Obama is a Giant before the NAACP

The President returns to his roots -- a giant standing on the shoulders of giants!
by Charlie Leck

I had planned a far different blog for this morning, but sometimes even good plans must be set aside.

Something extremely important happened yesterday. Barack Obama returned as 44th President of the United States to an NAACP convention. I urge you with all my might to go and watch and hear.

“I stand here tonight on the shoulders of Giants and I’m here to say thank you to those pioneers and thank you to the NAACP.”

The President’s cadences and inflections changed as the speech went on; and by the end of his speech he was on a roll that was very reminiscent of Doctor Martin Luther King Junior. It was quite remarkable and everyone should watch and listen to this extraordinary speech that I think will go down in history as one of the great Presidential orations.

“Changes have to come from the people!”

“There has never been less discrimination in American than there is today; but, make no mistake, the pain of discrimination is still felt in America…. On the 44th anniversary of the Civil Right Act, discrimination can no longer be allowed to stand.”

“There’s a reason the civil rights movement was written in our schools… there is no stronger weapon against inequality and no better path to opportunity than an education that can unlock a child’s God-given potential.”

“If black and brown students cannot compete, then America cannot compete.”

“I got an Amen Corner back there… "

“Folks in Congress are getting a little tuckered out, but I’m tellin’ em we can’t rest. We’ve got a lot to do.”

“Government programs alone won’t get our children to the Promised Land. We need a new mind set, a new set of attitudes, because one of the most destructive legacies of discrimination is the way we’ve internalized a sense of limitation – how so many of those in our community have come to expect so little from the world and from themselves.”

At about the 24 minutes mark of the speech, Obama swings into this new voice pattern and completely different attitude in his delivery. He is clearly speaking to the black community at this point. He isolates them and begins to pound out what it means to be responsible and “get it done.”

If nothing else, go to the link for the video of this speech and move the slider forward to the 30 minute mark and listen to the extraordinary 5 minute conclusion of this speech.

“We have to say to our children, Yes, if you’re African American, the odds of growing up amid crime and gangs are higher. Yes, if you live in a poor neighborhood, you will face challenges that someone in a wealthy suburb does not. But that’s not a reason to get bad grades, that’s not a reason to cut class, that’s not a reason to give up on your education and drop out of school.

"No one has written your destiny for you. Your destiny is in your hands – and don’t you forget that.

“To parents, we can’t tell our kids to do well in school and fail to support them when they get home. For our kids to excel, we must accept our own responsibilities. That means putting away the Xbox and putting our kids to bed at a reasonable hour. It means attending those parent-teacher conferences, reading to our kids, and helping them with their homework.

“And it means we need to be there for our neighbor’s son or daughter, and return to the day when we parents let each other know if we saw a child acting up. That’s the meaning of community. That’s how we can reclaim the strength, the determination, the hopefulness that helped us come as far as we already have.

“It also means pushing our kids to set their sights higher. They might think they’ve got a pretty good jump shot or a pretty good flow, but our kids can’t all aspire to be the next LeBron or Lil Wayne. I want them aspiring to be scientists and engineers, doctors and teachers, not just ballers and rappers. I want them aspiring to be a Supreme Court Justice. I want them aspiring to be President of the United States.

“So, yes, government must be a force for opportunity. Yes, government must be a force for equality. But ultimately, if we are to be true to our past, then we also have to seize our own destiny, each and every day.”

I can’t say enough about this speech. It wasn’t a speech pleading for money for the cause. It wasn’t a speech begging the white community to be fairer. It was a speech to those who have been underrepresented and unfairly treated, imploring them to rise above mistreatment and discrimination to become what is always possible in America for those who work hard and fairly.

