A Country Rag
Whole Woman

A paper presented at the Fifteenth Southern Writers Symposium on the theme, ”The Limits of Southern Writing.” at Methodist College, Fayetteville, North Carolina, September 22-23, 2000

When I was a child, adult relatives would sometimes say, “You know Grandmother was a white woman.” Several years ago my 86-year-old aunt sat beside me in her family room in Columbia , SC. Her grey eyes held my brown ones with a steady gaze as she made that comment—one more time.

“I’ve heard that that all my life. What’s the whole story?” I asked the four feet eleven inch lady I had feared when I was shorter than she.

Aunt Vivian said, “Every summer Papa and I would take Grandmother in the buggy and drive her to visit her brother Will. “We’d go back two weeks later to bring her home. Papa and I were the lightest so we wouldn’t be stopped for driving a white lady.”

This is the story she repeated that day of our final “Grandmother” conversation. A family of English descent named Clinkscales lived in the Piedmont area of South Carolina. After the “The Civil War/War Between the States/ War of the Rebellion,” take your pick, white Lucy Mariah Clinkscales fell in love with a free black man, Ben Hughes. He was a wheelwright, mason and, eventually a Magistrate, one of the first in the Piedmont.

The two young people were married. The Clinkscales family was outraged. Lucy Mariah was outcast. One brother did not go along with the family decision. His willingness to maintain contact with his sister was the reason for the summer buggy trips from Irmo to Greenwood , South Carolina in the early 1900s.

Since that conversation I’ve come to think that my aunt, her six siblings and the nine great grandchildren of the “grandmother (who) was a white woman” were blessed and damned in their relationship to Lucy Mariah Clinkscales Hughes. “Grandmother” was never referred to as “Lucy.” It was as if her double name, Lucy Mariah, made for a double identity as much as it was Southern. Her descendants carried a burden and a mission that differed from other factors of their heritage and made their lives problematic.

More than biology, economics and culture we African/Negro/Black/ People of Color maintain a strange place in a society of monstrous contradiction and paradox. Scholars have studied the twists and secrets of “race” and reported that approximately 85% of Americans of African ancestry have admixture of European and/or indigenous heritage, with a preponderance found in the south.

Millions of Americans say with pride, “I am English and German, Russian and Spanish, Greek and Irish”--and dozens of blends despite centuries of bloody European wars. After World War II and the Korean War, Asian-European and Asian adoptees became increasingly apparent in the United States . The American humorist, Will Rogers, made it acceptable to boast that he had an “Indian grandmother.” One-quarter indigenous “blood,” no longer maligned as “half-breed,” was dilute enough for passage into the crucible of being an “American.”

When Aunt Vivian said, “Grandmother was a white woman,” she was making an important distinction between one side of our family and hushed references to the other. Her father’s mother, Sarah, was a slave who gave birth to Vivian’s father, Calvin Monroe, with the “assistance” of the Scots-Irish-English son of a plantation owner. That more usual occurrence was not spoken with comparable pride.

At family gatherings, curious child that I was, I asked why some relatives’ stories were told and others were not. Aunt Vivian’s red-faced answer was, “Grandmother Sarah was never married and we don’t like to talk about that.” A-ha, I thought, Lucy Mariah and Ben were legal. That’s the difference! When I learned about slavery, coming to recognize the courage to survive rape, loss of freedom and children and the stigma of being both bastard and neither black nor white—although called “black” -- I began to view the family “answer” as less than adequate—and honest.

My aunt, her siblings and their children existed in secret, existential disharmony. No one openly faced the meaning and consequences of alienation at their core. My generation, Ben and Lucy Mariah’s great-grandchildren, remain branded by a marriage between a European American female and African American male in the South more than 125 years ago.

Lucy Mariah and Ben had five children, Will, Jennie, Clarkie, Mable and Ben, Jr. Will disappeared North when he was a young man. He never returned South.

Jennie married Aesop Allison, also of blended heritage. Their son, Hughes, was born in Greenville , SC , in 1908. The family moved to Newark , New Jersey when Hughes was eleven. Hughes Allison began writing in 1932. His first published short story was in Challenge Magazine, in 1935. Hughes was the first Negro detective writer published in the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. He was ghostwriter for half a dozen novels. His first play, “The Trial of Dr. Beck,” was staged by The Federal Theater Project in New Jersey and invited to Broadway in 1937. The play was the first Broadway role for actor William Bendix. “The New Federal Theater” re-staged it at the New York City “Henry Street Settlement Playhouse” in mid 1980s. One reviewer wrote that it was “sensitive, social commentary.” Lucy Mariah and Ben’s great-grandson, Eugene Boyd, actor, playwright, and producer spearheaded the revival.

