Diesel
Heart
Diesel
Heart
An Autobiography
MELVIN WHITFIELD CARTER JR.
This book reflects my experiences to the best of my ability.
Other people who were there may well have experienced things differently.
I use the real names of many people but provide aliases for others, to protect both the guilty and the innocent.
The publication of this book was supported though a generous grant from the Elmer L. and Eleanor Andersen Publications Fund.
Copyright © 2019 by Melvin Whitfield Carter Jr.
Other materials copyright © 2019 by the Minnesota Historical Society.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, write to the Minnesota Historical Society Press, 345 Kellogg Blvd. W., St. Paul, MN 55102–1906.
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TO BELOVED MOMMY,
for always believing in the best of me, for tutoring me, and most of all for creating a household of love and joy.
TO DEAR DAD,
for manning up the paternal battle-station during troubled times and escorting me into manhood, while living the true definition of standing your ground.
TO HENRY:
This is the book that we were always going to write.
TO LOVELY WILLETHA,
who rescued me from the bottomless abyss of grief and chaos—and gave me precious life itself.
TO ALL YOUNG MEN
struggling to grow up in a world even more confused and complex than I could ever have imagined: you are talented and gifted beyond measure, especially if all those tests say otherwise.
AND WITH SPECIAL THANKS TO GOD,
who carried me through so many good, bad, and dangerous times—and who gave me my wife, three children, and precious grandchildren, AND the vision and mission and assignment for Save Our Sons.
Contents
PART 1
1 Who I Came From
2 The Family Up North
3 Deep Rondo
4 Learnin’ Lessons
5 Growin’ Pains
6 Free at Last
7 Long Hot Summer
8 Turnin’ Points
PART 2
9 Maiden Voyage
10 The Passage
11 Boiler Room
12 Bouk in Pieces
13 Internal Combustion
14 Thump Call
15 Trial and Error
PART 3
16 In the Valley of the Shadow
17 Head to the Sky
18 The Police Academy
19 Probationary Blues
20 Two New Worlds
21 Policing While Black
22 Routine Workplace Hostility
23 Rice Street Parade
24 SWAT
25 One Good Man and Then the Battle
26 Who Woulda Thought It?
27 Promoted
28 Save Our Sons
Acknowledgments
“Man’s greatness consists in his ability to do, and the proper application of his powers to things needed to be done.”
— FREDERICK DOUGLASS
“The moving finger writes; and having writ, moves on.”
— OMAR KHAYYAM
“I don’t measure a man’s success by how high he climbs but how high he bounces when he hits bottom.”
— GEORGE PATTON
“For where your treasure is, your heart will be there also.”
— MATTHEW 6:21
PART 1
1
Who I Came From
The sun hovered high, bright, and shiny over the huge Texas sky, looking down on the 1954 Smith-Harris family reunion in Chilton, Texas. The atmosphere was festive. The aromas of barbecue and wildflowers clashed, danced, and blended with the faint stench of manure from nearby farm fields and pastures. Cows mooed in a far-off barn.
Behind us, set out on tables, were vegetables fresh from the garden, blended with fruits just off the trees and local pecans harvested last fall to create salads exploding with flavors that didn’t exist up north. And then there were the huge Texas watermelons. Never before, nor even later in life, did I ever savor a taste so sweet, so cold, so satisfying.
At the center of it all was Grandma Clara May Smith. Every year a family reunion was held for her, and every year was expected to be her last. But even though she was ancient, and in spite of the sweltering heat, my momma’s daddy’s momma’s momma sat upright on a pedestal-like chair, a blanket spread gently over her lap. Her penetrating eyes watched as children paraded before her. Although nothing was spoken, I could feel her connection with each and every child set on display before her.
Grandma Clara May Smith was so ancient that way back when she was born, birth records of those born into American slavery weren’t kept, and no one knew her birthdate. All anyone knew was that by the time American chattel slavery (the cruelest, most savage form of slavery ever to exist on the face of the planet) had ended, Grandma was already a little girl.
She had many children. One of her daughters, Pinky, bore Charlie D. Harris, who begot Billie Dove (Harris) Carter, my mom, and disappeared forever when mom was thirteen. Billie Dove had me as well as my five siblings.
It was my turn. Suspended in stillness, we stared into each other’s oblivion. Although no words were spoken, I comprehended that she lived and experienced that which I could never imagine, much of it unspeakable. And she in turn fully comprehended that I would experience a life that she would be denied, could not even imagine. The disconnect was the connect itself.
It is still hard to translate into words, but it seemed that, in a brief instant of eternity, Grandma and I merged in a place where there is no place or time. Gently and lovingly, she entered my psyche, lifting me with her heart and scanning me with her mind. As she launched me into a future into which she would not be allowed, I released her from a past that would remain beyond my comprehension.