Then, in a towering, powerful way, like the surf rolling inevitably toward the shore, Obama rose up in conclusion:

“So, I know what can happen to a child who doesn’t have that chance. But I also know what can happen to a child who does. I was raised by a single mother. I don’t come from a lot of wealth. I got into my share of trouble as a kid. My life could easily have taken a turn for the worse. But that mother of mine gave me love; she pushed me, and cared about my education; she took no lip and taught me right from wrong. Because of her, I had a chance to make the most of my abilities. I had the chance to make the most of my opportunities. I had the chance to make the most of life.

“The same story holds for Michelle. The same story holds for so many of you. And I want all the other Barack Obamas out there, and all the other Michelle Obamas out there, to have that same chance – the chance that my mother gave me; that my education gave me; that the United States of America gave me. That is how our union will be perfected and our economy rebuilt. That is how America will move forward in the next one hundred years.

“And we will move forward. This I know – for I know how far we have come. Last week, in Ghana, Michelle and I took Malia and Sasha to Cape Coast Castle, where captives were once imprisoned before being auctioned; where, across an ocean, so much of the African-American experience began. There, reflecting on the dungeon beneath the castle church, I was reminded of all the pain and all the hardships, all the injustices and all the indignities on the voyage from slavery to freedom.

“But I was also reminded of something else. I was reminded that no matter how bitter the rod or how stony the road, we have persevered. We have not faltered, nor have we grown weary. As Americans, we have demanded, strived for, and shaped a better destiny.

“That is what we are called to do once more. It will not be easy. It will take time. Doubts may rise and hopes recede.

“But if John Lewis could brave Billy clubs to cross a bridge, then I know young people today can do their part to lift up our communities.

If Emmet Till’s uncle Mose Wright could summon the courage to testify against the men who killed his nephew, I know we can be better fathers and brothers, mothers and sisters in our own families.

“If three civil rights workers in Mississippi – black and white, Christian and Jew, city-born and country-bred – could lay down their lives in freedom’s cause, I know we can come together to face down the challenges of our own time. We can fix our schools, heal our sick, and rescue our youth from violence and despair.

“One hundred years from now, on the 200th anniversary of the NAACP, let it be said that this generation did its part; that we too ran the race; that full of the faith that our dark past has taught us, full of the hope that the present has brought us, we faced, in our own lives and all across this nation, the rising sun of a new day begun.”

Go to MSNBC-TV video site to watch the President address the NAACP

If you prefer to read a full text of the speech (click here), but, remember, you will miss the extraordinary cadences and accents of the Obama voice in his remarkable delivery.

The Marriage of My Parents

The little wedding chapel in Elkton, Maryland.

They wed in Elkton, Maryland, in 1928.
by Charlie Leck

In 1928, when my mother was a 17 year old girl, and my father a 29 year old man, they stole away from New York City and traveled down to Elkton, Maryland to be married.

Gosh, I wish I could have been there. I wish I could even imagine it.

Over the years I tried vigorously to get anyone to talk about it. Either my big sister and older brothers knew nothing about the history of the event or they didn’t think I had any right to hear about it. My parents weren’t talking and neither were my mother’s parents. I tried tapping into each of them.

All I could find out from anyone was that Maryland was the only state anywhere near New York that required no blood tests and no waiting period until one was established in 1938.

So, with no facts in hand, I was left only to making things up, which, often, I really don’t mind at all.

To give my fantasy at least a touch of reality, I traveled to Elkton in the early 90s to get some sense of the setting in which my drama would take place. My wife was at a horse show in Fair Hill – not so far away – and I took our rental car and drove over to Elkton. By asking some old timers I bumped into, I found out that there was, back in those days, a train that came down from New York City, through Philadelphia and on down to Baltimore. It made a stop in Elkton. Voila! There you are. I had a story.

My mother, Mildred Ann Svejda, was from a strict Roman Catholic family. My father’s family was German Lutheran. My father was 12 years older than my very young mother. It’s easy to guess that Grandma Svejda (Emma) was foursquare opposed to the marriage.