Ben and Lucy Mariah’s youngest daughter, Mable married a man, of similar heritage, “mixed” and educated Robert Boulware, taught at Harbison College in Abbevile , SC. An older daughter, Clarkie’s husband, The Re. C.M. Young, was the president. Mable's and Robert’s son, Harold, became the attorney who litigated the Clarendon County , Briggs v. Elliot case. This case was the consolidated into the Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, (1954.) Attorney, later Judge Boulware, wrote poetry and sang harmony with his elder brother, Harold Boulware, M. D. and his cousins, Hermon and Morris, sons of Clarkie and the C.M. Young.

The fifth generation following Ben and Lucy Mariah are adults trying to “make it” into the 21st century. They include an artist, musician, writer, architect, magician, players in corporate America , entrepreneurs and students. The sixth generation will reach maturity later in the 21st century. The family mantra is no longer, “You know Grandmother was a white woman.” I wonder how the tentacles of energy, talent and circumscription will continue to “play,” if at all. I didn't think so.

Ben and Lucy Mariah’s descendants were committed to education and the Presbyterian church—although one branch “moved up to the Episcopal”—one relative bragged. The fourth generation joked, “We were not reared ethnic anything.” The Presbyterian Church, USA was their culture. And because this denomination was not one to which most citizens of African descent belonged, they were still “different.”

An acquaintance felt the need to say, “Your family acts like they are better than anyone else.” Her perceived “better than” posture was not sweetness and light. Whatever was defined by the family as common--the phrase was “low-class”--was met with imperious glances, tight lips and stern correction. The offender would feel as if she or he had been banished from the human race. “Proper” manners, dress, demeanor and decorum were taught as if handed down from Mt. Sinai. These people were not “acting white.” Their values and actions were modeled and absorbed as cultural, economic and educational realities.

The African heritage was honored. They knew W.E.B. DuBois, Langston Hughes, Dr. Charles Drew, the pioneer open-heart surgeon, and numerous achievers.

One “down side” to this expected behavior would be derision and ostracism by peers from similar “racial” but different cultural background. Ignorance of so-called “ethnic behavior,” though physically “colored,” could lead to an odd mix of pain and pride. Confused by a double-alien status, they were unsure as to how they were “supposed” to play the race-color game.

Expectations of and for people born under this weight brought discomfort in the world of easygoing Colored/Negro/African American/Black folks. This, and similar families were not allowed into the middle-class white world in whose culture they were formed. These southern Americans were unable to escape or be at peace. They were inconsciously ill at ease in their psychic disharmony. It is neither simple nor easy to discern between class and so-called race and create a healthy holism. Identification for uncounted numbers of southerners I am describing began with proximity to the Euro-American upper class during slavery--the so-called “house slave.” Acculturation continued when free people of color emerged from missionary schools founded by Northern, Christian philanthropists during Reconstruction and into the twentieth century. Then came seasoning at colleges and universities such as Biddle, now J.C. Smith, Bennett, Spelman, Fisk, Meharry, Howard, Atlanta, Columbia, Northwestern and boarding and country day schools. There is inherent dignity among people who sense their own worth, and a sense of alienation when rejected on all sides.

When Aunt Vivian’s younger sister married at the mature age of “fifty something,” Vivian arranged the ceremony as if Jennie were an eighteen year old, virgin bride. On the wedding morning Vivian balanced Amy Vanderbilt and Emily Post etiquette books, pages clipped and marked. Guests were seated according to protocol, after having been invited according to protocol. The catered tables were lovely. “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik” flowed from the string quartet. The ceremony began promptly at eleven a.m. The groom, a retired minister of the proscribed Presbyterian faith—was lost in the proceedings. But who cared? Family and class were upheld. Grandmother Lucy Mariah could be pleased.

The world I describe did and does exist in the South although hidden to most of the society. Visits with friends were identical dances. The effect on children was air-conditioned chill on a 105-degree Carolina day. ”Be yourself-- Remember who you are”—was the blanket thrown over childish glee.

Given nominal successes in teaching, theology, medicine, social work and law, the family of Ben and Lucy Mariah survived a few of the obvious limitations into the fourth generation.

Lucy Mariah lived her final years with daughter Clarkie’s family. When Clarkie’s daughter gave birth to her first child by a copper colored African-Irish-Cherokee- American, a younger sister went to “Grandmother’s room” to announce the birth:

(Granddaughter) “ Grandmother, Vivian just had her baby.”
(Lucy Mariah) “What color is it?”
(Granddaughter): “It’s a little light baby, Grandmother.”
(Lucy Mariah) “That’s good.”

