Mary, who was black, worked for my Dad at his syrup plant in Charlotte, North Carolina, and, after my mother, Alice May Cameron, died in June 1947, he hired her to work at our farmhouse near Gadsden, Alabama, cooking and cleaning.
I don’t know how much he paid her, very little is my guess, in addition to room and board. But she was able to save some money.
When I was a boy I went barefoot a lot in the summer. That fall, I didn’t go to school, I was 5 years old, but when it got cold I needed shoes. We didn’t have money for shoes so Mary, bless her, bought me a pair. And for that my oldest sister, Marge, fired her and sent her back to Charlotte.
Why? Because our family didn’t take charity.
After I grew up and heard that story I suspected racism: Our family didn’t take charity from black people.
Sister Marge turned out to be the most liberal member of our family. [She voted for George McGovern, for Pete’s sake.] So I thought, maybe, more than 50 years later, she might admit she had been a little hasty when she fired Mary. I asked her, and I found out: Nothing had changed.
I could practically see her blood pressure rising: Our family doesn’t take charity. And don’t offer us any, either.
Coming Friday: “No Dogs or Reporters Allowed”