Chapter 9 A New Beginning for the Taylor Family
Grandma Taylor looked up at her grands and the others in the room. She smiled to herself as she thought how far she had come. For it had been some forty odd years earlier that she had left the First Baptist Church of Riverside following behind the pine box carried by the deacons in the church with her Thomas inside to the cemetery. She had set in the first pew of the Church dressed in black with her two children at her side. She had listen to her father preach the funeral and never once mentioning the real reason why Thomas and his father had been killed. She listened to the choir as they sang “I’ll fly away “. It was at that moment that she vowed to continue the fight of Thomas. She remembered how she forced herself to hold her head high and not shed a tear for she did not want any one to feel sorry for her. She had been listening intently to the discussions between Thomas and his father and had agreed with Thomas that things had to be different. While she had never interrupted their conversations, she was very proud of the stance of Thomas. She did not have to go to college to know that it was wrong to be treated differently just because of the color of your skin. With each step behind the horse drawn casket, she vowed to uphold the name of Thomas Taylor. Little did she know that she was going to travel down a road that would lead her to this day where she would live to see the great grandson of Thomas be born in a hospital where both Coloreds and Whites were in the same room. Where there would be a Colored doctor and a White nurse working together. No her only thoughts on that day was the hurt in her heart and how she wanted to turn that hurt into something so good that no one would ever forget her Thomas. It was the year 1937 and Franklin Roosevelt had been in office for almost five years. During this time there were many new programs started for both Coloreds and Whites. There were programs like the Civil Works Administration (CWA), Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), Public Works Association (PWA), and Works Progress Administration (WPA). Many people called this the "alphabet soup". Because of these programs, people begin to go back to work and things begin to edge toward something like normal. Riverside saw the impact of these and other programs that were developed to assist the farmers primarily in the south.
This is when Grandma Taylor began to carefully position herself and her family to take advantage of the changing times. Having the only Colored store in town, she began to skillfully obtain goods at less then market prices and sell them for a good profit. She had given many of the people in the town credit to purchase necessary items when they did not have any real jobs or money and this included Coloreds and Whites. While the Whites begrudged her for what she was doing, they also respected her for what she had done since the death of her husband and father in law and saw little threat from her. She would say “yes maam and yes sir” to the Whites but she also said that to the Coloreds as well.
She fondly remembered those days when the Coloreds would gather around the radio and listen to radio shows like Marx Brothers and Bob Hope, Burns and Allen and the Long Ranger. She also remembered listening to Amos and Andy. It was later that she found out that the radio Amos and Andy were in fact White. They were Freeman Gosden and Charles Correll who kept the show on the radio for many years until 1951 when it first came on TV. The show has since been banned from TV. This was also the era of big band leaders like Cab Calloway and Duke Ellington.
Perhaps mostly, she remembered everyone around the radio listening to the “Brown Bomber” Joe Louis. Joe Louis was born in Alabama and moved to Detroit. He began his professional boxing career in early 1934. By 1935, he was on the mind of every Colored and White boxing fan in the United States. He won his first 27 pro fights with 23 knockouts. She remembered how they all felt when he lost to German Max Schmeling in 1936. She also remembered the feeling that the whole country had when he beat Max Schmeling in a rematch. For the fight was billed as the American versus the Nazi. It was only later that all found out that Schmeling was never a Nazi. Even to this day she would argue that Joe Louis was the best ever, even better than Cassius Clay. She never understood why he changed his name and became a Black Muslim. Grandma Taylor had always been a Baptist and did not care for any other religion. As she said, her daddy was a Baptist preacher and his daddy before him and that was good enough for her.
She also remembered the year 1936 when Jesse Owens became the first man to win four gold medals in the summer Olympics. This was especially sweet given that he won them in Berlin where the Nazis were boasting of being the master race. In fact rumor had it that Adolph Hitler refused to shake the hand of Jesse Owens. There were some good memories and some bad memories especially the loss of her Thomas.