Ben Hughes, Jr. had limited mental development--the result of a fever it was told.” Benny” lived with his youngest sister, Mable Boulware, and eventually, her son. One morning at breakfast Harold said, “Ask Benny if he wants some coffee?” So, I did.

Benny, soberly said, “No thank you. Coffee’ll make you black.”
Surprised, I asked, “Where did you hear that, Benny?”
“Grandmother and Granddaddy Martin,” he said, naming family friends.

Many Americans of African “blood” range in skin tone from light brown to “white.” Some know their history in the crazy quilt. Most do not. (Foreigners insisted my African-Scots-Irish-English-Cherokee husband was a Turk, Spaniard--anything except American.) The Clinkscales-Hughes family chose to make the legality of European heritage a mark of self-esteem. Pride may have carried survival advantage.

One of the great grandchildren, a pioneer aerospace engineer and poet said, “Like everyone else, I had eight great grandparents. Three were white, two were black, two were Indian and one was half and half. My son is married to a Hispanic-Jew. Now, YOU tell me what my grandchildren are?”

Shadows of these different stories push through the veil of denial once in a great while. One example is the TV film made from Dorothy West’s novel, The Wedding. This film played up the interracial romance with emphasis on the white groom that the book does not. West focused on the bride’s inter-racial family dynamics. Even with Oprah Winfrey in charge nuances of the story were blurred and excluded. Ms Winfrey is not from summers in Martha’s Vinyard, although she can now afford to buy much of the island. Film and TV find it impossible to transmit subtle and clarifying nuance. Depictions of people of color in TV and movies are stereotypes, whether in suits or hip-hop.

When will America, led by its artist-writers, recognize the biological and philosophical validity that Homo- sapiens are one species with multiple facets, and the talents within those facets are assets? The stories we have not heard, read and seen are valuable-- to entertain, to instruct and to remember. The South is the place to make that acknowledgement. The South is the genesis of a uniquely multi-faceted America. The South denies its depth and breadth to itself. It fails to notice, accept, offer and promote its total richness to the world.

Southern writers have singularly outstanding abilities to tell stories, perhaps the only ones left in the nation. New stories, wider portals could be our mantra. There need be no limits to Southern writing.

Abstract from letters to The Board of Missions of the Presbyterian Church by The Reverend Calvin Monroe Young, Sr., March 17, 1910

Rev. E.P. Cowan, D.D., Pittsburgh, PA

Dear Brother:

Harbison Hall is now in flames and in a few minutes will be in ashes. Three of our best students went up in the flames… Prof. R.W. Boulware is in critical condition, having jumped from the second floor; an arm is broken, and he is internally injured. …. Several students have broken limbs…

Now for the worst. The building must have been thoroughly oiled from one side to the other on the first floor…When he had successfully accomplished his work … he oiled the kitchen of the President’s home and set fire to it. If he had not spent so much time on Harbison Hall he would have gotten my family. The students who first escaped…came to the President’s home and extinguished the flames, which would have been unconquerable in a few minutes. Harbison Hall was falling in when its inmates were awakened and was ablaze from side to side, which showed that an incendiary had done the work…It was so hard to hear them cry, “Bring a ladder,” when no one could render assistance…When I reached the building it had fallen in.

Drop me a line. My dear Brother, this is almost more than I can suffer.

Fraternally yours, C.M. Young

Dear Brother:

After my regular secret prayer and the reading of the 23rd psalm from His Blessed Book, I began the letter to you I had planned to write yesterday, but with more than a hundred students, still terror-stricken till the last train of the day had gone, filling my house from the early morn with tears and earnest appeals for advance payment on board and music with which to purchase their tickets home; the answering of telephone and telegraph messages; receiving words of sympathy from white and colored, and answering questions by those who are trying to run down the wicked perpetrator or perpetrators who have brought death and disappointment to us, it was simply impossible to write it.

The campus on Thursday was a mass of sympathizing friends, white and colored; there was hardly standing ground…tears flowed freely from many a cheek. Although the walls continued to fall, the crowd tried to discover and rescue the ashes of the three burned victims…Before it was hardly safe to reach the spot a young white man made a dash for the handful accessible. In a few hours the flames were robbed of the last form when there seemed to be not only a sigh of relief, but a serenity that changed the tenor of the occasion…

The sending of telegrams to bereaved parents and then meeting them with their son’s ashes was an awful task. Rev. C.N. Jenkins was philosophical; Mr. Duckett acted well, but Mr. Dubose, the father of the youngest boy, Eddie, was at times uncontrollable. His waving his hand toward the burned building when leaving, and his deep sighs and groans will never be forgotten by lookers on…

Fraternally yours, C.M. Young