From Start to Finish

After finishing College, NC. A&T, in the spring of 1959, I was eager to find out how I would fare in the real world of work.  I was armed with a degree in Physical Education (P.E.) and really wanted to coach.  I wanted to leave my hometown of Greensboro, North Carolina (NC), partly because of influential peers and partly because of an internal desire for independence.

In the Fall of that year, I was informed of a job opening in Eastern NC.  The job was in small town of Shallotte, located in Brunswick County.  Shallotte was on Highway #17 approximately midway between Wilmington, NC, and Myrtle Beach, NC.  I remembered a slogan that one of my professors told me in college.  It went like this:  "Winners never quit, quitters never win, but losers never start."  So I accepted the job.

The first year I was there, I lived in a small sub-community called Longwood, NC.  It was a farming, pulp-wood type of community.  The farmer that I roomed with named was Mr. Early Gore.  Mr. Early, as everybody called him, was quite a character.  he had lost an eye at sometime or another during his life and wore a black patch over it.  He appeared rather unnerving in daylight, but downright scary at night.  Especially very late of night when I was prone to come in. He used to call me "fez" (short for professor).  When I would make my way past his room late at night to get to my room, he would appear in his long johns out of the darkness and cry out, "fez."!!  Is that you?  The first time I encountered this, I almost fainted.  However I eventually got used to it.

My teaching load consisted of teaching a course, one hour long of each of the following specifics:

(1)        General Science
(2)        Civics
(3)        US. History
(4)        World History
(5)        Current Events and World Affairs
(6)        Physical Education and Health

The last period of the day (7th) was designated as my study period.  Although I was a P.E. major in college, the majority of my teaching schedule was related to my so called minor area which was social studies.  However, I buckled down and was determined to stick it out.  My constant thought was, "There is no success without stress."

Of course there was no air conditioning during this period (especially in schools) and it got very hot in the spring of the year.  The land was very flat and sandy and, of course, it was very near the ocean.  The big problem for me to adjust to was the worrisome gnats.  At school, we had to keep the windows opened because of the heat and the gnats would flock in.  I remembered having to occasionally go to the window to spit them out.  (This brought a chuckle to the students.)

It also seemed to be tradition that every spring, bus trips were planned to visit the nearby beach in South Carolina.  Of course this was Atlantic Beach, the only one that blacks could legally go during that period in history.  Another thing that bothered me was that when we went (left school) to the beach, we had a bus load of students, but when we got ready to return, we could only find about half of them.  After feeling a lot of frustration and anxiety, I found out that this was expected because a lot of the students had parents and relatives who either worked or owned businesses there.

This was my very first year teaching, so I was very energetic, young (22) and fearless.  One weekend night I set out on an adventure that ended up in a night that I will never forget.

I decided to drive down to Atlantic Beach to explore and to take in some of the fun.  After leaving Atlantic Beach, I though that I would sneak over to Myrtle Beach to take a peek (they are only a few miles apart) and perhaps enjoy a little anonymity.  However as I made my way down Highway #17, I looked out my rear-view mirror and saw a flashing red light.  (Highway patrol and police car lights were red during that time.) So I pulled to the side of the road and stopped. The policeman came to the driver's side and asked for my license and registration. I produced them and asked the officer what the problem was.  He immediately responded that I was doing 70 miles per/hr in a 50 miles per/hr speed zone.  Well I knew this wasn't so because my car had a bad idle-arm on the front end and would shake almost uncontrollable when I reached 50 miles per/hr.  I tried to explain this to the officer, and he replied, "Are you calling me a liar "nigger"?  If I said that you were doing 70 then you were doing 70."  So I told him to go ahead and write the ticket since it seemed that was what he was going to do. Well by my being from the Piedmont area of North Carolina, (Greensboro),    I was used to paying the ticket off later or having a later trial date set.  I asked the officer how much the ticket was and when the trial date was. He retort