"You're so young, Milly. He's 12 years older than you. He isn't a Catholic, Milly! You must be married in the Church."

Having been close to my grandpa, Frank Svejda, I can imagine him winking at my dad and nodding that he should go for it. He and my dad were always very close during my life and I was always fascinated with that camaraderie and their friendship.

Another ingredient important for the mixture here was that my mother was a stubborn, entirely independent and determined woman. I can imagine her making the decision and telling my father that she had girl friends who had taken the train to Maryland, gotten married, spent a one night honeymoon there, and then traveled right back to New York so they could get immediately back to work.

I liked Elkton. I wandered its narrow streets and chatted people up. Several folks pointed me toward Main Street and the Historic Little Wedding Chapel. Though there is now a waiting period in Elkton, it still remains a popular place for couples to marry because of the wedding chapels that had been established there in the 1920s. The manager of the chapel spoke with me about my parents and it’s very possible they were married there; however, the chapel’s records prior to 1938 were destroyed. Yet, there were also competing chapels in those days and they all got their share of weddings. And, there was a local Justice of the Peace who advertised his services and hung out a shingle, announcing his availability to perform a wedding. Whatever, whether it was in the little chapel or before a Justice of the Peace, my mother had probably made advance arrangements. She was pretty organized and planned ahead.

So, in the summer of 1928, they boarded a train with another couple (probably friends who had also married in Elkton) and enjoyed the trip through New Jersey, into Philadelphia and then on south to Elkton. Knowledgeable cabbies would meet arriving couples at the train station and tell them all they needed to know about where to get a license (the courthouse remained open until 7 o’clock) and where they could marry. My parents arrived on time, purchased their license within five minutes and took their vows, with their friends acting as best man and matron of honor. Then, they went out to dinner and had crab and champagne.

I found the Howard House Tavern right there on Main Street. It announced that it had been in business since 1853 and it had a great big menu with plenty of crab. I ordered the plate of soft shell crabs and the steamed red potatoes (it’s what my mother would have had).

“And, oh, yes, can I get a split of champagne?”

“Certainly sir!” The waiter brightened up, sensing a tip of unusual size. “What kind would you like?”

“A Taitinger, please. Very chilled. And start me with a half-dozen raw oysters!”

It’s the way my old man would have ordered. He loved seafood and adored clams and oysters.

Alone, I sat back to enjoy the fantasy. Over there, only twenty feet or so away from me, at a corner table, I watched the best man stand and propose a toast. There was great laughter and everyone raised a glass. My mom and dad kissed.

Wow! She was a pretty good looking chick. She had that Bohemian nose, but it fit her and her dark skin glimmered. She was tall and thin and very, very happy. My dad was a tad shorter than she. He had very light hair, almost white. He wore a suit and tie nicely, like it was common for him. He was thin and his clothing hung nicely on his frame.

My dad was shaking his finger at his best man and laughing uproariously. My mother blushed and looked down at the table. Her matron of honor giggled and put her arm around her husband’s back. A huge platter of oysters were brought to the table and the waiter refilled their champagne glasses. My dad was singing something and the others at the table were laughing and clapping as he sang. His voice was quite high and quite good.

When you’re smiling, when you smiling
The whole world smiles with you
When you’re laughing, when you’re laughing
The sun comes shining through

But when you’re crying, you bring on the rain
So stop that sighing, be happy again
When you’re smiling, keep on smiling
The whole world smiles with you

The four revelers consumed the last of their champagne. I signaled to my waiter, calling him to my table.

“Bring them another bottle of champagne – whatever they’re drinking – and put it on my tab.”

My waiter hustled another bottle of champagne over to them. He quickly filled their glasses and, in response to their inquiry, he pointed over at my table. They turned to look over and waved to me and I smiled and lifted my glass in a toast to them.

