Shalom:
For Black History Month, I have been researching for stories to share. Yes, amoung the famous, but also the not so famous stories of people of colour, stories I believe enrich all of our lives.
This one comes from the New York Times, the story of an African American woman, who like myself, started a new life in Big Sky Country.
Deep in the Heart of Montana, a Black Woman Finds Home
For Black History Month, I have been researching for stories to share. Yes, amoung the famous, but also the not so famous stories of people of colour, stories I believe enrich all of our lives.
This one comes from the New York Times, the story of an African American woman, who like myself, started a new life in Big Sky Country.
Deep in the Heart of Montana, a Black Woman Finds Home
By DIRK JOHNSON,
Published: September 27, 1992
Published: September 27, 1992
The white people all seemed to be looking at her. Some customers huddled and whispered. The bartender picked up the telephone. She became nervous.
A few moments later, the doors of the bar swung open and a black man walked into the place.
"It turns out, there was this black bachelor living out in the country," Ms. Kircher said with a giggle. "And when I came in, the people got so excited that they hurried to the telephone, called him and said, 'Quick, get down here, there's a black woman in town.' "
A few moments later, the doors of the bar swung open and a black man walked into the place.
"It turns out, there was this black bachelor living out in the country," Ms. Kircher said with a giggle. "And when I came in, the people got so excited that they hurried to the telephone, called him and said, 'Quick, get down here, there's a black woman in town.' "
It is not easy for people like Ms. Kircher, a 42-year-old United Parcel Service worker, to keep a low profile here in Big Sky country, where whites outnumber blacks by nearly 400 to 1. But she said she felt more welcome here than among whites in big cities. 'Ignorance, Not Hate'
"Where there is prejudice here, it's based on ignorance, not hate," said Ms. Kircher, who lives in Worden, population 300, about 30 miles from Billings. "And that's a whole lot easier to overcome."
Experts on race say that barriers of discrimination are smaller in rural regions, at least outside the South, than they are in urban centers. And they note that the income gap between whites and blacks in places like Montana is much smaller than those in urban areas.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the incomes of black households in 1989 came within 80 percent of the income of white households in 7 states, all of them rural and overwhelmingly white: Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
In North Dakota, for example, the incomes of blacks were 89 percent of the incomes of whites. Blacks in New York, meanwhile, earned 67 percent of the income of whites.
In metropolitan areas, whites often resist inroads by blacks because they see even small gains as a precursor to wholesale change. But in places like Billings, where the black population is less than 2 percent of the total population of 81,000, whites can remain devoted to equal rights without any real sense of threat that blacks will come to dominate jobs or neighborhoods, said Douglas Massey, a sociologist at the University of Chicago.
There were no venomous letters or threatening midnight telephone calls when Ted Warren, a black firefighter, moved into the all-white Sunnyside subdivision here. "I don't think anybody much cared," the 43-year-old Mr. Warren said with a shrug. "Blacks live in every neighborhood of the city."
On the South Side of the city, a poor area known as "across the tracks," blacks are outnumbered by whites and American Indians. The African Episcopal Methodist Church has nearly as many whites in its congregation as blacks.
"No place in America is free of racism," said the Rev. Robert Freeman, the pastor of the church, who is black. "But I do think it's less here than in big cities. For one thing, people know you as a person, not a symbol."
Leo Miller, a white man who runs the Lewis and Clark Tavern in Pompey's Pillar, a town about 30 miles from Billings, said he had known only a few black people in his life.
"But I really know them," he said. "It's hard to be prejudiced when you know somebody's name, their family, their history." Indians May Have It Worse
Only 2,000 blacks live in Montana, out of a population of nearly 800,000. American Indians represent the largest minority in the state, about 48,000, and they seem to face more racism than blacks here.
Ms. Kircher said some blacks here joke about the bigots. "They dislike the Indians first, and then come the Mexicans," she said. "By the time they get around to us, they're just too tired."
A few years ago, tiny bands of white racists like the Aryan Nation came to the Northwest hoping to find fertile ground for their views. Most people here use the strongest language in talking about their distaste for the white supremacists, noting they are mostly outsiders.
The efforts by the Aryan Nation and other hate groups to establish a base in the Northwest have largely faded, said Joe Roy, an investigator for Klan Watch, a Birmingham, Ala., group that monitors hatemongering.
