I met with Wanda Livers (nee Dawson) in the summer of 2015.
We sat at a long folding table in the basement of the Baptist Church on High
Street. The church is one of three Black churches in Springfield: Baptist, AME
Zion (a few blocks up High Street), and Catholic. There are a few others attended by Black
people, but these are the ones that are historically and predominantly African
American.
A dozen women moved around the church basement preparing
for a dinner to be held following a memorial service. Tables being set, chairs
moved, chatting voices and laughter, the sound of dishes and cookware in the
kitchen fill the background of our taped conversation. It’s a soothing and
comforting sound. People are taking care of the food, the sustenance, the
going-on that follow the loss and the grief. Sitting down together, breaking
bread, telling the stories, renewing bonds with loved ones who’ve come from
afar, these quietly joyous parts of death will accompany the sad ones.
About one year after this first interview, Pansy, who is
Wanda’s cousin, would encourage me to attend Sunday school at her church, this
church. Wanda and her husband are the primary pastoral couple, as Rev. Livers
takes over for the aging current pastor. As I follow Pansy to the Sunday school
room, I’ll pass a room full of men and wonder aloud whether Sunday school is
segregated? Yes, Pansy whispers. But
that is less upsetting than what followed. I’ll sit through Wanda’s “lesson” on the evils
of homosexuality, and her comments about how she has prayed for “that woman”
(Kim Davis, the infamous Eastern Kentucky court clerk who refused to sign gay
marriage certificates) before I finally raise my hand and say that I have gay
friends and family members, and I don’t think Jesus rejected anyone. Some in the class argued that it was in the Bible (I didn't argue back, although I'm an ordained minister and I don't agree) and others came over to me after and expressed their solidarity. Later, I will realize that there is a don't ask/don't tell rule among a large swath of the Black community. I hadn't been prepared for that.
But during the interview, I don’t yet know that any of that will occur. Wanda is a statuesque, well-dressed, professional looking woman in middle age. Later I learn that she works for an attorney and is 58, two years younger than I. We talk for a bit about how and when the schools in Springfield became integrated. Her older sisters (one of whom is there helping to set up) attended segregated schools, but Wanda did not. I am a bit surprised to learn that schools were not integrated until about the mid-sixties. Since segregated schools were banned in NJ in 1871, I had never really heard much about them (although, as in the case of my elementary school, plenty were and still are de facto segregated due to demographics.)
But during the interview, I don’t yet know that any of that will occur. Wanda is a statuesque, well-dressed, professional looking woman in middle age. Later I learn that she works for an attorney and is 58, two years younger than I. We talk for a bit about how and when the schools in Springfield became integrated. Her older sisters (one of whom is there helping to set up) attended segregated schools, but Wanda did not. I am a bit surprised to learn that schools were not integrated until about the mid-sixties. Since segregated schools were banned in NJ in 1871, I had never really heard much about them (although, as in the case of my elementary school, plenty were and still are de facto segregated due to demographics.)
Wanda’s kids have moved away. Two of them live all the way
across the United States, in North Hollywood. One lives in Louisville, but even
she, Wanda asserts, only comes home for holidays or birthdays. They “really
don’t have any use for Springfield.”
Something we explored in depth was how the people who have
stayed feel about the situation in Springfield. I’d learned from Mr. Poole and
Pansy that there had been an attempt in the past ten years to start a branch of
the NAACP, and there had been several visits by the black activist Louis
Coleman to explore the possibilities for organizing. But, ultimately, these had
fizzled. “People wouldn’t commit,” is how Wanda puts it. They won’t commit
unless it’s something that affects them personally, and then there they are.
Grievances are legion, and I’m sure I heard only a small
sample. There is discrimination in housing. Certain people are told units in
low income housing are not available, then when a white person enquires, they
are given an application. Ms. Livers and her husband broke through the color
line by moving to Lebanon Hill, a predominantly white area. Two immediate
neighbors moved out shortly thereafter with flimsy excuses that she could see
right through. It’s called “white flight,” she informed me, although I was aware
of the term, and the practice.
After she told me about her own experience she added:
We
even call them White Street. (laughter) I’m… seriously. We grew up, the
neighborhoods around here, where we didn’t live, we grew up calling them White
Street.
