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Dec. 10th, 2017 12:46 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pallas_athenaAfter this evening's (excellent) Messiah, the conductor and I got talking to one of the ladies who run things at the church, an older lady named Carolyn who had been singing in the first soprano section. She was telling me which museums I should go to in DC; she mentioned the Museum of African American History and the Native American museum. Then she said "And if you get to the Natural History Museum... in there, they have a lunch counter that used to be in a store called Woolworth's in North Carolina. I was arrested there while we were holding a sit-in, and I spent the night in jail."
I asked her about it, and she said "Well, I had been to finishing school, so they got a number of us to come in wearing our little hats and white gloves and all. There was a man named Ezell, he organised things; we would hold meetings and decide where we would go and who was willing to go to jail."
So, Carolyn said, they all turned up at Woolworth's in their dresses and hats and white gloves, and she sat down at the lunch counter. The woman behind the counter said "We don't serve your kind of people here." Carolyn smiled politely and said "Well, I would like a crumpet and a nice cup of tea."
Needless to say, neither was forthcoming. Eventually the police were called, and she said "I spent the night in jail. The man in the cells said 'We get a lot of girls come through here, and some of them disappear.' And I said 'Well, I had better not disappear. Because the newspapers were there, and they took photographs of me, and they know I'm here.' And I named all the important people I knew in town, including some of his good fellow officers." She said that she couldn't sleep that night; she was worried and afraid of what might happen to her. But the next morning, they let her and the others go.
It didn't stop her. She said she spent her college years engaged in civil rights activism with Ezell and the group; she wasn't jailed again but there were times when police "sicced their dogs on us, or turned firehoses on us."
Dr. King was assassinated the day of Carolyn's final exam for her teaching degree; the news of his death sparked rioting. She said "They set the library on fire. I was in the middle of my exam, and they came in and told us all to run out of the building. And I was not going to leave that exam! If I didn't pass, I couldn't start teaching. They said "The smoke's coming!" I said "I just need five more minutes." So I stayed by myself and finished the exam and finally ran out of the building clutching my blue book. They all said I was crazy, but I heard about a couple of other girls who didn't finish the exam and had to retake it in the summer. I knew I had to work that summer as a teacher"-- she named a school, and smiled. "Bless their hearts. It took me just one year working there to discover that I didn't want to be a teacher."
So she did a master's in social work, and spent the rest of her career working for-- and running-- a couple of DC agencies. She said her best work was helping to reunite families: "One case I had was a woman with nine children who were taken from her. And we were able to get seven of her nine back with her." (The other two were college age.) I said "You must have changed a lot of lives." She said that even today she meets people on the street who say "Ms. Carolyn! Remember me?"
I feel honoured that Carolyn's voice and mine were raised side by side tonight.
I asked her about it, and she said "Well, I had been to finishing school, so they got a number of us to come in wearing our little hats and white gloves and all. There was a man named Ezell, he organised things; we would hold meetings and decide where we would go and who was willing to go to jail."
So, Carolyn said, they all turned up at Woolworth's in their dresses and hats and white gloves, and she sat down at the lunch counter. The woman behind the counter said "We don't serve your kind of people here." Carolyn smiled politely and said "Well, I would like a crumpet and a nice cup of tea."
Needless to say, neither was forthcoming. Eventually the police were called, and she said "I spent the night in jail. The man in the cells said 'We get a lot of girls come through here, and some of them disappear.' And I said 'Well, I had better not disappear. Because the newspapers were there, and they took photographs of me, and they know I'm here.' And I named all the important people I knew in town, including some of his good fellow officers." She said that she couldn't sleep that night; she was worried and afraid of what might happen to her. But the next morning, they let her and the others go.
It didn't stop her. She said she spent her college years engaged in civil rights activism with Ezell and the group; she wasn't jailed again but there were times when police "sicced their dogs on us, or turned firehoses on us."
Dr. King was assassinated the day of Carolyn's final exam for her teaching degree; the news of his death sparked rioting. She said "They set the library on fire. I was in the middle of my exam, and they came in and told us all to run out of the building. And I was not going to leave that exam! If I didn't pass, I couldn't start teaching. They said "The smoke's coming!" I said "I just need five more minutes." So I stayed by myself and finished the exam and finally ran out of the building clutching my blue book. They all said I was crazy, but I heard about a couple of other girls who didn't finish the exam and had to retake it in the summer. I knew I had to work that summer as a teacher"-- she named a school, and smiled. "Bless their hearts. It took me just one year working there to discover that I didn't want to be a teacher."
So she did a master's in social work, and spent the rest of her career working for-- and running-- a couple of DC agencies. She said her best work was helping to reunite families: "One case I had was a woman with nine children who were taken from her. And we were able to get seven of her nine back with her." (The other two were college age.) I said "You must have changed a lot of lives." She said that even today she meets people on the street who say "Ms. Carolyn! Remember me?"
I feel honoured that Carolyn's voice and mine were raised side by side tonight.