“Your mother worshipped the ground that man walked on. Always told her she could be anything she wanted.” Grandmother Johnson took the frame and laid it on the coffee table. “I blame him for her fanciful pursuit of painting. She has the brains to be a doctor or lawyer. Even a successful business executive.”
Mama in a suit? Carrying a briefcase to a board meeting? Never in a million years.
Grandmother Johnson opened the old album resting in her lap. “Here’s a portrait of the lady I showed you the other day—your great-great-grandmother Minerva Louise Harris. This is the only portrait for which she ever sat. She half believed cameras had the power to snatch your soul from inside you.”
The woman wasn’t actually sitting. She stood straight and tall in a long, dark skirt and tailored jacket over a white blouse with a wide ruffled collar. Her shoulders were as broad as a man’s. A lacy black hat perched at an angle on her head, and she wore black leather gloves. Wire-rimmed glasses framed her eyes. Her face looked paler and even more serious than in the locket picture.
Grandmother Johnson turned the page. In a square black-and-white photo, the same woman stood on the porch of a small, shacklike house in a housedress and apron, holding the hand of a much darker-skinned little girl in braids and a checkered dress. Minni pointed to the girl. “Is that you?”
Grandmother Johnson nodded. “Can you believe I was ever that small?”
It was hard to imagine their grandmother—formal and serious and bossy—as a young child. When had she become so obsessed with ladylike behavior and achievement? Had she ever enjoyed splashing in puddles, or eating an ice cream and letting it melt down her arm, or pretending her bicycle was a horse and she was a rider on the Pony Express? Had she ever put her toes in the ocean? If she hadn’t, Minni felt very bad for her.
“We were extremely poor. In fact, at times, when my uncle brought me to Raleigh to visit Grandma Harris during the week, I’d look at these grand homes as we drove past and wonder if God cared for black people at all. I decided he must certainly love us less, or why would we be so much poorer than the whites?”
“Do you still think that?” Minni asked.
“Of course not. But seeing the disparity between black and white made a deep impression on me. Still, we had each other—we had family.”
As she moved through the album, their grandmother pointed out the people who made up this family. Her mother and father when they were first married. Aunt Flossie, who eventually left with her husband and children to go north. Cousin Meaner, who ran the best soul-food restaurant Durham had ever known—so good, even white folks would venture into the black part of town to get themselves some of Miz Meaner’s spicy ribs and buttermilk corn bread. Uncle Booker, who helped raise Grandmother Johnson, and whose farm’s well produced such clean, fresh water, people traveled all the way from the big city of Raleigh to fill their jugs with the “Adam’s ale.”
“He was bottling water before there was such a thing,” Grandmother Johnson said. “A true entrepreneur.”
“So that’s where Keira gets it,” Minni said, smiling across Grandmother Johnson’s large chest at her sister. Keira stared at the photos. She was being very quiet. Much quieter than normal. What was going on in her head? Minni wondered.
“I learned two things from my uncle. One, quality is colorless.”
Minni noted with interest that Uncle Booker was significantly darker than his mother, Minerva Harris. All their relatives, other than their great-great-grandmother, had looked black.
“And two, white people will probably never accept you as an equal, but if you show them how industrious, intelligent and civilized you are, you may at least earn their respect.”
Never accept you as an equal? Was that true?
Keira’s forehead bunched, but she stayed quiet.
Some of the later pictures showed Grandmother Johnson as a young woman, just out of college. Then there were some of her with Grandpa Johnson and Mama as a baby. The final several pages contained class photos, just like the ones Minni and Keira got every year—the ones in which Minni was always in the back row, as tall as the boys on either side of her.
Grandmother Johnson stood to the side in each photo, with a faint but proud smile on her lips. These were all the classes she’d ever taught—“her children.”
Right away, Minni noticed that Grandmother Johnson’s earliest classes were all white. Or at least, all the children appeared to be white. As the years progressed, more black children were sprinkled throughout. By the last dozen or more pictures, all the children were black. She wanted to ask about this but wasn’t sure how.
“Did you teach at an all-white school?” Keira’s nose wrinkled. She looked puzzled—maybe even a little put off. It was hard to tell.
“At that time, yes, there were only white children at Lowell Elementary. I was one of five African American teachers handpicked by the superintendent to integrate the staff. It had been over ten years since Brown versus the Board of Education, and the government was pressing the city to integrate or forfeit federal funding.”
Keira was thinking something serious. Minni could see it in her eyes.
“I was honored to be selected and I accepted, remembering what my uncle had taught me: Quality is colorless.”
Grandmother Johnson closed the album. “I’ll admit there were difficult times—always being watched, knowing I needed to perform flawlessly to prove that I was just as good as any white teacher.”
Keira cocked her head as she listened. She nodded a little.
“Undoubtedly, part of the reason the superintendent chose me was because he knew I wouldn’t make waves. I had sat on some district committees. I worked well with white people. I would come in and instruct the children, because that was my highest concern—educating children.”
“But what about the black children? What about educating them?” Keira’s eyebrows drew together sharply.