Despite the Hollywood version of the blue-eyed cowboy, blacks have been living in the West as long as whites. Clara Brown, the famous grubstaker in the mining town of Central City, Colo., became so wealthy that she returned to the South to buy the freedom of her relatives. Ben Hodge was a black deputy to Sheriff Wyatt Earp. Bill Pickett was a rodeo star who invented the sport of "bulldogging."
Blacks were among the famous outlaws, too. Nat Love was a legendary cattle rustler. And experts on the Old West say that pictures of Deadwood Dick, the outlaw, show clearly that he was of African ancestry.
When the mines were thriving, the number of blacks in the West was much higher than today. But some black cowboys still trail cattle and break horses.
A black man named Adrian Wilson, for example, who lives near Billings, is known as one of the best ranch hands and horseshoers in Montana.
Ms. Kircher, who plans to write a book on black pioneer women of the Old West, said three black newspapers were thriving in Montana at the turn of the century.
Ms. Kircher knows something about being a pioneer. A native of Lexington, Ky., she was one of 22 black students in an enrollment of 25,000 at the University of Kentucky in 1968.
But being in the minority in Montana in the 1990's is nothing like her experience at Kentucky. "I had an anthropology class at 8 A.M. on Monday, Wednesday and Friday," she said, "and every single, solitary morning the professor began his class by cracking a joke" with a racial slur.
As a fifth grader in the all-black Russell Elementary School in Lexington, she recalls learning about these wild, untamed lands of the West, where the mountains were magnificent and the plains were open for roaming. She said she decided that one day she would go there.
After earning a computer science degree at Kentucky in 1972, she started to raise a family in Lexington. But she said her two boys were becoming "too street-smart," so she decided to move.
Her boys were the first black students at Worden High School. When it came to dating, she said, the fathers of some girls became unhappy. "I told my boys they could date whoever they wanted," she said. "But I had one rule: You will not sneak around. You don't need to do that."
Shortly after graduation from high school, the boys decided to return to a more urban life in Lexington. Like many of their white classmates, they searched for the bigger opportunities a city would offer. Ms. Kircher's older son, Tim Perdue, now 24, said it was not always easy being different.
"Sometimes you felt like you were a specimen," he said, "that you were always being looked at."
In her years in Montana, Ms. Kircher said she had faced only one ugly incident of racism. After a dispute with her landlord in a restaurant, the man threw a $100 bill at her. "Take this and take the next bus out of here," he told her. "Nobody around here wants you here anyway."
Ms. Kircher struck a match and started to burn the bill. He grabbed it back and stalked off.
When she went home that night, Ms. Kircher said, she was depressed about his comment about the other townspeople. She thought they were her friends. She pondered whether to move.
Early the next morning there was a knock on the door. A "committee" had come to see her to speak for the town. There was a janitor, a farmer, a telephone worker and many others.
"We don't want you to leave," one said. "We think you're great."
As she recounted the story, Ms. Kircher became a bit misty. She took a sip of coffee as she sat at an outdoor cafe in downtown Billings. Her reverie was interrupted when a bearded white man, wearing boots and a horseshoe belt buckle, came walking by.
"Gwen," he shouted, "great to see you."
Experts on race say that barriers of discrimination are smaller in rural regions, at least outside the South, than they are in urban centers. And they note that the income gap between whites and blacks in places like Montana is much smaller than those in urban areas.
According to the United States Census Bureau, the incomes of black households in 1989 came within 80 percent of the income of white households in 7 states, all of them rural and overwhelmingly white: Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine.
In North Dakota, for example, the incomes of blacks were 89 percent of the incomes of whites. Blacks in New York, meanwhile, earned 67 percent of the income of whites.
In metropolitan areas, whites often resist inroads by blacks because they see even small gains as a precursor to wholesale change. But in places like Billings, where the black population is less than 2 percent of the total population of 81,000, whites can remain devoted to equal rights without any real sense of threat that blacks will come to dominate jobs or neighborhoods, said Douglas Massey, a sociologist at the University of Chicago.
There were no venomous letters or threatening midnight telephone calls when Ted Warren, a black firefighter, moved into the all-white Sunnyside subdivision here. "I don't think anybody much cared," the 43-year-old Mr. Warren said with a shrug. "Blacks live in every neighborhood of the city."
On the South Side of the city, a poor area known as "across the tracks," blacks are outnumbered by whites and American Indians. The African Episcopal Methodist Church has nearly as many whites in its congregation as blacks.
