to them when I had to. Regardless of what they were thinking, they never mentioned the incident again. I never forgot it. We hit a racial divide that was too painful for me to renegotiate. They were part of the white world, and I was part of the black world. In spite of what some of my other close white friends did or said, I always knew what could happen if I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and so I carried a wariness inside of me that they did not.
I wasn’t wrong. When I was a junior it happened again—this time with my buddy Albert. Albert was in the bass section in the choir, and we enjoyed harmonizing together from time to time. One Friday night, Albert mentioned that there was a party at the VFW out on Midlothian Boulevard.
“Have you ever been there?” he asked.
I hadn’t ever heard of it. Albert described it as a big crowd of people from all over—maybe some students from school—with beers and dancing: a lot of fun.
That sounded fine to me, so I agreed. There was a huge parking lot surrounding the VFW, already half full. The action was coming from a dilapidated old two-story brick building.
We parked a little way away and headed for the entrance. We walked in rhythm to the deep thump, thump, thump coming from inside that got louder as we neared the entrance.
When we got to the door, Albert knocked. The bouncer opened the door a crack and looked at us. I could smell the cigarette smoke and feel the visceral rush of the music as the vibrations shook the building. The sound was vintage Little Richard.
“How much is it to get in tonight?” Albert yelled, cupping his hands over his mouth.
“Five bucks for you,” yelled back the bouncer, “but your buddy can’t come in. Tell him to come back on Wednesday, Nigger Night!” His voice was harsh as he directed his refusal toward me. Someone from inside, a guy about thirty wearing tight jeans, came over and looked over the bouncer’s shoulder. He joined in the bouncer’s explanation.
“Yeah, nigger boy, this ain’t Nigger Night. Check with your people and come back then. There’s no niggers allowed here tonight!”
By his body language, I could tell that he wasn’t even talking directly to me. He was yelling to Albert to tell me, as though I couldn’t hear or understand the meaning of his words because of all the noise. It had never occurred to me or to Albert that blacks and whites didn’t go to the VFW on the same nights. We stood there dumbfounded. I could tell that Albert wanted to go in. He had been planning on it for several days. I didn’t want to spoil it for him.
“Look, Albert,” I said, “why don’t you take me home, and you can come on back and do your thing. I don’t need to go in there tonight.” I was already headed back for the car. It was too far to walk home, or I’d have offered to let Albert stay and gone home alone.
When Albert caught up with me in the parking lot, he was all apologies.
“I’m really sorry about this, man,” he said. He was earnest. “I didn’t know. Let’s get out of here. We can head back to my place. I didn’t want to go there anyway.”
We sat in silence in the car. I didn’t feel that it was Albert’s fault, but he was white. I was sure that nothing like this had ever happened to him before. He said as much.
I knew that it wasn’t just the VFW that discriminated against blacks. I heard the older folks talking, and I knew that it could happen all over town. It could happen in any white church, at my school, at certain community functions—like plays where blacks didn’t audition because we knew we’d never be cast as anything except a maid or shoeshine boy. We also didn’t go to the Northside swimming pool or the downtown YMCA. There were neighborhoods that were traditionally white and others that were all black. This brand of racism was not new to me. It was found all over the city, all over the state and country. One just swallowed and moved on.
Although Albert protested, I insisted that he take me home. As I got out of the car, he yelled, “Hey, man, I’ll see you on Monday, okay?”
“Yeah, see you on Monday,” I answered, desolate. As I walked into the house and up to my room, I knew that I was somehow a second-class citizen. He was my buddy, but he wasn’t able to do anything about what had happened. This knowledge caused me to feel rage, a very different kind of rage than when I was angry with my parents. I was enraged enough to not want to live in the United States, to want to get away from it all. I didn’t want any white friends. I wondered how I could manage that and finish my education. If I kept thinking about what had just happened, I wouldn’t be able to work or practice or sleep. It was paralyzing.
I sat down, but I couldn’t pray. I was mad at God too. My eyes glanced around my bedroom and rested on an old clarinet that I hadn’t played for a while. I picked it up to try to forget what had just happened. After a few lame phrases, I heard banging on the ceiling downstairs and my stepfather’s irate voice yelling at me.
“Stop that damned noise! It was nice and peaceful around here till you got back and started your noise. Stop that noise before I come up there and shove that damned clarinet down your throat.”
Now my rage had a more immediate and visible enemy. I could hate him and know that one day I would do something about it. I was going to leave this tormentor and his house—this whole stupid town—and go as far as I could go. It was a bit more difficult for me to leave this country. That I’d have to work on, but I could distance myself from Warren.
Nothing like what had happened that night ever happened when I was with my black buddies. We just knew where to go and where not to go. We knew that we weren’t going to change Youngstown, and we weren’t trying. We wanted to be survivors. That meant not rocking the boat.
Back in school, Albert handled things very differently than Mickey. He kept referring to the incident and mentioned that he had told his parents.
“Would you come over and talk with Mom and Dad about it? I want them to know what happened. I’m not going to the VFW again. They’re dead set against it. They made me promise. I wish you’d come over and talk with them sometime.” He was serious.
I wanted to talk with them, but I felt that the real issue was talking to the actual racists who ran the VFW. Somebody should talk to them.
MY TICKET OUT OF YOUNGSTOWN APPEARED IN THE form of two unlikely people: Ms. Mary Lou Phillips and Professor Ron Gould. Mary Lou Phillips first met our family through Warren’s mother, who needed to get approval for social security. (Aid for the Aged is what it was called in Ohio at the time.) Mary Lou came to the house to interview Warren and my mother to find out as much info as she could to qualify Warren’s mother for Aid for the Aged. During one of Mary Lou’s home visits, I came home from school and my mother introduced me as “my son François, who sings.” She asked Mary Lou if she would like to hear a song. I certainly wasn’t shy about singing, so I ended up singing a few songs for her right there in the living room. Mary Lou was impressed, and immediately suggested that I meet the organist-choirmaster from St. John’s Episcopal Church, Ron Gould, and maybe take some voice lessons with him.
I waited to take my cue from my mother. This singing was not for the Baptist church, and I could just hear her saying “No!” Well, she surprised me and said I should do it if I really wanted to. The deal was set, and Mary Lou promised to be in touch with me soon to confirm a starting date. I was a bit suspicious of this white church, St. John’s, but I was willing to give it a try. I wanted to learn to sing better.
My
