84 Years – The Seasons of Who We Are
By John Ashworth
Winter is past and the warm summer season of June, July and August is upon us. Thoughts turn to those melodic hazy, lazy days of summer in anticipation of the patriotic seasons of celebrations and memorialization associated with Flag Day, June 14; Juneteenth, June 19th; and Independence Day, July 4th. It is a presidential election year with reason to be concerned. Eighty-four years ago, citizens of Haywood County, Tennessee had reasons to be concerned.
On a Sunday morning approximately 7:00 am, eighty-four years ago on Sunday, June 23, 1940, Annie Williams was summoned to the northside of a riverbank in Brownsville, Tennessee. Her husband Elbert Williams had been pulled from the muddy waters of the Hatchie River with what appeared to be two bullet holes in his chest. Elbert and Annie Williams were two of the founding members of the first NAACP Chapter organized in Brownsville, Tennessee. Historians have long noted this was the first NAACP member to die in the line of duty.
Waiting at home with other family members was nine-year-old Bertha Louise Taylor. Bertha, like other family members, wanted to know the whereabouts of her favorite Uncle Elbert, who had been missing for three days.
Listening to her Aunt Annie relaying the events of that morning to the family, she became frightened and traumatized and remained frightened and traumatized the rest of her life. When remembering years later, she would cease to be the all-knowing all-wise eighty-year-old family matriarch and instead reverted to the frightened and traumatized little nine-year-old girl that she was on that fateful Sunday morning, June 23, 1940.
The idea of “we the people . . . securing the blessing of liberty”, so eloquently enshrined in the Preamble to the US Constitution, was not intended to include people who looked like Bertha Louise Taylor even though it was written in 1787 long before she was born. For the constitution to include her and people like her would require the loss of life estimated around 750,000 give or take 100,000. Not only would it take the loss of life but three additional amendments to the constitution.
Today, even though coverage of the rights of citizens who look like Bertha Louise Taylor has been codified into the US Constitution, the actual practice and full implementation remains challenging and all too often elusive.
The seasons of who we are and who we have become is iconically displayed in the picture above. Taken on Friday, June 21, 2024, is Bertha Louise Taylor’s great-grand daughter eight-year-old Zaria, nicknamed “Z”. She is intently reading the details about the lynching of her great-great-grand uncle whose life was taken by those violently opposed to his inclusion in the democratic process or people who look like him.
One can only imagine what “Z” is thinking as she reads the marker text. Look closer, just below the right corner of the marker sits a homeless person. Above her head waves the flag of the United States. Zoom in closer, standing beneath this flag and watching symbolically and silently is the iconic statue honoring those who fought and died to continue the disfranchisement of people who look like her. The legacy of that ideology contributes to today’s ever increasing homeless population, and the idea that some are worthy, and some are not.
Knowing history as we do, one can only wonder what lies ahead for “Z” and thousands of other eight-year-olds who look like her. The idea that the past continues to influence the present, even if we are not aware of it, continues to gnaw at our collective consciousness. Our ability as a society to remain “unaware of the influences of the past” grows exponentially when voices are silenced or unheard as they are drowned out or overshadowed by unrestrained main-stream media and social media with their own agenda.
That collective unawareness remains unfazed by our commemorations, and memorializations as multiple continuing suppressive practices typified by, gerrymandered voting districts, the selective banning of books, sanitizing of school curriculum, denial of historical facts etc., continues.
As a member of the Silent Generation, I am very encouraged watching “Z” in this instance and other members of the Alpha Generation as they absorb and process the world around them. I hope and pray they get “the importance of the celebrations and memorializations” right in their season.