Detroit, Michigan Mural 2014
We lived on a farm in the rural South. In those days, country doctors made house calls. It was a cold winter day, but the house was cozy and warm. A fire burned brightly in the fireplace of Grandma Lucille’s bedroom. The house was quiet. No one was around except my grandmother, who was sick in bed with pneumonia. It was early morning. All of the adults were outside doing farm chores.
They had told me to stay with my grandmother and to open the door if the doctor came. Not wanting to disturb my grandmother or miss hearing a knock on the door, I tiptoed quietly around the room. Then I heard a knock on the door. “Could that be the doctor?” I looked out the window and saw a tall man standing by the door. I ran to the door, but could barely reach the doorknob. A petite four -year old, even on my tippy toes I could not grab the knob with enough strength to get the door open.
The knock came louder and I tried harder. Then I came up with the bright idea that if I were to knock on the window and get the man’s attention he would not go away until I managed to get the door open. I knocked on the window, but he didn’t hear me. I knocked again, but still he did not hear me. The man turned and walked down the steps.
I felt a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. What if that man was really the doctor and my grandmother died because I couldn’t get the door open. Grandma Lucille coughed in the next room, but I wasn’t about to go in there to tell her what just happened. I didn’t know what pneumonia was, but I knew my grandmother was very sick. She had been in bed for days.
Just then I heard my mother coming in the back door. She asked me if the doctor had come. I told her that a man came and knocked on the door, but I couldn’t get the door open. She said that it was probably the doctor and they would have to send for him again. In those days we did not have a phone, so sending for the doctor meant that my dad or one of the other adults would have to drive to the store, which was a couple of miles away, to make the phone call. It sounded like a really big deal and it was my fault.
I don’t recall what happened for the remainder of the day, but I do remember that later that evening after supper, my mom and dad, my grandfather and my two aunts were sitting around talking about sending for the doctor. They asked me if the man who came to the door was colored or white. I said, “I don’t know. Why?” My mom said that if the man was white he was probably the doctor, but if he were colored then it was somebody else. The conversation went something like this:
“Well…how do white people look?”
“They have very light skin and straight hair.”
“Oh, like Grandma Walker?”
“Oh, no Grandma Walker is colored.”
“Oh, like Grandpa Walker?”
“No Grandpa Walker looks white, but he’s a colored man.” The other adults were laughing. They thought it was so funny, but for me it was a very serious matter.
Even though my family did not realize it, that experience was the “inciting incident” that would later prove to have a profound impact on my journey in life.
The next day, the doctor came back and I stood quietly by as he examined my grandmother. I stared at him, trying to make sure that I knew what a white man looked like and wondering why the doctor could not have been a colored man. From that moment on I was always “trying to get the door open,” one way or another.
The Freedom Riders and Civil Rights workers were my heroes. My greatest ambition was to grow up, go to college, get arrested and go to jail for the cause of freedom. While I never went to jail, my life’s journey has been defined by my yearning for true liberation and my commitment to cultural healing.
~ Velma E. Love, PhD
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