller Brothers with my grandmother, and I was respectful when we lingered in the Women's section, because I knew an elevator ride awaited my good behavior.

    Parking was sometimes scarce on Broad Street proper, so we would often park on East First Street, the street behind Miller Brothers. Then we would enter via the back door, not as impressive as the Broad Street entrance, which had two large brass and glass doors. The back door, singular, was a less pretentious door, which opened into a narrow hallway with offices on one side, and bathrooms on the other.

    I remember one visit vividly, around 1960, when I was about six. We entered the rear door, and I stopped briefly to get a quick swig of water from the water fountain. There was a tall refrigerated water fountain, but it came to the top of my head, so I opted for the smaller ceramic fountain beside it, even though it was uncooled, like the drinking fountains at schools and sports arenas. It was just the right height. I was a few sips into the delightful refreshment when I was grabbed by the collar and rudely jerked back. I turned to find my grandmother looking at me with a stricken face.

    "That fountain is for the colored people," she loudly whispered, and pointed to a sign, which simply said, "Colored."

     I knew what she meant by "colored people," although they were pretty much one color in Rome. And I knew, at six, that these same people were called "nigras" by both my grandparents and my parents. I grew up in the segregated South and, yes, it was a racist society. I would see it change, and change dramitically, over the next fifty years. But then, I only knew the what of race relations, not the flimsy reasons why.

     I am pretty sure that my grandmother was concerned that I might get some ailment from using that fountain. But I didn't know that day what my transgression was. It was never explained, and I remember spending the rest of the visit wondering if I was rebuked for taking something that wasn't mine. Looking back from fifty years, I think that may be true. I think perhaps I stole a little of the quiet dignity of the black men and women who stooped to drink from the short, uncooled fountain, while lesser people stood and drank beside them.

     All this came to mind when I saw this video by Herman Cain, a black, conservative from Georgia who is considering a presidential run. Herman's story mirrors mine. Herman is nine years older than me, so his story probably took place earlier than mine. But although they weren't in the same year, it was certainly the same time. 

—Wayne S.

The Color of Water

The Color of Water by James McBride. A book review.

   In one sense, it is a remarkable story about a mother who married two good men and raised twelve children, among them medical doctors, university professors, journalists and musicians. In another, it is a story of faith, as Ruth McBride goes on, with her husband, to co-found a Baptist church in New York. Yet it is made all the more noteworthy because Ruth was a white, Jewish woman, and both her husbands were black. In the ultimate sense, therefore, the most redemptive part of this story may be how God raised her above prejudice—Jew against gentile, white against black, black against white, even dark-skinned blacks versus light-skinned—and gave her, her twelve children, and her grandchildren a wonderful gift.

   Ruchel Dwara Zylska, the daughter of a failed itinerant Orthodox rabbi, fled her native Poland with her family in 1921 and settled in Suffolk, Virginia. Her father was a cruel man who abused his crippled wife and mistreated his daughter. Along with this harsh treatment, she and her family were ostracized in the South because they were not white, but “Jews.”

   Working long hours in her father’s mercantile store in a black community, she began to identify with the black children her age, also marginalized and discriminated against. Ruth Shilsky (her Americanized name) fled persecution once again when, at seventeen, she moved to New York. There she met Andrew Dennis McBride, a violinist from North Carolina studying music. He was a deacon and choir member at a Harlem church, where she began attending, and where something else happened:

   In 1942, Ruth said to Andrew Dennis McBride, “I want to accept Jesus Christ into my life and join the church.”

   Dennis said, “Are you sure you want to do this, Ruth? You know what this means?”

   I told him, “I’m sure.” I was totally sure.

When it became apparent that Ruth intended to marry Dennis, her Jewish family sat shiva for her, proclaiming her dead to them. From that moment on, her community was the black community of her husband and her soon-to-follow children.

   The author, James McBride, tells his own story beside hers. Her vivid recollections, dictated reluctantly at first, match perfectly James’s story of growing up with “the strange, middle-aged white lady riding her ancient bicycle.” In places the story is hard (both of Ruth’s husbands die, leaving her with eight and then twelve children to raise; James faces the hurdles of inner-city gangs and drugs), and finding their way was hard for both James and Ruth. Yet it is a powerful story of God’s grace. James became

a jazz musician, journalist and author, and Ruth earned a B.A. in Social Work at age 65.

   The evocative title comes from a conversation between mother and son:

[O]ne afternoon, on the way home from church, I asked her if God was black or white.

A deep sigh, “Oh boy…God’s not black. He’s not white. He’s a spirit.”

“Does he like black or white people better?”

“He loves all people. He’s a spirit.”

“What’s a spirit?”

“A spirit’s a spirit.”

“What color is God’s spirit?”

—Wayne Steadham