My first year in Jr High School I met a boy that went to our church. He was in eighth grade and, of course, as a lowly seventh grader it was super cool that he was taking notice of me, being that I was younger. He was funny and nice, but I must admit that much of my attraction came from the fact that he was older. Isn't it funny how much older one grade seemed back then??
But something was different about this boy.
I had crushed on older guys before, that wasn't it.
The thing that was different about this guy was that he was biracial. His father was black and his mother was white.
And truth be told, I wasn't quite sure what I thought about it.
I had grown up in the south, during the 80s in a family where we were taught that the color of your skin didn't matter. Everyone was equal.
Daddy, a youth minister at the time, had let black men play ball at the church gym for years despite the backlash he received from a few members.
We attended public schools in Mississippi and Arkansas where we bullied because we were the minority, but Daddy never wanted to pull us out to go to private schools because of the hatred he had witnessed in Jackson when white flight happened during of the desegregation of the 60s.
Prejudices , though still a prevalent issue in the south, and something on our minds as we fought against them as a family on occasion, were not really something I faced on a daily basis or gave much thought to. I knew where we stood, where I thought I stood, but I didn't have to think about it daily.
That is until I met this boy.
Ultimately, he moved away. No major love or heartbreak. But I witnessed during that time his struggle to figure out who he was as a mixed race adolescent.
And it got me thinking.
That same year the little church down south in Simpson county where my grandparents had attended all my life kicked their preacher out. I heard the rumors whispered by the adults in my family that it was because he had insisted on letting a little mixed race baby stay in the church nursery.
I couldn't fathom this.
I struggled with it and felt, for reasons I couldn't quite explain, a hurt over this like I had never known.
And so I did the same thing I do today when I struggle over something. I wrote about it.
Except, I was in the seventh grade, so instead of a journal or blog entry exploring my thoughts, I wrote an epic melodrama romance set in the civil war south. I mean, what else?
I don't remember much of the details or have the slightest clue where it is, but I do remember vividly sitting at the kitchen table reading it to mom and dad and weeping over the end. The two lovers, a young white Scarlett O'Hara type and a handsome black son of a former slave decided dramatically at the end not to marry and have children because they didn't want them to face the criticism that would undoubtedly come their way as biracial offspring. In fact, the title of my piece was " For Our Children".
I think about it now and I am overcome with tears again. Somehow my innocent, but coming of age heart, thought it best after what I had seen and heard in my limited bubble of the world, for a couple of star crossed lovers of differing races to spare their children what I had witnessed other mixed children suffer.
Little did I know that same year another biracial young man was entering the eighth grade in Atlanta.
He was the adopted son of a prominent black couple unable to have children of their own, and though they loved him as their own, there was no denying that his skin looked different than theirs. His biological mother was a young white teen who got pregnant one night in Kansas by a black man. And his light, but not white skin, brought him many questions.
This boy, like my friend, was struggling to make sense of what this all meant to him. He would continue to struggle with it for years to come.
It is a beautiful thing to me that God orchestrated all of these things in my life the way he did.
I don't think my precious parents said much to me about my story that I read them. They didn't try to persuade me that it was wrong, though no doubt they probably had their problems with it. They were wise enough to wait and allow God to work on my young heart.
The year I met my little Atlanta boy, Cliff, I had been hurt terribly by a relationship that had not worked out, and he was the perfect mix of strong and soft, fun and serious, love and friendship that I needed. The perfect mix, as I re-read what I just wrote I tear up again. The perfect mix.
Again, I must admit, I faced trepidation going into it. Was I really ready for a mixed relationship? The answer that slowly became clear in my heart was yes; The Lord has been preparing you for this since your youth.
In 2011, when I married Cliff Harris his black family from Georgia, and Tennessee and Detroit and my white family from Mississippi, and Missouri and Texas came together in my parents backyard under a banner of love. It was almost 50 years after Dr. King gave his famous dream speech and though I know we were not the first families of differing races to come together by a long shot, I dare say, we were one of the firsts, if not the first, to come together in such a public way in little ole Poplarville, MS.
Its been 50 years, but the struggle continues. I know there were some people in town who still looked down on our union, and who took a private stance against it or even forbade other family members from joining us, but you know what, at the end of the day, we didn't miss them! And for the most part I was proud of that small town for its support of us and for my Daddy as their pastor. Even my 103 year old friend, Ms. Earlora Holden came in support of us. Now you know that woman has seen some things in her time, and for her to be there meant a lot to me and said much of her character.
It was a beautiful picture to me that day of the fruition of Dr. King's dream to see my white grandmother born and raised in Jackson, to sit alongside Cliff's black, Memphis granddad watching their grandchildren marry.
The following year our son, Campbell, was born. When filling out his birth certificate I was faced with an uneasy decision. When the nurse asked me what race the father was I told her he was mixed. She said I'd have to pick either white or black.
This bothered me.
We had been faced with a similar decision when we filled out our marriage certificate. On it Cliff chose black. But the choice had made me uneasy. Not at all because I am ashamed of my dear husbands black heritage, but because I feel he should be allowed the freedom to be proud of his biracial one.
So when this nurse said I would have to choose a race that would forever appear on my sons birth certificate regarding his fathers lineage, I refused to. I didn't want Campbell's great grandchildren to look up their history one day and not get the full, beautiful story.
Finally, the nurse found a box that could be checked on the form.
Mulatto.
And I allowed her to check it.
I struggled with this.
The term for a biracial person born of mixed black and white genes has become a somewhat racist word. Ultimately I decided, at that moment, it mattered to me that he know who he is one day, despite what derogatory connotations ignorant people have put upon a description of his heritage.
And though I in no way compare my struggles today with the ones faced by my brothers and sisters in years past, Iike Dr. King I also have a dream.
I echo his desire that,
" little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character."
But I also dream that race won't even be a thought in Campbell's grandchildren's minds.
I dream that one day they will read the words penned upon our family's marriage and birth certificates and it won't even register as out of the ordinary.
I dream that one day the beautiful color of my mixed race baby boy's skin will be so prevalent in our country and in our world that its commonplace.
I dream that one day Campbell and his children will walk the grounds of the cemeteries in Polk County, GA and Simpson County, MS where their ancestors are buried and remark how our struggles we all faced are so foreign to their current situation they can hardly fathom it.
I dream it won't be another 50 years before America, particularly the South, finally gets it.
And I dream these things,
Twenty years later with a more mature, but no less heavy heart,
For our children.
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