Heroes and Holidays
SpeEdChange.at.Medium
Let’s say I was eight. If I walked south along my block there were two supermarkets and then a gas station — a “service station” — owned by a classmate’s father. If I walked north, past the barber and the drug store and the two delicatessens — Italian and German — and the toy store whose owners both had purple numbers tattooed on their forearms, there was the branch of a Fifth Avenue “carriage trade” department store” that my mother would have loved to shop in. It stood on the corner of Main Street — US 1 — in art deco glory, its street fronts lined with display windows.
But if I looped a bit east, along Clinton Street past apartment blocks that seemed a bit better than ours, and then turned north onto Church Street, I would first pass the City Health Department. Didn’t know much about that except that way older kids went there for shots if they got “in trouble” — a certain kind of unspoken trouble. And then there was the Salvation Army building and a blacktop yard with a basketball hoop. After that was a driveway that went down to a little parking lot and the back entry and the loading dock for Grant’s. Grant’s was a big discount store — kind of like Walmart without groceries, but two stories because this was a city. The city Fire Department Headquarters came next. It was where my parents voted. Finally there was Liebman’s on the corner of Main. Liebman’s was where we got Scout uniforms. If you went around the corner on Main you’d eventually get to the big front doors of Grant’s. And if it was Advent, the lead up to Christmas, there would be a Salvation Army bellringer by those doors, as there would be at both the big department stores downtown, at Woolworth’s, at Enterprise (another “Five and Ten”), and at the big supermarkets. But I only really remember the guy at Grant’s. He was huge — even bigger in his big red coat. He was missing a lot of teeth. And he’d yell, “Elp dee Ahhmee” in this wonderful singsong that I loved as he rang his bell.
We didn’t have money. Nobody I knew had money. But my parents always taught us to give, and I never walked past that bellringer at Grant’s without putting something in the kettle… pennies, a nickle. Something…
Giving…
Without getting all theological here, there’s a seasonal concept at play, moments in the human calendar when deities give something to the people of earth. Prometheus bringing fire, for example, or the unitary god of Christians and Muslims giving his “only begotten son” on, what we now call “Christmas Day” (though, to be honest, my niece, teaching in an ESL classroom in Queens, NY had a Hindu child ask, “all this fuss because one god had one child?”).
What’s the gift I want to give this season? I would like to give our children better heroes. The kind of heroes they deserve, because I believe that kids deserve heroes. And I am tired of children walking or driving on Lee-Jackson Highway or Woodrow Wilson Parkway, or going to Robert E. Lee High School or Stonewall Jackson Middle School, or living in a city dominated by a giant sign for the Stonewall Jackson Hotel, or with parks dominated by statues of Confederate generals. I am tired of kids going to schools named after racists and sexists — and to be clear — I’m talking about people who should have known better at the time that they lived, or being forced to see offensive street signs every day. Because kids know things, and despite what so so many claim, kids learn things. And kids need things.
So there is no real excuse for anything to be named after anyone who killed American soldiers in defense of slavery, or who defended slavery. I mean, really. Is this an argument that can be made? Really? Let’s be clear — Thomas Jefferson had great ideas. James Madison had great ideas, I love many things Madison said, especially, “the silent operation of laws which, without violating the rights of property, reduce extreme wealth towards a state of mediocrity, and raise extreme indigents towards a state of comfort” — and yet, these were slaveholders when the world already knew this was wrong. John Adams knew slavery was wrong, he lived when Jefferson and Washington and Madison lived. Jefferson, was of course, a rank elitist who I struggle with in many ways. His purpose for public education, “By this means twenty of the best geniuses will be raked from the rubbish annually, and be instructed at the public expense, so far as the grammar schools go,” always seems a bit less democratic in spirit them his historic portrayals suggest. Wilson? That great leader? He became the first U.S. President to formally segregate the Executive Branch, establishing rigid Jim Crow rules in Federal Buildings, and, at the Paris Peace Conference in 1919 refusing to meet with or eat with non-white national delegations. As the only President to live through the American Civil War in the Confederacy he carried with him the grudge of the “lost cause” and the belief that the South had been wronged.
