White and Homeless in Everywhere

       I leaned against the ADA compliant railing on the corner of Pecan Street and the main drag through Everywhere, Texas. I wanted to get under way, but I settled in to listen when a local man stopped to visit with me while I photographed one of the old buildings on the corner. That's the old post office, he said.

       He told me that he'd been homeless for a year and a half and lived in a tent in a nearby forest, not far down the street.
     "What happened to you?" I asked him.
     "My wife divorced me," he said, "so I came back here where I have kin, but I lived in the forest. I used to be a school teacher. I came here and looked for a job but couldn't find anything, so I volunteered as a janitor over there," he said, pointing to one of the buildings. "I think I'm pro'ly the best toilet bowl cleaner in town."
     "Gotta count for somethin'."
     "Yeah, and then I helped a bit at the museum, and I also helped the African Americans research for their heritage, but that didn't go over very well with some folks."
     "Why not?"
     "East Texas is still very segregated."
     "Oh? What is the black population of this town?"
     "I don't know that any black people live here anymore. The Klan is here, you know. The blacks here used to live along the river, and they got flooded out sometimes, and if they ever crossed the railroad this much," he said spreading his hands about a yard, "they were hung." Ouch.
     "THE Klan?" I wasn't surprised by the history of the ill treatment against African Americans, but I was about the news about the Klan.
     "Yeah. They had a big membership drive recently. They're mad because President Obama got elected. It was the biggest membership drive since Martin Luther King."
     "I didn't know the Klan still existed." How naive of me.
     "They do. They're secret. They meet in the forest. They hide behind organizations like the Moose Lodge to give them some credibility."

     So I had to ponder the news. Living as a white person I do not, cannot see the abundant racism. Indeed, I may not even know the extent of my own prejudice instilled in me during childhood by a racist mother and growing up in a racist society. For many years my mother forbade me to have a friend, Marie, and I could not understand why not until I became an adult and recognized that my best friend was black and my mother was racist. One famous play, South Pacific, has a song with the lyrics "you've got to be taught to be afraid / [ . . . ] / and people whose skin is a different shade," yet, even as a child I took note of the lyrics and felt some level of disdain for, and confusion over them. It is how I felt this morning as I walked along the old street of Everywhere, a town founded in the 1860s where still such hatred as the Klan flourishes, and no doubt why culture in town remains at its level. I thought of Jahn, too, the friendly local man who took the time to tell me a bit about the history of the town, even how to pronounce it: [Ever-where]. His wife, no doubt -- and this is my theory -- could not tolerate his bleeding-heart attitudes, and tossed him out of the house.

     "That wasn't very Christian of her to do that."
     "Neither of us knew what would happen to me. I live with my faith in Lord Jesus to give me strength."
     We all need a whole lot more of Jesus around here if in 2011 there exist still people who foment hatred. But, was it all true, I wondered, what Jahn said about an organization that so despises one people, one culture, that they are compelled to hang them or burn them alive? Would they still hang a black man or woman if they took one step over the tracks? Is there still such darkness, such lack of Christ, everywhere? Remembering comments I'd heard in the past by some of the people whose paths I cross every week, the answer to my question was a painful yes. There are racists in my town and there are racists everywhere, white, black, red, and yellow. I put my camera away and drove away from there fast enough to exceed the speed limit.

Update: A local from the town responded to this post saying that it hurts the folks living there. I agree. I should  have used the name Everywhere instead of the real name, because there exists, unfortunately, racism everywhere and I would have made that point more clearly. I'm still awfully shocked by the experience of knowing that the Klan still exists, but I'm overcoming it enough to post some of the photographs I took of the wonderful old buildings in that old town.