The oysters and my champagne arrived. Both were spectacular. I ate and drank as I watched the little wedding party enjoying their lovely celebration. My mother was blushing about something and my father put an arm around her and gave her a big hug, kissing her sweetly on her cheek. He seemed to be filled completely up with a huge love for his new wife. She, just a child, was swimming in it as if in a gentle, still pond in a small stream.

My father’s buddy rose to his feet and began a song. His voice was stunning and the entire audience stopped and turned to listen to him.

Bring back once more those days of yore
So I can see my sweetheart,
that girl I adore

She won my heart right from the start
And now it won’t behave

That girl of mine
Oh how I love her
That girl of mine
I really love her

So she’s many miles away
I’m with her every day
Memories and love now bonded two

The packed house – each and every table – applauded and cheered the lovely song. My father was clapping wildly and my mother rose and clapped sweetly for the beautiful performance. The best man turned and waved to each corner of the room. His eyes caught mine. He saw me clapping. He bowed slightly and waved demurely to me.

“Oh, Charlie,” the woman with him was shouting, “you were wonderful!”

I lifted my champagne glass to him and tilted my head demurely, but my heart was pounding. It is my father’s brother, I thought. It is my Uncle Charlie. It is the man after whom I am named. And that is his wife, Tess – my wonderful Aunt Tessie.
My waiter arrived with the crab platter and slid it before me. He saw the tears in my eyes and he was taken aback.

“Are you all right, sir?”

“Yes, yes,” I said. “I’m just enjoying the little wedding party across the way.”

“What wedding party is that, sir?”

“The table to whom I sent the bottle of champagne.”

“What champagne is that, sir?”

I looked over to the corner where my mom and dad were celebrating with such fervor. They weren’t there. Six elderly folks, even older than I, were sitting there at a circular table. They looked both exhausted and bored. I peered up at my waiter. A lump grew in my throat and I couldn’t speak.

“Could I pour you more champagne, sir?”

I nodded silently. Everything was peaceful. A piano tinkled somewhere. There was a dull murmuring of voices spread out across the big, open room.

I had traveled through time and I’d been dropped back again in the now and the here, but I had gotten what I came for and it was a lovely split second of time.

The crab was wonderful and the champagne elegant. The tab extremely high.

An old postcard from Elkton show how marriages were at the center of its economy.

Main Street in Elkton about the time my parents would have married there.

Calling for a Congressional Investigation of Bush and Cheney

Big Dick Cheney ran an illegal and clandestine CIA operation for President Bush!
by Charlie Leck

Wasn’t it Gomer Pyle who was always screeching out the following?

"Surprise, surprise, surprise!"

Be mindful, Gomer was being sarcastic because he was not surprised at all. And so, with Gomer, I say the same thing this morning about the big Dick Cheney:

"Surprise! Surprise! Surprise!"

Now, please understand that I have tried to remain opposed to the idea of a complete investigation of the previous administration’s participation in activities that involved illegal wiretapping and surveillance and the use of torture methods to get information out of suspected terrorists. Also understand that I am totally opposed to all those activities and find them a violation of the protection afforded citizens of our nation and, therefore, I am opposed to using them against citizens of any nation.

However, my objections to a wide open Congressional investigation of the Bush administration is waning. I think they were naughty boys involved in misplay – perhaps more naughty than I thought they were. And, I think the big Dick Cheney may have been at the heart of it.

Time is up! Let’s have a full scale Congressional investigation of how the Bush boys used the CIA and the military in pursuing terrorists; and let’s find out just how much they violated our rights to privacy by listening in on our conversations and “affairs.” And finally, let’s see how they used torture to get information out of prisoners who seemed prepared to tell their torturers whatever it was those torturers wanted to hear.

Here’s the rub!
Obama has a lot on his plate right now. He is trying with all his might to get bi-partisan participation in some of his legislative efforts. That, of course, will take the cooperation of the Republican Party. Should he give his approval to proposals calling for investigations of the previous administration as I outlined above, he will lose the opposition party completely and get no cooperation from them. It’s a tough call for the President.