“I was looking at the bigger picture. And the bigger picture was that the white schools had more resources and better materials. Those kids were getting a higher-quality education—not because the teachers were any better, mind you.” Grandmother Johnson sniffed. “Black children deserved to be let in, but someone had to pave the way.”
She stood abruptly and tugged on her jacket hem, clutching the album to her chest. “Anyway, what are we doing sitting inside this stuffy house on such a nice day? Shall we dine out for lunch?”
“How about Thai?” Keira suggested, seeming to return to her lighthearted self again. “Panang curry is the best!”
Minni nodded in agreement. Now she felt like being quiet. Questions flooded her mind. Grandmother Johnson a way-paver? What had it been like to teach in a school that wouldn’t allow black children to sit in desks next to white children? And if she, Minni, had been alive at that time, which school would she have attended?
Grandmother Johnson patted the photo album. “All this talk about family has put me in the mood for some good down-home cooking. I’ll take you to Dinah’s. Their ribs can’t hold a candle to Cousin Meaner’s, but the buttermilk fried chicken is delectable. Before we partake of lunch, however, I want to take you to a very special and important place.”
They got their shoes and met up in the kitchen. Grandmother Johnson inspected their faces, hair and clothes in her usual brisk manner, but when she opened a compact mirror and applied a fresh coat of lipstick her hands trembled. And when she went to pick up her car keys from the counter, she picked up the metal measuring spoons instead. Had their trip down memory lane shaken her somehow?
Minni followed her sister outside, wondering what kind of place Grandmother Johnson considered “special and important.” Probably just some big garden with fancy flowers growing everywhere, or that old cemetery in Oakwood where all Raleigh’s rich people were buried.
At least they had some good food to look forward to.
Chapter Nineteen
Grandmother Johnson didn’t take them to a garden or a cemetery. S
he took them to Raleigh’s African American Museum of History and Civil Rights. “A museum?” Keira whispered. Her nose wrinkled with disappointment.
Minni was not disappointed at all. This would be much more interesting than looking at a bunch of hydrangeas and azaleas, or worse, a bunch of dead people’s grave markers.
Grandmother Johnson parked the car and they walked toward the building, which was surrounded by a sprawling lawn and trees. To the right of the entrance was a large brick courtyard, at the center of which was some kind of sculpture. It looked like a big upside-down pyramid sunk onto a base of two smaller right-side-up half pyramids.
Minni read the plaque at the entrance to the courtyard. “The Martin Luther King Water Monument!” she said excitedly. Grandmother Johnson called out something about needing to get inside, but Minni ignored her and ran to the monument.
She stood at the short brick wall that separated the sculpture from the rest of the courtyard. A steady flow of water rising from a hole in the center covered the black surface with a thin glossy layer. The water rippled from its source, then ran over the edge of the large inverted pyramid, clinging to the sides all the way down. She read the inscription on a smaller pyramid sitting at the far corner of the large, water-covered table: “‘Until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.’ Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.”
Keira had caught up with her. Grandmother Johnson slowly made her way toward them, still limping a little.
Minni read the writing on the surface of the glistening table. Listed were the names and roles of twenty-five local citizens who had made “significant contributions in the fields of civil rights, race relations, community improvement and education equality.” She scanned the list.
One name hooked her attention just as Grandmother Johnson walked up. Minni pointed. “Laverna Oliphant!” She read the words under Miss Oliphant’s name out loud. “Champion Civil Rights Leader, Longtime Professor, Shaw University.”
“Wow,” Keira said.
“Wow is right,” Minni agreed.
Grandmother Johnson’s lips pinched together and she exhaled loudly through her nose. She didn’t look very impressed. She pulled a handkerchief from her purse and dabbed her forehead. “Time to get inside. This sun is too hot.”
Keira looked at Minni out of the corner of her eye. A small smile turned up one corner of her mouth. “Sure you’re not just going through ‘the change’?” she asked.
“The change? What in heaven’s name are you talking about, child?”
“Mom says it’s an old lady thing,” Keira replied seriously, but her eyes were full of mischief.
Grandmother Johnson’s jaw tightened. “If I’m old, then that’s all the more reason to show some respect.” She grasped Keira’s elbow and pulled her toward the museum.
“Let’s go.”
Minni followed, glancing over her shoulder. She wished she could have read all the names and inscriptions.
Inside, large panes of glass made the lobby bright and almost as warm as outside, but it cooled down considerably when they entered the first exhibit hall. Minni’s skin rippled with goose bumps.
“This way,” Grandmother Johnson instructed. She seemed to have a particular destination in mind. Minni tripped along behind Keira, feeling the tug of all the photographs and captions she wasn’t being allowed to stop and ponder.
They passed through a large entryway. Lettering over the entrance said, THE SIXTIES. Grandmother Johnson made a beeline to a blown-up black-and-white photo mounted on the wall. Even from a distance, Minni could tell who it was. She would know that oval face, prominent forehead, intense gaze and well-kept mustache anywhere.
Dr. King.
He stood at a podium in what looked like a church.
“This was taken during one of his few visits to Raleigh, not too long before that fateful day…” Grandmother Johnson looked at the picture and then at the girls. Back to the picture and at the girls again—as if she was waiting for them to notice something.