“That’s your cousin. That’s your cousin. That’s your cousin!” Everybody pointed at everybody and each other. I was five and didn’t know what a cousin was, but I figured it was significant. Up in St. Paul where I lived, as far as I knew at that time, I had only two cousins, Henry and Gregory, both on my daddy’s side. We sat there looking puzzled at one another as grown folks pronounced us cousins, but we presumed we’d figure it out someday.
In Texas, we stayed with the Freemans in Dallas, Aunt Berta in Waco, and Uncle Bill on the farm out in the country. Everybody had two names, like Billy Junior, Ella May, Clara May, Clara Jewell, Judy Kay, and June-Bug, except for my playmates Carl, Weasel, and Blackie (a most beautiful brown-skinned girl). My Waco cousins played, ran, and jumped barefooted alongside a narrow driveway extending from the street to a garage. I tried to do the barefooted thing like the other kids, but I did the hotfoot dance with every step. The heat on the paved concrete was unbearable t
o my tender feet. We played kids’ games, like Little Sally Walker (“Yeah, shake it to the east, yeah, shake it to the west! Yeah, shake it to the one that you love the best!) and something about “Possum in a timmon tree, won’t you throw those cimmin down!” (I didn’t know anything about persimmons at the time.)
In Waco, the “shotgun houses” didn’t have basements like we had up in St. Paul. Instead they were narrow and small, slightly elevated on blocks, supposedly built that way by landlords so that Klan terrorists could shoot through from one end of the house to the other, and nobody could hide. My favorite thing of all was to squeeze underneath the house and then crawl from end to end. But Momma, June-Bug, and Aunt Berta found out we were under the house and forbade us ever to do that again, explaining something about vipers, scorpions, tarantulas. I couldn’t wait to get back under there.
Aunt Berta—Alberta Covington, one of Pinky’s sisters—had raised my momma after her father, Charlie D., disappeared into thin air. Although Momma’s momma, Mother Reagans, was from this region also, I hardly ever met anyone from her side of the family. (By this time Great Grandmom Pinky had long been dead.)
Aunt Berta told the story of how Texas had refused to let my people go despite the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and the Civil War ending on April 9, 1865, and all that Thirteenth Amendment stuff. So some US Army general named Gordon Granger had to march into Galveston and liberate Texas with military might at gunpoint. And on June 19, 1865—months after slavery had ended in every other state—“Jubilation of June-teenth finally done come.”
And then there was Uncle Bill’s farm out in the country in Chilton, Texas, where cousin Billy Junior and a bunch of his sisters lived. Their tiny old house, located at an intersection of two thin brown dirt roads, was surrounded with crops and cotton fields, with an out-back outhouse and barnyard. The only water source was an old-fashioned well located just across the dirt road. A bucket tied to a rope splashed about twenty feet down into bottomless water. Once filled, it was brought back up to the top with a pulley-type hand crank. This well was forbidden territory to us small children.
The livestock—cows, pigs, and chickens—were kept in a fenced-in area out back. The children were kept away from the pigs, but I loved chasing chickens with big cousin Billy Junior, a towering thirteen-year-old. He made milking cows look easy, sending powerful streams of milk zipping into a wooden bucket with loud splashing sounds, showing me how it was done. Then it was my turn to get up underneath the huge halfton scary beast. The cow, already annoyed, kept moving around, never remaining completely still, until she stepped on my shoe (just slightly) and pinched a toe. But I managed to squeeze out some slight streams of droplets, anyway.
Billy Junior was the tallest person I’d ever seen, even taller than my dad, I guessed. His gangling frame included a protruding Adam’s apple, long arms and legs, and over it all his patient watchful eyes. He rarely said much, but I always felt his companionship. In the barnyard one day, he noticed my curiosity about the animals and asked if I wanted to ride the huge bull. Yeah I did! No I didn’t! No, wait! Before I knew it, he snatched me off the ground and sat me on top of the bull. Slightly agitated with me on its back, the powerful beast began to trot faster and faster. Billy ran alongside and held me firm, zigzagging with the bull’s every turn. Just as it started to buck, he snatched me up and set me down gently on the ground. Glad to get off that thing! Probably never needed to do that ever again.
After all that playing, running, jumping, storytelling, it was bath time. Billy Junior toted water, bucket after bucket, across the road, placing some directly into this kettle-like tub on an outside porch. The tub looked more like an oversized pot, big enough to boil soup for an entire army and way big enough to fit children in. The women scurried, bathing child after child, refreshing the water a little as they went along. I didn’t want to get in that thing and was self-conscious about the grown women seeing me naked, let alone Ella May and the rest of the girl cousins peeking from around the corner, pointing, giggling, and laughing.
“Billie Dove, let me keep that boy,” the aunts, womenfolk, and older female cousins would say. I must have been somewhat cute. Mom’s eyes flashed a glisten as she chuckled to a private joke. She was slightly tempted, but … “Honey, you just don’t know! Be careful what you ask for!”
Suddenly, in the midst of all this, the fun stopped for a day. Actual work had to be done that had nothing to do with festivities. I was allowed to accompany the adults and big kids to pick cotton out in infinite fields. Work crews lined up in formation and began moving as if to silent music. Gradually that music became audible, as if it were coming from the soil itself to set the pace.
