« Enterprise In The Red | Main | See them tumbling down... »
January 15, 2007
Lee Beachamp's Night of Rest
 |
| (Photo is James Meredith and two U.S. Marshals) On Martin Luther King Jr. Day I would like to touch briefly on my personal experience with racism, and then re-tell a story of my Father’s era. I graduated from Novato High in 1985. We elected one of the few African American students of our graduating class of 200 to be our Homecoming King. It was no big deal. Six months later I was a new Army recruit serving in Mainz Germany and looking for something to do on my first night off. I wandered into a dance club, sat down, and ordered a drink (the drinking age in Germany at that time was 14). Within a few minutes a large black man walked up to me, grabbed me by the head, pressed his thumb deep into my left eye and said “I’m going to kill your white ass for coming here”. Another black man intervened and escorted me out, recommending I don’t come back. I realized on the way out I was the only white male there. I’ll always remember the anger directed at me because of my skin color, and I’ll never forget the stranger who stood up for me when he had nothing to gain from doing so. Both men were American soldiers. |
| I spent the next four years dealing with the dichotomy
of having friends whose social circles I couldn't travel in
because I was white, and listening to other friends as they waxed
poetic about the return of the Confederacy. It was very eye-opening for
a California suburbanite. As soldiers we were drawn together from all corners
of the country, and some of those corners were pretty upset about race.
Overt racism was intolerable to the institution of the United States Army. What I saw was always off duty or in private moments. And barring my first experience was never very personal or directed at me. But it was there, and we all knew it was there. With the Army being the longest integrated military service I was left wondering what the racial attitudes must be like in the home communities of some of the soldiers I met. I have to think that many people learn racial tolerance from their experience in the military. My experience leads me to believe that the civil rights movement created a sea-change in racial understanding, but American culture will need to grind racial divides down over generations. What Martin Luther King Jr. started isn't yet finished. |
| My dad, Bill Glazner, served many years
in the Border Patrol. In 1962 he was stationed in New York. A good friend
of his, Lee Beachamp (currently living in Grand Forks, ND) was being deputized
as a US Marshal in Oxford Mississippi. He took part in one of the pivotal
moments of the civil rights movement. James Meredith had applied to Ole Miss and was denied enrollment. The court system stepped in and said he was guaranteed access to higher education. He was to be the first African American to gain access to that institution. Mississippi state officials, including the governor, opposed the desegregation. His enrollment caused riots on the campus and in the community. In order to provide immediate protection for Meredith 500 U.S. Marshals were deputized and set to guard the college administration building. These officers were drawn from other agencies including the Border Patrol. A New York columnist at the time wrote about a "secret police" unit arriving in Mississippi. His reasoning was that all U.S. Marshals he had seen before were fat, and these Marshals were all young and strapping. What he didn't know is that the call to the Border Patrol for men specifically asked for those 6' and over. U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and Mississippi Governor Ross Barnett eventually agreed that diffusing the situation was for the best. Unfortunately, the state police who had been providing order felt compelled to side with the rioters. The state police formed a parade (flashing lights and all), and led the rioters down to the administration building protected by the newly minted marshals, and then drove out of town en masse. Robert F. Kennedy had this to say... So to hear these reports that were coming in to the President and to myself all last night - when the situation with the state police having deserted the situation, and these men standing up there with courage and ability and great bravery - that was a very moving period in my life. During the riots 2 people were killed and 30 U.S. Marshals were wounded by gunfire. A Navy sailor on leave rammed the administration building with a bulldozer. Unbeknownst to the rioters, James Meredith was secreted across campus, and safely out of harms way. He was guarded by Lee Beachamp. After Meredith fell asleep, Beachamp decided to pull up a cot next to him. The two slept the night away peacefully, while the civil rights movement fought one of its most violent battles a short distance away. Men with no ties to the movement defended a building with nothing in it to protect. All because their government told them to. That's a reality of the civil rights movement. On that night it was force of law and strength of purpose that made Martin Luther King Jr's dream step closer to reality. That's something we shouldn't forget. |
| Side Notes: James Meredith was wounded by a sniper in 1966 while on a march. While widely considered a pivotal figure in the civil rights movement wikipedia says this about Meredith... James Meredith views himself as an individual American citizen who demanded and got the rights properly extended to any American, not as a participant in the US civil rights movement. There is considerable enmity between James Meredith and the organized Civil Rights Movement. |
Posted by Lon at January 15, 2007 12:00 AM