Chapter 30- A Decade of Change
As she listened to the chatter in the room, Grandmother Taylor looked around the room at her family and smiled just a little. Her mind raced to the past beginning with her marriage to Tom Sr. to the birth of her children, to the expansion of her store and restaurant business and to all of the changes that she had seen over her almost 70 years. Her mind went back to the turbulent times in the sixties. Those ten years created so much change in the United States and to Mississippi and to Riverside.
Grandmother Taylor thought about how she had changed as well during those years. She remembered the Civil Rights battles that were forged all through the south but especially in Alabama and Mississippi. Her heart ached a little when she thought of the children that had been killed in the Church bombing in Birmingham. She thought about Medgar Evans and his death which reminded her so much of the death of her husband. She remembered when she watched in horror as many cities in the United States dealt with riots, police dogs and tear gas. Her heart even now still felt the loss of Dr. Martin Luther King who was assassinated in Memphis Tennessee. She could still here two of his most famous speeches- “ The Drum Major Instinct” and “ I have been to the mountain top”. It was if he knew the end was soon. She could still remember sitting at home watching his funeral on the television as Mahalia Jackson sang the song “ Precious Lord Take My Hand”. While she understood the anger of some over his death, she could never agree with the riots that occurred following his death. He was a man of peace and non-violence and others had turned that message completely around and were now bringing violence into the very streets that he had tried to change.
However there was one thing that had not really changed. She has seen soldiers come into her restaurant to eat on their way to training and to a war a long way from home. While the faces seemed to change they all seem to be the same. Young men, many just out of high school, who were being asked to fight a war a long way from home in a country which she had never heard nor could she even find it on the map. While Grandmother Taylor was very clear about World War II, she was not so clear and understanding about the Korean War and certainly she had no idea of why America was fighting a war in Viet Nam. She like many others could never understand the reason for the war and while she never said anything publicly she was very happy that her Tom had not been called to fight in the war. If the time had ever come for Tom to be drafted she would have done whatever she had needed to do to keep him from going to the war. That was most certainly not in her plans for Tom.
Grandmother Taylor thought about that brass and loud talking young man from Louisville who was to become the Heavyweight Champion of the world. She remembered the many arguments in her restaurant about who was the greatest, Cassius Clay or Joe Louis. While she never participated in the discussions, she knew that Joe Louis was the greatest. This was even more evident when that loud mouth changed his name to Muhammad Ali and became a Black Muslim. Grandmother Taylor did not really know any Black Muslims in Riverside and only knew what she read in the newspaper or saw on the nightly television news. However when Muhammad Ali refused to go into the army she found a new respect for him. Again she did not discuss it openly with anyone but she did not understand the war and did not want her Tom or really any other Black young man going to Vietnam. She really did understand that Blacks were still not completely free here in the United States so there was no need for Blacks to go to fight a war for someone else. For in Mississippi and some other states, Blacks were still trying to gain the right to vote and go to the school of their choice. While she agreed with Ali, she still knew that Joe Louis would whip him any day of the week.
It was the year of 1969, when Neil Armstrong stepped on the moon. Grandmother Taylor remembered the excitement in the restaurant and around all of Riverside when it was announced that the United States of America had been the first to reach the moon. There had been much discussion about this at Church. One person said that they did not believe anyone had gone to the moon and there was nothing anyone could say that would change their mind. Another said that it was like the story of the Tower of Babel in the Bible and that man was going to be cursed by God for trying to go to the moon.