Chapter 8 Welcome Home a Different Thomas
As Grandma Taylor continued to sit waiting patiently, her thoughts went back to her Thomas and the Summer of 1935. Thomas Taylor had graduated from Howard University with his law degree and had returned home to Riverside to work with his father in their law practice. During the past year two changes had occurred in his life. He was now the proud father of a daughter and he had joined the NAACP.
During his time at Howard Thomas had decided that he no longer was going to accept the status quo. He no longer was going to just accept things as they were. He decided that he was going to fight for things to change. While he knew that there was not going to be Colored children going to school with White children he was going to fight for the Colored children to have better books and a better school building. It was no longer acceptable for the school roof to leak and the children not to have books of their own. For it had been the custom that the Colored school would get the books from the White school after they had used them and had gotten new books.
Many days Thomas and his father argued about the role that he was to play in the town. His father was well liked by both the Coloreds and Whites. The Coloreds liked him because he was the only Colored lawyer and was Chairman of the Deacon Board and the Whites liked him because they always knew that he was willing not to rock the boat and they could count on him and Rev Mims to keep the others in line. Grandma Taylor would remember their heated discussions and how they would argue about how the New Deal created by President Franklin D. Roosevelt did not really help the Coloreds in the South nor in the North for that matter. While there were jobs created by the New Deal Programs, Coloreds were paid less than Whites and Whites got the best jobs. Young Thomas argued that Coloreds should follow the lead of folks like A Phillip Randolph and others. He also argued that the Church should become more active and help people in the community. Young Thomas also knew that the White landowners were getting paid for reducing the amount of cotton that they grew and the Colored sharecroppers were not getting any of this money.
Grandma Taylor became worried the more Young Thomas talked about the lack of civil rights that Coloreds had in Riverside. She knew that the Ku Klux Klan was not going to sit by and let Young Thomas turn the Colored sharecroppers against them. She became even more worried when Young Thomas started talking about some labor union called Southern Tenants Farmers Union to unionize black and white sharecroppers and tenant farmers. She remembered Young Thomas standing up at Church and talking about the Church being more active in what was going on in the community and Rev Mims and Attorney Taylor allowing Young Thomas to speak but telling him how wrong he was to go against the system that had been in place for so many years. They even went as far as to warn him that something bad could happen to him if he did not stop.
She began to sigh and breathe more slowly as she remembered the last time that she saw her husband Thomas Taylor alive. It was shortly after the birth of their second child that Thomas was scheduled to go to a meeting at the Church to talk to the Colored sharecroppers about banding together to get more money for their crops. While many Colored farmers had left to go west to California many also remained for they had heard stories of how bad it was up North and also things were no better in what people now call the “dust bowl”. He had told her not to stay up because he was going to be late. Grandma Taylor did stay up worrying about her Thomas. She stayed up all night waiting and wondering about him.
Early the next morning came a knock on the door and there stood the White sheriff. This was the first and only time that he had been to their house. He stood there with his hat in hand and looking down, She knew something was wrong and began to ask about her Thomas. He then proceeded to tell her that there had been a shooting and that her Thomas and his father were dead. here were no witnesses and that they just thought that they had been robbed. He then began to tell her how sorry he was but she did not hear any other words coming out of his mouth.
Even today as she painfully remembered that day, it felt like a knife was in her stomach. In just one night she had lost her husband and the father of her children. While she was always worried for him, she never imagine that something like that could happen, Tears swelled up in her eyes as she again thought of her Thomas as she had done every day for the last 40 odd years.