To the Newton Independent:
February has been designated by someone as Black History Month. It seems that it is a time when some people drag out a name of a famous black historical person and then pat themselves on the back. This is a story about the first black person that I learned to love.
His name was Henry Lincoln Jones. Henry was very old. He could not read or write. He said that he was born a slave in Missouri. His vocabulary was limited but his stories were spellbinding to me and my brothers.
When I was a boy, over 65 years ago, my three brothers and I would take our two-wheel cart and fishing lines down to the river at Keokuk, Iowa. There was a factory close to the river that made laundry starch and sweeteners. Old people will remember their starch box had a picture of an iron on it. They discharged large amounts of corn waste products into a creek and we would fish where the creek ran in to the Mississippi. The fish got very large and fat.
We cast out our throw lines with many hooks and in about a half a day we would have many large carp and some catfish. We would then head for the ice house on Seventh and Johnson Street. For a small amount of change they would cover our fish with ice. We then went to the north side of town where most of the black people lived. We would knock on doors and offer our fish for sale. We never set a price, but took whatever they could pay.
We always saved the largest fish, especially if it was a catfish, for Henry. He had the sharpest knife and he would cut up that fish and put what he called his special fixings on it and in a large skillet in hot fat Henry created what tasted like Angel Food. And so we would sit and eat fish and laugh and talk and listen to Henry's stories. We had no knowledge of how poor we were.
One day I asked Henry, "Why do you think God made us white and you a Negro? Was he mad at you?"
Henry was rubbing vinegar on my sunburned back when I asked him that.
Henry laughed, "Oh no young mister, God made me a Negro because he loves me and he sent Mr. Lincoln to set me free because he loves me and he sent you boys to bring me this fine fish because he loves me."
But Henry said with a smile, "God surely did mess with you. When I look at you I say to myself, 'Is this a little white boy with red spots or a little red boy with white spots?'"
I said, "Oh darn it Henry. Now you went and did it! You just proved that our dad was right when he said that white people were smarter than Negroes. Dad said these red spots are freckles and I should be proud because they prove my Irish blood."
Henry smiled and said, "Well, maybe I don't see so good no more."
I got over being mad after Henry put that wonderful slab of fish on my plate.
After I got home that day, I took off my shirt and looked at myself in the mirror for a long time. "I'm sure I'm white," I thought.
One summer turns into winter and then into summer again and the fish fries would continue until the winter I turned 17 and joined the Army and went to Korea. After Korea I came home on leave as a corporal. I was on my way to non-commissioned officer's school in Georgia where I would get my sergeant stripes.
Before I took off, I went to see Henry. I was hoping that old black man would be proud of me. I needed him to be proud of the white boy with red spots or the red boy with white spots.
But he was gone. I asked my brothers and they said Henry went back to Missouri to die and be buried with his folks. I went to a tavern and got drunk.
You can celebrate Black History Month any way you want. As for me, I will just remember an old black man I learned to love but never got the chance to tell him so.
Olen W. Lambert
Newton
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