Something
that stopped me in my tracks over and over is how willing people of color in
this community have been to trust me with their stories and their feelings. In
good measure, that’s because I haven’t come in cold. I’ve been introduced and accompanied
by Pansy, or Julia, who are either family members or friends or long-time
acquaintances. But the most alarming and edifying, maybe clarifying piece of
just listening to these testimonials is that it becomes more and more evident
that white people really are living on White Street. They have no idea how
their behaviors, their masks and their words can be completely transparent.
They literally believe that the Black people are stupid. I can’t think of any
other way to say this.
There’s been a campaign to have sidewalks put in on High Street
for a few decades now. Some sections on one side of the street do have them.
But as Wanda says, “It’s just some slabs of concrete. And you can’t get them to
pave the street… if the streets get raggedy and whatever, only until election
time. That’s when you see them start doing things.” There’s a beautiful old
Victorian home on High Street. It was once a funeral parlor, but is now
abandoned and in disrepair. According to Wanda, the Judge was going to get “this
grant over there and they was going to fix it up. They did a little bit of work
over there and nobody did nothing since.” I’m assuming this house is part of
the Black history of Springfield.
Once, a man named William Riley was arrested and thrown in
jail for several days. Come to find out the actual warrant was for a William
Railey. But it took them so long to get this straightened out, and Mr. Riley
received no compensation, no apology, nothing.
And yet.
The attorneys in Springfield make sure white people get off
with all kinds of nonsense. Wanda mentioned a Sandy Simms (“that sleazy old pervert”) who molested
his step-granddaughter and got away with it. (I asked several people, white as
well as Black, about this, and the responses ranged from “Oh, yes, he’s a
pedophile,” to, “Well, I don’t know, because the granddaughter still takes her
kids up there all the time, and he’s a real good guy.” When I looked him up
online, I ended up reading a slanderous and anonymous gossip site called Topix,
which claimed that he (and his son) maintained a kind of Michael Jackon-like
Neverland place and that coaches and kids from Springfield High went out there,
which was how the Simms came to sexually abuse minors. Who knows? Alarming, at
best.
How did she come to be so strong and unafraid to speak up?
It goes back to her
mother, and before that, her grandmother.
Springfield, Wanda says, is a friendly town. But that’s
“mostly on the Black part.” If you were a stranger and you came to this town,
Black or white, no matter who you were, no matter what you’d done, they’d take
you in. “Any criminal could hide out here for years.” We laughed. However, I
know this hospitality to be true. It was offered to my son.
We talked about the African American Heritage Festival,
which was coming up in a few days. Wanda started off by explaining to me that
while most members of the Black community “wouldn’t commit” to stand up for
change. (the second time she’d used that phrase) there were certain people who
were what she (and others) called Uncle Toms.
The First Friday of August had always been Homecoming and
drew huge crowds to High Street, which the town disapproved of, and the police
started blocking the street off.
“They
got a few of these people together and said why don’t you all have Black
Heritage downtown so that you all can be downtown? Just because they couldn’t
block the streets off anymore they got everyone downtown so we can keep an eye
on y’all when you’re downtown!”
I
start telling her that this is so “funny” because we always remarked to one
another: this must be the one night of the year Black people are allowed
downtown. Because we rarely see them otherwise!
“And Black Heritage is
celebrated in February!” She adds.
“That’s next week,” I
say.
“I don’t fool with it.
At all. I’m not a caged bird. And you’re not going to put me in no cage.”
“You’re not going to
put me in no cage.”
Page 176
Thomas Livers
July 4, 1833
August 26, 1833
"...I will to my beloved wife Ann Livers my negro woman Rachel during her life. If said Rachel should out live my wife then she is to belong to Rev. Robert Byrne with her to be taken good care of...
I will to my nephew Henry S. Blandford my plantation and my negro man Ben..."
Thomas Livers
Book E, Page 203
Page 176
Thomas Livers
July 4, 1833
August 26, 1833
"...I will to my beloved wife Ann Livers my negro woman Rachel during her life. If said Rachel should out live my wife then she is to belong to Rev. Robert Byrne with her to be taken good care of...
I will to my nephew Henry S. Blandford my plantation and my negro man Ben..."
Thomas Livers
Book E, Page 203
