I never knew my maternal grandfather; he died before I was born. But I heard enough about him from my mother to know he was one of my heroes.
My grandfather was a shy man, temperamentally not quite suited to the public nature of his profession as a Presbyterian minister. At one time in his life he suffered from a kind of hysterical hiccuping that afflicted him for weeks, and for which he ended up in treatment at the Mayo Clinic. My mother told me he was so uncomfortable with public speaking that sometimes he vomited before delivering sermons. But he had a deep sense of calling, and very strong convictions, and one day in the 1920s he stood up for a black man in a way that was very unusual at that time.
What follows is an essay I wrote for members of my family, most of whom, I discovered, had no idea of this story.
It seems appropriate right now, when we as a nation seem to have been touched by the better angels of our nature, to recount this tale. Please follow me over the jump and I will tell you all about it.
The Story of Emanual West
My mother and I were always talking about morality when I was a child – the morality of things came up quite a bit. I'm not exactly sure why; maybe it had something to do with the fact that both my grandparents were ministers. I think I was the one who pushed it, rather than my parents (an auspicious thing, probably, since parents lecturing about morality is not likely to have the desired result). But my parents, especially my mother, were eager to engage in such discussions once I broached them, and that encouraged me.
The Civil Rights Movement and my Childhood
As such, when the civil rights movement gained steam in the late fifties and sixties, we talked about it a lot. Although I grew up in New Jersey, both my parents were from the South – my mother from Little Rock, my father from South Carolina. My ancestors had owned slaves, and both my parents had stories of growing up with black servants, and the issue seemed close to my heart in some way. I remember feeling frustrated at my Southern relatives' lack of outrage at what was being done to African-Americans. I mean, my parents were on the right side intellectually – they did feel blacks should be equal and they agreed that they had been grievously mistreated. But their concern somehow lacked the visceral edge that defined mine – they hedged their reactions and seemed more ambivalent than the situation demanded. And their priorities did not seem right. I remember my mother and my Aunt Peg, who still lived in Little Rock, discussing the troubled integration of Little Rock's Central High School in the late fifties. Both expressed regret that THIS was what people were going to associate Little Rock with from now on – that Little Rock's name would be besmirched. It just didn't seem the most important thing to me. I longed to hear unequivocal anger at the outrage of grownups tailing frightened young people and spewing threats and ugly racial epithets. My thought was – yes, besmirched, and rightly so!
But I, of course, was sitting safely in my all-white New Jersey suburb, never having had even one black friend – living in a de facto segregation that, in practice, was more absolute than any in the South. It was perhaps too easy to condemn the South and feel superior. My parents, whose hearts were in the right place, nonetheless had a deep affection for the culture of their youth, and that no doubt was the source of their ambivalence.
It was during this tumultuous time that my mother told me the story of Emanual West and the role her father played in his life.
I think the revelations came after we saw To Kill a Mockingbird in the early sixties – the exquisite film adaptation of Harper Lee's classic novel. My parents were deeply moved by both the book and the movie, and we talked quite a bit about it. At some point my mother mentioned that a somewhat similar event had taken place in her youth. I pressed her, and she told me the story.
A Crime Committed in Little Rock
It happened in 1921, in Little Rock. A woman had been raped. In this case the rape had actually occurred (unlike in To Kill a Mockingbird). But it was dark, and she said she had not seen his face, and couldn't identify him. The only things she was sure of were that he was black and he had been wearing a hat.
Nevertheless, a lineup was convened, and a hat was placed on the head of one of the suspects. The woman dramatically exclaimed, "That's the man!" and pointed to the man with the hat. The man was Emanual West. (It seems likely that some pressure had been brought on the woman to name a suspect.)
On this basis, he was indicted and brought to trial. My grandfather was a Presbyterian minister in Little Rock named Hay Watson Smith. He was selected to serve on the jury.
The victim's identification of the suspect in the line-up was the only evidence against him. It was clear to my grandfather that this identification was flawed, since she had initially stated she could not idenfity the rapist, and since the police had arbitrarily placed a hat on Emanual West's head, causing him to stand out – an act that was surely illegal.
Moreover, he had an alibi – he had been elsewhere at the time the rape took place, and had witnesses who could attest to that fact. He had been riding on the bus he always took home from work. The witnesses, who had been on the bus with him and knew him well, testified to the time he got on the bus and the place he got off.
My Grandfather Examines the Evidence
As part of his research as a juror, my grandfather actually boarded the bus at the time and place testified to by the accused, and debarked at the specified stop. He then ran as fast as he could to the place where the rape was said to have taken place – and arrived a half an hour too late.