I was given my own personal sack to fill. Large Black bodies moved, swaying methodically and rhythmically to harmonies. Instead of complying and being restricted to ancestor rhythm, my hands snatched, ripped, slashed soft cotton off boll after boll, filling my sack. Curiously, as if on cue, all the work stalled. Seasoned workers watched me show off, cloaking sparkles of amusement in their eyes.
Suddenly a cotton boll exploded, spewing hot bright red. A prickly thorn had stung and ripped away flesh between my fingers and thumb. Also, as if on the same cue, I felt a thud in the middle of my chest. Huge daggering eyes stared up at me from my T-shirt. The cotton field had ripped right back, welcoming me to the Deep South, sending a huge bright-green grasshopper to let me know, “This ain’t St. Paul!” I shouted, cried, and panicked—but it left only when it was good and ready.
My showing off turned into the loud weeping of a small child. With compassion in their eyes, the field hands resumed their rhythm without a thing being said.
We left Texas with lots of heartfelt goodbyes. Relatives gathered to see us off. Momma promised Carl, Weasel, and Blackie I’d be back soon. But I was never again to see the state of Texas as a child.
2
The Family Up North
“B-OA-OA—OA—R—R—R—D—D!” a mean old grouchy man shouted. We were heading home.
It’d been almost two weeks since we’d seen Dad, the longest we’d ever been away from him. I felt guilty leaving him all alone up there in that great big old haunted house.
The train sped to a steady rhythmic rocking beat, swaying to and fro with an occasional loud burst of train whistles. My mind’s ear recognized the source of the jazz played by my father’s band. Melodic, inaudible voices conveyed that which is inarticulable, tragedy with victory, and kept moving with the continual motion of the train.
Momma, with an infant, a toddler, my big sister, and me were the only riders in a “bare necessity” railroad car similar to the one that had brought us down here. We were always isolated from other passengers. Our car repeatedly stopped for hours in the middle of tracks going nowhere, then was reattached to other cars. “Momma, are we there yet?” was our song. She wore a pasted-on reassuring face.
A giant upside down water bottle towered high. At first, cone-shaped paper cups from a dispenser were fun to chew on, stack high, and play with. But we kept tearing them up and making spitballs.
Momma said that since this fountain was just for us, we should not drink from any other. The good news was that it was just for us. The bad news was that it was just for us. Momma sustained her special patience-and-tolerance face, forcing us to assume that everything was all right.
“Momma, are we there yet?” The all-Black railroad porters, waiters, and cooks routinely poked their heads in, taking good care of us, saying, “We’re gonna bring you all into the dining car just as soon as everyone’s done eating,” so we could eat after the other passengers left. They’d set us up at a table at the far end of the dining compartment as if they were sneaking us in. But maybe they took special care of us because my father was a fellow Red Cap railroad worker. Momma said some man named Ol’ Jim Crow had set up the dining hall rules.
Nevertheless, they were joyfully good to us. They fed us stuff I’d never heard of before, like frank fritters, corn fritters, and Denv
er omelets. Later when we were back in our car, trying to sleep, they brought us free popsicles for a nighttime snack.
“Are we there yet, Momma?”
“Yes, dear, we are.”
And Daddy met us at the station, not looking neglected at all with our being gone for so long.
God must have had a sense of humor operating in a comedy of opposites when he put our parents together. Momma was extremely social, expressive, emotional, quick, and hot tempered, demonstratively loving, at times flamboyant, loud and the life of the party. Her skin complexion was what they called “high yellow.” Dad, though, was tall, dark, handsome, and stately, and he did most of his talking through the bell of his trumpet. He spoke more with actions than words, though he wasn’t necessarily the quiet type. He just said mostly what needed to be said. Words that best describe him would be practical, provider, emotionally unavailable, and gone way too much.
But that wasn’t all his fault. In order for a Black man to be any kind of provider in those days, he had to work his ass off. Dad tripled, working on the railroad (either as a Red Cap porter or as a waiter), as a shoe shiner, and as an elevator operator. At times he’d pull twenty-two-hour shifts and hide in the broom closet to catnap. But when nighttime fell, it was gig time. Jazz was his first love. Momma always said she’d rather compete with another woman.
Dad’s family had come to St. Paul, Minnesota, way back in 1916 after a big fire burned down half the town of Paris, Texas. For some reason, the Carters got out of there quick. Pa’s two brothers, Mac and Foster, were already in St. Paul working on the railroad, and they sent for Mym Sr., his wife Mary, Mym Jr., and daughter Leantha (Toobie). The Carters found themselves in St. Paul, where Dad was born about eight years later. They all played music and sang. Dad’s first memories in life consisted of traveling with a circus or carnival. Pulling over to patch and inflate a flat tire with a hand pump while driving to Chicago was to be expected, sometimes both going and coming back.
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