Assignment 1, Final, June 28, 2009

Jim McPherson: Father and Role Model

 

Recently, I was in the small waiting room of an office that belonged to two chiropractors. One of the chiropractors (not mine) was at the desk, talking loudly to his son and daughter-in-law who were also sitting in the waiting room. I noticed he was speaking with a heavy African-American accent in a disparaging way, pretending he was Barack Obama. Although I don’t usually butt into other people’s conversations uninvited, I was so riled by the man’s remarks that I said, “You know, Barack Obama does not speak that way at all.  He went to Harvard Law School and is an eloquent speaker.”  The man apologized and I accepted his apology.  Then we all talked about tennis for a while because his son and my daughter used to play together in high school. Later I mentioned I teach marketing and suggested that it would be better for his marketing if he not talk politics in the waiting room.  My chiropractor happened to overhear this conversation and told me later he was glad I spoke up. 

 I thought about what made me speak up -- the example my father set.

My family lived in Iowa during part of my childhood. Once, when I was about seven, my father heard me playing with my friends and repeating something I had heard my friends say, “Eenie, meenie, miney, moe. Catch a nigger by the toe.” Although he did not get mad or holler at me, he explained that “nigger” was not a nice word. “That’s a mean word. It hurts people’s feelings. Also, we need to be especially careful what we say because we are southern and people think all southerners are prejudiced against Negroes (the polite term in my father’s time).” I learned that day to say, “Catch a tiger by the toe.”

“I’m Jim McPherson.” That’s how my father introduced himself. Although he was known at work as Dr. McPherson, he always introduced himself as Jim McPherson and did not insist on people calling him doctor or professor. He believed that people who deserved the honor did not need to flaunt it. His way of introducing himself reflected his egalitarian view toward people and life.

One summer day when I was 13 my family was driving along Route 1 on the way to North Carolina, where my grandparents lived, from Arlington, Virginia, where we lived then. In those days, U.S. 95 did not exist and cars did not have air conditioning. Hot and hungry, we stopped in a restaurant south of Richmond to eat. I quickly ran into the bathroom and when I came out, I heard my father saying, “I’m Jim McPherson, and this is my family of six people. We were planning to eat here but now we will not because your restaurant discriminates against Negroes.” I asked my mother what Dad was talking about and she pointed to a sign that said: “This establishment reserves the right to refuse service to anyone.” My mother explained that my they were offended by the sign because it was a way of discriminating against people because of their color. We then all filed out of the restaurant – still hot and hungry.

Dad was raised in a wealthy home. His family had African-American maids. He wore nice clothes, played tennis, and went away every summer to camp. When the Great Depression hit, his father lost his ice packing business.  My father’s sister, a teacher, paid for him to go to college because his parents could not afford it.

At college Dad pledged a fraternity but later lost interest in and respect for fraternity life. He once told me he thought he would have matured a lot more in college if he had not been a member of a fraternity. He also detested the system of blackballing, where just one member of a fraternity could bar the entrance of a potential brother.  And he never respected the “sanctity” of private clubs that barred African-Americans, Jews, or women.

He was a Democrat but not a Dixiecrat. He worked for civil rights for African Americans in the 1930s, long before the official “Civil Rights Movement” began in the 1950s. As a photojournalist for a local paper in Norfolk, Virginia, he took photos and wrote stories about the living conditions in the slums, trying to help improve those conditions.

Years later, when he was working at the National Education Association in Washington, DC, and in charge of arranging a conference for audiovisual educators, he called the manager of a St. Louis hotel to arrange for the meeting to be held there. “Hi, I’m Jim McPherson and am looking to bring a national group of educators to your city for a conference,” he said. After they talked a while and the manager understood who would be coming to the meeting, he said, “We’ll be honored to hold your event at our hotel, but, of course, your colored members will not be able to stay in rooms at our hotel.” With that my father said, "Well, then, we will not be coming to your city at all."  And he pulled the meeting out of St. Louis.

When Dad died at age 60 of a massive heart attack in 1972, I was devastated. At first, I felt as though my feet had been cut off.  He was my mentor, my base, my foundation.  But today, I remember the example he set for me.  I am a parent and role model too.  Today I speak up for others and against prejudice and inequality.  I carry on my father’s legacy and I know he would be proud of me.