Because of the very circumstantial and suspect nature of the evidence, and the unimpeachable alibi, my grandfather voted for acquittal. The other jurors (this amazed me) all admitted that he probably wasn't guilty. But they all felt, as one stated (according to my mother): "We've got to convict someone. We can't let them get away with this."
But my grandfather would not budge, and the trial ended with a hung jury.
My Grandfather Speaks Out
My mother says my grandfather actually gave a sermon about this trial afterwards. I asked my mother if it wasn't dangerous to do that, as it would have been in To Kill a Mockingbird. My mother said it wasn't dangerous in the way that it would have been in Mississippi or Alabama – the deep South. Nevertheless, it was unusual for a white person to speak out in favor of equal rights for African-Americans in those days. This was way before the civil rights movement. Blacks had almost no advocates in positions of power – no lawyers or judges, no mayors or governors, no senators or congressmen, few journalists or editorial boards, lobbied in their behalf. The Supreme Court itself had given their official segregation its imprimatur. Black people lived in a world in which their fate was dependent almost entirely on the whims of white people. They could be picked up while innocently walking down the street and spend the rest of their lives in jail (or be executed). This was a deliberate strategy of state-sponsored terrorism on the part of the Southern states – if blacks were kept in a state of continual fear for their lives, they would not petition for their rights or protest their treatment, and the society would not have to confront their anger and its own complicity in producing it.
A Second Trial, and My Grandfather's Campaign
Alas, there was a second trial, and in that trial Emanual West was convicted of rape, and sentenced to life in prison.
You'd think my grandfather would feel he had done enough – he had stood his ground in the jury, and then he had publicly spoken out about the injustice. Most people – especially when the event was permeated with the issue of racial injustice, and in a place where that subject was charged with so much danger -- would feel they had done all they could.
But in fact, he continued his campaign on behalf of Emanual West, in the company of a few members of the original jury whom he had brought around to his way of thinking. They led appeals in the courts, and they repeatedly petitioned the governor for clemancy over a space of many years.
Clemancy
And eventually, seven years later, in 1928, the governor agreed that a grave injustice had been done, and the sentence of Emanual West was commuted.
"Seven years in jail, for something he didn't do," lamented my mother in relating this story. But in my mind the narrative was: "Saved from life in prison by a caring and courageous man."
Research in Little Rock
Much later, when my father retired and my parents moved to Little Rock, I brought up the subject of Emanual West. My mother was working as a volunteer at the Little Rock library, and I asked if she could do some research into this event. She agreed, and even though this was years before documents were routinely digitized (let alone posted to websites where they could be Googled), she found microfiche copies of newspaper articles reporting on this event and the trial, as well as of the statement issued by the governor in 1928. She printed these things out and sent them to me. Unfortunately, in the years since, I have lost them.
The words I can remember from the governor's declaration spoke of how "... no improper motives can be imputed to the eminent citizens who have interested themselves in behalf of Emanual West, a penniless negro ... " and "it appears a grave injustice has been committed".
At least, on seeing the documents in my hand, it gave the stamp of authenticity to my mother's story and brought it out from the the realm of family legend.
It was clear in hearing my mother talk about this event that it had had a great impact on both her and her siblings, and that she was glad to be able to speak about it to me. She spoke of discussions she had had with her brothers, in which they had insisted that their father invited Emanual West to dinner. My mother was sure that that had not happened, as it "wasn't done" in the South at that time. It seems that within the family the story had taken on the patina of legend to some degree, and it seemed important to my mother that she relay to me, the next generation, what she felt had actually happened. And so I feel I am relaying this story to the next generation. My memory may be off as to some of the details. I wish I had the documents to back it up – but at least I know they are out there.
I have often thought about my grandfather's actions, which helped one man immensely, but almost certainly had next to no effect on the society in which these injustices took place. Events chilling in their import continued apace in the South for the next several decades, and likely thousands of innocent people were imprisoned or killed.
And yet ... in the eyes of my mother I could see the real effect. He may not have influenced his society much, but he had a great impact on his children. And they, growing older, would remember it, and would be enjoined by conscience from doing any ugly or hurtful thing toward a person of a different race, and they would pass this conviction on to their children, and they to theirs.
It's a gift to a child's spirit when adults do the right thing, when the actions of the world accord with their inner sense of what is right and normal and of the greatest importance.
And the children whose spirits are so buoyed will make real the visions and ideals of their elders. That's why it's important to do the right thing, even if it seems futile. You never know who might be watching, and who won't forget.