"No place in America is free of racism," said the Rev. Robert Freeman, the pastor of the church, who is black. "But I do think it's less here than in big cities. For one thing, people know you as a person, not a symbol."
Leo Miller, a white man who runs the Lewis and Clark Tavern in Pompey's Pillar, a town about 30 miles from Billings, said he had known only a few black people in his life.
"But I really know them," he said. "It's hard to be prejudiced when you know somebody's name, their family, their history." Indians May Have It Worse
Only 2,000 blacks live in Montana, out of a population of nearly 800,000. American Indians represent the largest minority in the state, about 48,000, and they seem to face more racism than blacks here.
Ms. Kircher said some blacks here joke about the bigots. "They dislike the Indians first, and then come the Mexicans," she said. "By the time they get around to us, they're just too tired."
A few years ago, tiny bands of white racists like the Aryan Nation came to the Northwest hoping to find fertile ground for their views. Most people here use the strongest language in talking about their distaste for the white supremacists, noting they are mostly outsiders.
The efforts by the Aryan Nation and other hate groups to establish a base in the Northwest have largely faded, said Joe Roy, an investigator for Klan Watch, a Birmingham, Ala., group that monitors hatemongering.
Despite the Hollywood version of the blue-eyed cowboy, blacks have been living in the West as long as whites. Clara Brown, the famous grubstaker in the mining town of Central City, Colo., became so wealthy that she returned to the South to buy the freedom of her relatives. Ben Hodge was a black deputy to Sheriff Wyatt Earp. Bill Pickett was a rodeo star who invented the sport of "bulldogging."
Blacks were among the famous outlaws, too. Nat Love was a legendary cattle rustler. And experts on the Old West say that pictures of Deadwood Dick, the outlaw, show clearly that he was of African ancestry.
When the mines were thriving, the number of blacks in the West was much higher than today. But some black cowboys still trail cattle and break horses.
A black man named Adrian Wilson, for example, who lives near Billings, is known as one of the best ranch hands and horseshoers in Montana.
Ms. Kircher, who plans to write a book on black pioneer women of the Old West, said three black newspapers were thriving in Montana at the turn of the century.
Ms. Kircher knows something about being a pioneer. A native of Lexington, Ky., she was one of 22 black students in an enrollment of 25,000 at the University of Kentucky in 1968.
But being in the minority in Montana in the 1990's is nothing like her experience at Kentucky. "I had an anthropology class at 8 A.M. on Monday, Wednesday and Friday," she said, "and every single, solitary morning the professor began his class by cracking a joke" with a racial slur.
As a fifth grader in the all-black Russell Elementary School in Lexington, she recalls learning about these wild, untamed lands of the West, where the mountains were magnificent and the plains were open for roaming. She said she decided that one day she would go there.
After earning a computer science degree at Kentucky in 1972, she started to raise a family in Lexington. But she said her two boys were becoming "too street-smart," so she decided to move.
Her boys were the first black students at Worden High School. When it came to dating, she said, the fathers of some girls became unhappy. "I told my boys they could date whoever they wanted," she said. "But I had one rule: You will not sneak around. You don't need to do that."
Shortly after graduation from high school, the boys decided to return to a more urban life in Lexington. Like many of their white classmates, they searched for the bigger opportunities a city would offer. Ms. Kircher's older son, Tim Perdue, now 24, said it was not always easy being different.
"Sometimes you felt like you were a specimen," he said, "that you were always being looked at."
In her years in Montana, Ms. Kircher said she had faced only one ugly incident of racism. After a dispute with her landlord in a restaurant, the man threw a $100 bill at her. "Take this and take the next bus out of here," he told her. "Nobody around here wants you here anyway."
Ms. Kircher struck a match and started to burn the bill. He grabbed it back and stalked off.
When she went home that night, Ms. Kircher said, she was depressed about his comment about the other townspeople. She thought they were her friends. She pondered whether to move.
Early the next morning there was a knock on the door. A "committee" had come to see her to speak for the town. There was a janitor, a farmer, a telephone worker and many others.
"We don't want you to leave," one said. "We think you're great."
As she recounted the story, Ms. Kircher became a bit misty. She took a sip of coffee as she sat at an outdoor cafe in downtown Billings. Her reverie was interrupted when a bearded white man, wearing boots and a horseshoe belt buckle, came walking by.
"Gwen," he shouted, "great to see you."
No comments:
Post a Comment