The Old Redneck was moved to tears this morning at a little country store - gas station on the Virginia Northern Neck
Read on:::
(UPDATE: I wrote this diary on 3 November, but, because I posted an earlier diary, I had to wait until 4 November to publish this one.)
First, some background.
The Old Redneck was born in Wilkinson County, Mississippi, in 1944. Racism and the KKK lay heavy on the land. In 1951 my father's business moved us to Knoxville, TN; we returned to MS every summer.
In the summer of 1958, a black man who worked for my grandfather was lynched -- kidnapped from his home, horribly beaten and tortured, killed, then set on fire -- because he "talked back" to a white man. Granddad took me with him to recover the body after the man's family came to Granddad's house early the next morning.
As a college student in Alabama in the 1960's I marched in Selma and Birmingham.
Now, after a military career and a couple of second jobs after retiring from the Army, Sweet Thing and I have settled on the Virginia Northern Neck where we built a house on the banks of the Potomac River.
The county in which we live has a large African-American population -- some descendants of slaves, others descendants of free black indentured servants. This region experienced the same sort of racism that I knew in Mississippi. For example, the county commission here refused to build schools for African-American children -- philanthropic organizations from "up North" built schools for African-American children. The scars of this and other long-past racism are still here.
Six miles away from my house is a small African-American owned store and gas station -- modest, old, stocked with the usual things you find at a country crossroads kwik stop -- they have the Washington Post delivered every day -- I drive my Mini-Cooper or ride my bike to the store every morning around 7:00 to get a paper.
There is always a group of African-American men, most of them my age (63) "hanging around," drinking coffee, ragging on each other, waiting to go to work. I always stop and chat with them about the weather, crops, hunting, whatever.
This morning I asked if everyone was going to vote tomorrow. They replied VERY ENTHUSIASTICALLY that, yes, everyone's going to vote tomorrow. I cautioned them that the weather forecast is for showers all day and asked that they not let a little rain stand in the way.
The oldest of the group -- probably in his 70's -- spoke up: "Rain don't matter. We done come too far. Ain't nothin' can stop us now."
Moments like this come only a few times in a lifetime.