Living in the Dust Storms

U.S. Gov't photo

This book, The Worst Hard Time, by Timothy Egan, is quite remarkable!
by Charlie Leck

The very center of the famous dustbowl of the United States is in the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas. From the south, it extends all the way from Lubbock, Texas north through Kansas and just touches southern Nebraska, southeastern Colorado and northeastern New Mexico.

The people who lived in that geographic region during the great depression suffered the hard times twice over. They not only lived through the depression itself, but also through one of the worst droughts in human history and in the raging, blowing, constant dust.

"Not a tree, anywhere. Not a slice of shade. Not a river dancing away, life it its blood. Not a bump of high ground to break the horizon, give some perspective, spell the monotone of flatness."

Timothy Egan's remarkable story about a decade in the dustbowl is so very worth the time it takes to read. The book flows -- sometimes like a gentle stream and sometimes like a raging river -- and it is very difficult to put down. This is an historical and biographical account that reads like an intense novel.

Egan won a National Book Award for this remarkable book. It deserved that and more.

You've read Steinbeck. Once you read The Worst Hard Time, you'll understand Grapes of Wrath better and you'll realize you've read something just as solid as that famous novel; for this is the story of those who did not leave and barely survived.

Before they went to their graves, Egan gathered the stories of those who lived through some of the worst sand and dust storms imaginable -- storms that would leave their homes buried in sand that piled up like cement. These folks lived through hardships that would seem unimaginable to us until we hear their stories.

The nightmarish tale in this book also presents us with a warning about the power of nature and natural disasters. It takes us to task for the careless ways we seek to satisfy our lust for wealth and achievement; for the dust storms didn't need to happen if the grasslands of that prairie had been left alone and not turned down by the plow.

A friend in Colorado sent me this book several weeks ago. He raved about it and told me I would not believe how smoothly and beautifully it read. He was right-on and I so appreciate having gotten this book into my hands; for I never would have read it had it not been sent to me.

Try to imagine it! There comes the ceaseless pounding of sand, raging and tearing into everything including your heart and soul. That is how Willie Dawson described the blowing sand and dust in a letter to her son John, sent from Dalhart, Texas.

"Never in all the 31 years we lived in the West, have we seen the thing continued for three days and nights without a stretch, without one minute between violent gusts and lambasting dirt deluging us unceasingly."

You won't be sorry that you encountered the heart-wrenching story in this book.

Kansas State University Photo:
Goodwell, Oklahoma, 4 June 1937
Those are not hills behind these homes on the flatlands of the high prairies.

WHAT I LEARNED IN CHESTER

The lovely, kind old ladies of my childhood church took hold of my life and shook some sense into it!
by Charlie Leck

CHESTER, NEW JERSEY
A Scrapbook of History
by
Frances Greenidge

I frequently write here, on this blog, about my growing up years in Chester, New Jersey. It provides me a break from the constant ranting and raving I do about politics and government in the United States.

In order to write with some accuracy, I pull down some small works of history about this little town in the East. In them I find plenty of interesting references and even photographs of myself and other members of my family.

Very recently I was looking at this historical scrapbook collection by Frances Greenidge. I happened to notice an inscription on the front inside cover and I took the time to read it carefully.

This is the property
of
H. Evelyn Beiser
and
is to be passed on to“my Sunday School student of yesteryear”
Charles H. Leck
with
God’s blessing
and
my love.

I hope you will enjoy reading
about the
Chester
that had much to do with
making you the man you are today.
Evelyn

Indeed, Mrs. Beiser, that little town in New Jersey did have much to do with making me the man I am – nothing to particularly boast about, but nothing to be ashamed of either. And you, dear woman, were among the best teachers I ever had – Sunday or no – and I learned, perhaps, the most important thing in the world from you in that little space, under the balcony in the church, where we met as a Sunday School class. You introduced me to God and taught me the most important thing I would ever need to know about the nature of God; and, perhaps too, the most important thing I would ever need to know about life.

