I grew up in eastern North Carolina, which in the 1960s was basically a collection of small towns.
My hometown was Greenville. Tobacco ruled the economy, and while the civil rights movement was advancing, it would be some time before those marches would make any kind of impact. We certainly didn’t see any marches in town, unless we watched news coverage of a march somewhere else. As a result, my parents lived in a small town where access was a dream and the reality was confined to the clutch of Black neighborhoods where people dreamed of a better way.
So, as Jason Aldean pitches his song about what won’t happen in a small town, there is a different spin on his theme.
My father tried to work in a small town.
The indignities Tom Foreman dealt with likely would have taken down a weaker man. He regularly heard people up the chain at his job use the n-word. I know this because he spoke of it at home more than a few times. You don’t forget those conversations. There was the boss who couldn’t quite say the word “Negroes,” somehow cutting off the “o” and replacing it with an “a.” I know this because he spoke of this at home, too. In small towns, you remember a lot. When you’re Black and you lived in a small town, memories linger to the moment you sit down to recount them.
People are also reading…
My mother tried to teach in a small town.
Miss Lena taught for 44 years, using text books that should have been trashed years ago because they were basically falling apart. But another thing I remember is she and the people she taught with had a sense of pride that led them to get over the obstacles and get their students on the road to a better life, even if it was going to be difficult to achieve in a small town.
My father tried to drive in a small town.
Tom always drove Lena and me to her hometown of Plymouth. There were no four-lane roads in 1967 that made the trip faster. Head north on Memorial Drive, find N.C. 903 and begin the twisty, curvy trek through that portion of eastern North Carolina, pass through Williamston and hit U.S. 64 until you could smell Weyerhauser’s paper mill. I never saw that mill, but there was no mistaking where it was.
On this particular Sunday, we were returning to Greenville from Plymouth. We had passed Williamston and begun the lonely trek on the back roads to Greenville. We’d just reached Bear Grass, a hole in the woods that had a small school and an agricultural supply store. We’d just gone by in when the lights and siren went off. It was a Martin County sheriff’s deputy. I don’t think dad was speeding because the roads – and the times—didn’t allow it.
Tom pulled over. I wasn’t sure what to think. What followed was something I cannot erase from my mind. Can’t lose it even if I tried.
The deputy walked up to dad, and he produced his license and the registration to the new Buick that was his. He accused Tom of speeding, and he then tried to goad him into an argument.
“If you want to argue with me, I’m gonna give you a ticket.” Can’t forget his words, either. He said it three times, and dad simply said he wasn’t going to argue with him. I am convinced he was looking for a fight so he could shoot my dad, maybe even kill him. And you can never get past watching your father being emasculated by a law officer who wasn’t about the law that afternoon. I can’t erase that, either. Nothing will take that out of my mind’s eye.
It’s not so much the song that bothers me as it is the people who simply overlook what it’s saying. The people, like an ex-Facebook friend, who are saying they want to take their country back. If anyone should make that claim, talk to the descendants of the Native Americans who had that land taken from them.
And there are those people screeching about “cancel culture.” I’d love to cancel those memories that don’t purge themselves. Even years later, it’s hard to try that in a small town.