I enjoyed your post. We are near contemporaries in that I was born in 1949 and grew up in the small west Hinds County community of Bolton. This was, of course, not as rural as the Clarke County setting you describe. Our house was “in town” (population 749) and Jackson was about a 40 minute drive in those pre-interstate / pre-shopping mall days. However, your memories of the odd mixture of legal segregation and (within limits) social integration are very much like mine.

Several years ago while doing research on a family of African-American musicians who grew up around Bolton, I telephoned my aunt–who is now in her 90s–and asked if, as rumor held, they might be mixed-race descendants of a certain white man. There was a rather frosty silence on the other end of the line until my aunt finally acknowledged it was possible. However, once that wall had been breached, in later conversations she was very forthcoming about which white men in town were known to have “outside children.”

Regardless of how one views him as a public figure, I recommend Jimmy Carter’s childhood memoir entitled “An Hour Before Daybreak.” It is a simple and honest account of growing up in rural Georgia in the 1930s. In it he describes the race relations of his time and place with great candor. One passage describes how a bishop of the African-American Episcopal Church would periodically come calling on his father. His father observed social limits that prevented a black man, even one who was a bishop, from entering the Carter household through the front door. But at the same time, even Jimmy’s father felt he was too eminent to be expected to come knocking at the back door. So the bishop would drive up, beep his car horn, and Mr. Carter would go out to talk with him.

Ed Payne

Neat that there is consanguinity between you and Vikki. via your Bynum ancestors. I very much enjoyed reading your story about your on going friendship with Florene. And of your other friendships with black kids while growing up in MS. This speaks volumes about your good hearted mother and her ideas of equality and justice for all.

I too, have Applachian roots. (Eastern KY) However, I was born and raised in San Diego. 1941. My Dad had already enlisted in the Navy, met and married my mother in San Diego before Pearl Harbor was attacked.)

As a kid, my parents and I lived in one of the numerous housing projects that were constructed as soon as we Americans entered World War 11. And yes, these projects were segregated. Black families lived on one side of the street and were not welcomed on the white side. Still as kids we all attended the same elememtary school. However, even some of our teachers warned the white kids against playing with the black kids duirng recess.
So much for integration. But even then, I knew something was wrong. I had a picture of Jesus surrounded by little kids of all colors hanging above my bed. And I could sing the song, ‘Jesus loves the little children, red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight.” Actually what all of this segregation taught me was how to be sneaky. That I mastered at an early age.

By age 20, I was married and also the mother of two bi-racial children. What a difference a generation can make. With one exception, my children never experienced racial discrimination.

Again, Nancy I really enjoyed reading your story. So well told also. Thanks so much for sharing.

Vikky Wilburn Anders in San Diego