Commentary by James Jordan, Sumner Newscow — I was about 5, maybe 6. My mother and I were visiting my grandfather, which we did often. I don’t remember the context or why, but I once said the N-word in his presence. My grandfather was a mild-mannered and kind man. But at that moment, his face turned bright red and a look of anger engulfed him. I had never seen this face before.

James Jordan

He quickly grabbed my arm, squeezed it hard, and spanked me with his hand hard for what seemed like a long time.

He then grabbed me and pointed his finger in my face.

“Don’t you ever say that word again,” he said, his anger not yet receding.

He paced around the room momentarily and then told my mom to take me home. He kicked us out, though it was just for that day. He got over his anger at me and never mentioned it again. But I knew there was a hard boundary that I had better not cross.

My mother, who normally was very loving towards me, seemed to approve of my punishment and was not sympathetic to my plight at all. She was clearly upset with me as well.

She asked me if I knew what that word meant on the way home. I told her I did not. She said:

“Let this be a lesson to not say words when you don’t know what they mean.” 

———

This was southern Appalachia in the early 1960s. To that point, I do not even know if I knew there were black people. It was a few years before I saw a black person and there were none in my school. It was a few years after the incident before I knew what the N-word meant.

The punishment I received that day certainly made a big impression, but as I grew up, I came to see it as my family saw it. To this day I hate the word. Like my grandfather, I will not tolerate it being used in my hearing. It is demeaning and stupid. I am also hesitant to say words unless I know the meaning.

He was consistent in his opposition to racist type language. Many times, I saw him get into arguments. Once, I saw him chase people off his property during a family gathering. It was not enough to simply be offended or to not like certain kinds of talk. He felt he had to take action.

Some white men in southern Appalachia felt the same way my grandfather did. They did not just disagree with racism; they hated it with a passion. They would not tolerate filthy racist language or any action against a minority person. They would speak up and confront people about using racist language or belittling people of color.

These were men who had grown up on the other side of the street. They had grown up in poverty alongside black people, Indians, and Hispanics. There were no safety nets in those days, and you could starve to death. It has to do with not forgetting where you came from, and they never did.

They all had their own story and reasons for their strong feelings on the matter. It’s hard to get the story out of mountain men in Appalachia. Mountain men of that era, were not prone to talk about themselves. It took me years to get the whole story of my grandfather.

The questions were always there for me, and the answers were hard to find in rural southern Appalachia.

He had a limp that was from an old injury and a curious-looking black spot under one cheek. It took me a long time to get the story, and through that I understood him and why he hated racism so much.

———

My grandfather liked to joke that people were so poor that they did not notice the Great Depression. They knew about poverty from experience.

To the outside observer, my grandfather was very poor. Even so, he owned his house and farm with no debt. He grew almost everything he ate, all the tobacco he smoked, and even made the small amount of alcohol he drank. He was getting a social security check and seemed to get by OK.

My grandfather told me his story in bits and pieces over a few years. While living very poor in southwest Virginia, people had to take whatever work they could find. Otherwise, they would starve.

He worked alongside black people in the Virginia coal mines — a dangerous and low-paying job.

There were very few safety standards in those days and no insurance. If you got hurt, you would probably get fired, and no one cared. If you got killed, the company would shrug and send someone else down to work — not to get you.

The poorest white and black men worked together in those mines. Sometimes, there were partial cave-ins, or a post would give way, allowing rocks and dirt to fall on the miners. It was during one of those times that a piece of shale fell on him. It was as big as a wall, and it trapped him so he could not shout enough for help.

Eventually, a large black man noticed him and lifted the shale off him. This was no easy task. The man carried him out of the mine to safety. My grandfather had a broken leg that never got medical attention. Fifty years later, he still had a limp. The black spot under his eye was coal that had gotten lodged deep in his face during that accident.

He never returned to the mines, but he also never forgot who saved his life that day. His opposition to racism was in some way repaying that incident.

From there, he moved to Tennessee and somehow got a piece of land. He raised 10 children, including my mother, on that piece of land on a mountainside and lived there until he died at age 95.

And as far as I know, I have not used that word since that day he punished me for doing so.

Follow us on Facebook.

Follow us on Twitter.