And then Minni did. She noticed stained-glass feet above Dr. King’s head. The glowing Good Shepherd’s feet. “Is that your church?”
As soon as the words were out of her mouth, she saw something even more astonishing. Her jaw dropped.
There in the far right corner of the photograph, sitting in one of the choir’s pews, was Grandmother Johnson! Her hair was pulled back in the same tight bun. Her eyebrows arched high. Her face was thinner and less saggy, and she was smiling an actual smile. But it was undoubtedly her. “That’s you,” Minni breathed excitedly. “Sitting behind Dr. King!”
Keira stepped closer and looked. “Wow,” she said again.
“Did you meet him…talk to him?” Minni asked, bursting with questions. “What was it like to hear him speak?”
Grandmother Johnson gazed at the photograph. “Like rocketing into outer space…being lit on fire but not being consumed…receiving water on a parched and withered tongue…all at the same time.” For a moment, it seemed as if she had left her body and entered the picture. “He gave us so much hope.”
Suddenly her eyes turned moist. She spoke quietly. “When we heard the news that he had been shot, some of the children at Lowell cheered.” Her breath seemed to catch in her throat. “It about tore me to shreds.”
Cheered? Minni’s face and chest burned with anger. Cheered?
“The following day, I just couldn’t go in—couldn’t face those…” Grandmother Johnson’s voice trailed off. “My one absence in forty-five years…” She closed her eyes. Then she blinked, and just like that, she was ready to move on.
Minni lingered in front of the photo awhile longer. Her grandmother had sat in the same room as Dr. King!
They spent another hour or so wandering from room to room, but Minni didn’t take in much after that. One group of photographs that did catch Minni’s attention featured black people she never would have known were black had the captions not said so. Just like me, she thought.
The display talked about something called “passing,” where blacks would take on white identities by day so they could find work, then return to their black families at night. Some people even cut themselves off from their families entirely, choosing to live as white and never seeing their loved ones again.
These pictures both drew her in and pushed her away. To live as white and never see Keira or Mama again? The very thought of it made her reel, like a satellite spinning into outer space, disconnected and alone. Reading about what these people had done—or felt they needed to do—to have a good life made her feel sad and afraid and even a little ashamed, although she didn’t know why. She had never done—never would do—anything like that.
What about in the dress shop?
The question caught her off guard.
You didn’t exactly let the woman know you weren’t the white girl she thought you were.
She pushed the accusation from her mind and hurried out to the hall, searching for Keira and wishing she hadn’t seen the exhibit on passing.
When they returned from their scrumptious lunch at Dinah’s Soul Food restaurant, Minni clambered to the attic and called home.
Mama picked up on the second ring. “She met Dr. King! She shook his hand!” Minni blurted.
“Sounds like you went to the museum.”
Minni ran all her words together as if they were one sentence. “Mama, it’s amazing! I just can’t believe it, but of course I do, because I saw the picture with my own eyes. It’s incredible! Why didn’t you ever tell me?”
Mama let her catch her breath. “Believe me, I’ve wanted to many times. But she asked me not to. She’s been looking forward to showing you that picture for a long time.”
Keira climbed the stairs and flopped onto her bed.
“Your grandmother may not have gone for staging sit-ins and letting herself get arrested, but she revered Dr. King from the beginning. And she tried to make a difference in her own way.”
Minni supposed t
hat was true, given that Grandmother Johnson had been willing to be one of the first black teachers to work at a white school at a time when white people didn’t want black people there.
“You and Keira doing all right?”
Minni glanced at Keira, who lay on the bed twisting one of her curls around her finger. “Yeah. We’re good. Oh—and after the museum, she took us out for soul food!” Minni put the phone on speaker so Keira could hear.
“Mother took you for soul food? Wow. Did you go to Dinah’s?”
“Yeah, how’d you know?”
“That place is legendary. We went there all the time when I was a girl. Did you enjoy it?”
“The mac and cheese was incredible,” Keira said.
“And could you make us greens like that at home?” Minni asked. The last and only time she’d had greens was the first time Mama and Daddy took them for soul food in Seattle. She’d only tried them this time because Grandmother Johnson had made her. And then she devoured the whole mound.
“Mmmm…I’ll never forget the taste of Dinah’s greens.” Mama paused as if she was remembering their tangy flavor. “I’m sure mine wouldn’t turn out anything like Dinah’s, but I suppose I could try. I didn’t exactly learn how to cook growing up.”
“We had mushy tuna casserole last night.” Keira stuck her finger in her mouth.
“With stringy pieces of celery.” Minni shuddered.
“Hang in there. Only three days to the orientation. How you feeling about it?”
“Can’t wait!” Keira shouted.
“Minni? You feeling all right about it?”
“Mm-hmm.” She wasn’t really, but she wanted Mama to be proud of her for not being too scared, and seeing the photograph of Dr. King and Grandmother Johnson had momentarily inspired her to at least try to overcome her fear of speaking in front of groups.
“Is Daddy reading his book?” she asked.
The Other Half of My Heart Page 13