“God,” you said one Sunday morning, “is love.”

Then you read slowly and clearly to me and the other students in your class, from the Epistle of John, some of the most important words I would ever hear in my life. Upon hearing these words I knew that I had mastered the subject of theology and need go no further in those studies. I knew immediately what it meant to be a Christian. You gave me the most vital information I have ever been given in my entire life and I will go to my resting place being forever grateful to you for this lesson.

“God is love; and he who abides in love, abides in God. He who does not know love does not know God; for God is love!”

Yes, I learned a lot back there in that little town of Chester, but I learned it because the town was literally filled with people like you – wise saints of God who will dwell with Him forevermore. I am grateful.

Emmett Till

This 14 year old boy was an important symbol of the civil rights movement in the 1960s and remains a symbol of racial injustice to this day.
by Charlie Leck

Stories in the news about the discovery of the casket of Emmett Till in an abused condition have motivated me to write the following.

In August of 1955 I was 14 years old. So was Emmett Till. Does the name mean anything to you? It does to me; and, the name is deeply significant in the history of the southern civil rights movement in the United States.

Fourteen year old boys may be among the strangest creatures on earth. I, for instance, was. I’d just finished my first year of high school. My head spun from the experience of having engaged in algebra. It had been terrible being on the bottom rung of the ladder in a social system and moving aside for all these upper classman.

Girls were driving me crazy. There they were, blossoming and becoming women right in front of me. Years before, I’d already fallen madly in love with one of them to whom I could never even speak, but of whom I had constant thoughts and imaginations that we were close and that she shared my deep affection. Now, in high school, there were so many pretty girls and I couldn’t look any of them in the eyes and, when I didn’t, it gave the impression I was looking instead at their chests, which I was, but not consciously. I had sweaty palms and all these sexual rumblings stirring around inside me and I hadn’t the slightest idea what to do with them. Both my mind and body were substantially confused and bewildered – and sometimes they were both out of control at the same time.

Slightly mature women fascinated me. I liked their assurance and poise. I also liked the confidence they seemed to have about their bodies.

A lovely and attractive woman, who I remember so clearly, use to stop at my father’s luncheonette nearly every single mid-morning for several years. She’d always ordered a cup of black coffee, an English muffin and a copy of the NY Times. There were times, during the summer and school holidays, when I might be there when she was. I loved to watch her – actually examine her – as she read the paper. Occasionally, she’d glance over at me and catch me looking at the delectable curves and movements in her body. When our eyes met, caught, I could feel the flush of heat cover my face and I would, of course, look quickly away.

For an act as socially simple as this, Emmett Till was murdered during that summer of his 14th year. He died in an ugly, incredibly horrible way. He was beaten severely. He was castrated. He was shot through the head. He was thrown into the Tallahatchie River in Mississippi.

He was a Chicago boy. He didn’t know the strange ways of this southern state. It was another world down there, but Emmett was from Chicago and didn’t know that.

In August of 1955, this 14 year old boy, Emmett Till, went down to Money, Mississippi to visit relatives. A sign on the highway entering the town announced that it was “ Money – A good place to raise a boy!”

Emmett Till was a bold and confident kid and he was likely showing off to his country bumpkin cousins and their rural friends. After all, he was from the big city.

Certainly, this boy had experienced segregation, but he knew nothing about the strong and strange traditions and customs of a place like Mississippi.

On one of these hot Mississippi days, he showed off a photograph he was carrying of a white girl who was back home in Chicago. He bragged that she was a very close friend. The boys pointed out a young white woman entering a store and dared Emmett to go talk to her. With no thought that he was doing anything wrong, he walked into the store and bought some candy and then, as he was leaving, he looked at the woman.

“Bye, baby,” he said to Carolyn Bryant, the wife of the owner of the store. With a teenager's bravado, he may also have whistled slightly or clucked his cheek at her.