“I am surprised,” I wrote to an Asian-American University of Virginia Vice-Provost years ago when she blogged proudly about ‘Mr. Wilson’s University,’ “that you would write this about a man who would not only not have let you eat with him, but would not have let you cook for him.” She acknowledged that my statements were true but stated that his other accomplishments outweighed those sins. I’m not so sure. Not in Virginia for Wilson. Not in Virginia for Jefferson. Not when it comes to education. And not when the University wonders why it cannot attract a more diverse student population (Black students represent 22.9% of Virginia high school graduates and 6.9% of University of Virginia students).
OK, yes, people are complicated. Can people not be heroic thinkers and yet rapists? Heroic soldiers and yet slave owners? I guess… well, obviously, and yet… while admitting that no human is perfect, and, for now, avoiding the arguments over renaming Washington State, Washington D.C., Louisiana, North and South Carolina, etc… can we set a standard for schools at least, and perhaps streets?
Let me suggest: You want people who “took it to the man,” who “stood up for lost causes,” but maybe for causes less repugnant than human slavery and the slaughter of American soldiers? Let me suggest Eldridge Cleaver, Bobby Seale, Angela Davis, or Malcolm X. Four people who clearly fought nobly and passionately against a government they saw as wronging Americans, but who did so with justice for all as their motivation. Any of their names might appropriately adorn any school now named after Stonewall Jackson or Robert E. Lee.
But maybe you’d prefer a soldier. Great. I’ll offer you a hero of mine. A man who served with both the United States Navy and the United States Army and who came from Atlanta, Georgia — Hugh Thompson, Jr. Hugh Thompson’s name on any school or any road should delight any Southerner, or any patriotic American from anywhere. He was the leader of the helicopter crew in Sơn Mỹ Village, South Vietnam, on March 16, 1968 that ended the My Lai Massacre — an act of incredible courage. If you need other names in your town, Glenn Andreotta (from New Jersey via Missouri) and Lawrence Colborn (Washington State) of Thompson’s crew deserve equal credit. Robert E. Lee turned against his oath as a U.S. Army Officer to fight for human slavery. Hugh Thompson Jr. and his crew took on the biggest challenge in any military organization — breaking those bonds of the brotherhood of combat — in order to serve a much higher purpose: the protection of innocent human life.
Hugh Thompson Jr. and his crew bring me into another place. Maybe we need to look deeper, to look beyond the famous. Thompson is barely known — Wikipedia page or not. His crew is unknown. Others I would choose for nomenclature are unknown — or only known in tiny circles. Alan Shapiro is one. New Rochelle Police Detective Brud Flowers is another. Albemarle County Drama Teacher Madeline Michel — who unleashes high school kids’ voices — is one more. So is Albemarle County Kindergarten Teacher Meg Franco who frees kindergartners every day. That’s ok. Every community is full of unknown heroes. I spoke to a Virginia Superintendent recently about a woman most of the community might not even know about — that seemed perfect to me. Who are the little heroes. The people who gave their all to make things better — even if it didn’t accomplish much in the end. After all, lost causes can be ok — as long as the effort is on behalf of humanity.
Listen. One of my main occupations as a kid was walking around, looking in windows. I watched what life was like. I saw ‘regular’ families. I saw all kinds of families. I knew that guys slept at the Salvation Army. I knew people ate there. I knew that food and beds cost money. I knew that at the end of the month we piled up bottles with my uncle’s family and returned them for that last dinner of the month. So, I knew money helped. And knowledge of what people need is important. That’s a truth.
So one of my heroes — and I think of him at this time of year, every year — was this huge Black guy in a huge red jacket ringing his bell outside Grant’s every day from Thanksgiving to Christmas, raising money to feed himself and his community. “Elp dee Ahhmee” — “Help the Army” in a beautiful song. I’d name a street after him, for certain, because I’d walk the long way around the block just to pass him and drop pennies in his bucket. He made me need to do that. Isn’t that so much more worthy than the heroes of American racism? Please… isn’t it?
I’d name a street for him for certain, if I only knew his name.
- Ira Socol