The young boys from Mississippi knew that something terribly wrong had happened and, perhaps, they felt some gears within the planet shift slightly. Yet, nothing immediate happened. They let out their collective breaths and thought, perhaps, the incident had been overlooked.

It was three days later that two men came for him in the middle of the night. They took him right out of the home of his uncle, Mose Wright. A few days later, Emmett Till’s body was found. It was retrieved from the Tallahatchie River. Mr. Wright could only identify the body because of an initialed ring on one of its fingers. An eye had been gouged and destroyed, the head had been crushed and there was a bullet it in. To weight down the body, a cotton gin wheel had been tied to Emmett’s neck with barbed wire.

Even before the body was found, Roy Bryant, husband of Carolyn Bryant and owner of the store, and J.W. Milam, Roy Bryant’s brother-in-law, were arrested for kidnapping. Upon the discovery of the body, and the description of the brutality imposed on it, it seemed that both whites and blacks were horrified. The story also quickly received nationwide attention.

In Chicago, Emmett’s mother insisted that the casket be left open at the funeral, so that everyone could “see what they did to my son.” Thousands saw in person and many more across the nation saw in photographs that were published in Jet Magazine.

Black preachers across the country preached about Emmett Till in their sermons on that Sunday. They were demanding that something be done. The backs of white people in Mississippi began to rise as criticism of Mississippi’s system of segregation began to spread across the nation. Some prominent Mississippi attorneys volunteered to defend Bryant and Milam.

In mid-September, in the town of Summer, the trial began in a courthouse with separate water fountains and rest rooms for colored and white.

Any who testified against the white men had to be rushed from the state after they did. Even though Emmett’s uncle, Mose, had been able to point out the two men, Bryant and Milam, who had taken his nephew, the two were heading toward acquittal. Defense attorney, John Whitten, rose to make his closing statement.

“Your fathers will turn over in their graves if these men are found guilty, and I’m sure that every last Anglo-Saxon one of you has the courage to free these men even in the face of the pressure being brought on you.”

After deliberating for just a bit more than an hour, the jury returned an acquittal.

“They failed to prove the identity of the body,” the jury foreman would later explain.

It was only months after the trial, in a Look Magazine interview, that the two men admitted to the crime. William Bradford Huie, who wrote the story in Look, recalled the interview this way.

“I met Milam and Bryant. We had this strange situation. We’re meeting in the library of this law firm. Milam and Bryant are sitting on one side of the table, John Whitten (lawyer) and I sitting on the other side. I’m not doing the questioning. Their own lawyer is doing the questioning. And he’s never heard their story. Not once. He becomes as interested in the story as I am. I said, 'Now I’m going to take notes and then during the day I’m going to do two things. I’m going to be roughing out this story, and I’m also going where you say you went, and I’m going to find evidence.'

"Milam did most of the talking. Now remember, he’s older. Milam was then 35 or 36. He was a first lieutenant in the U.S. Army reserve at that time. And so Milam was a bit more articulate than Bryant was. Bryant did some talking, particularly when they talked about what they were told happened in the store. But J. W. Milam did the killing. He fired the shot when they took Till down on the river and killed him.”

The killers were protected by the double jeopardy clause of the U.S. Constitution. They are both now dead.

In the last few years, there was a meager attempt to bring manslaughter charges against another man, but it never happened.

Many historians have pointed to the murder of Emmett Till as the watershed moment in the development of the civil rights movement in the south. It was the decision of his mother to leave open the casket that set the stage.

Shortly after the “not guilty” verdict was returned in the Emmett Till case, the bus boycott was begun in Montgomery, Alabama.

Emmett Till and I were the same age – 14 was a confusing and difficult age to be. Neither of us understood life very well and we certainly didn’t understand death.

The Fourth of July Parade in Chester

An entry from the 1947 4th of July parade in Chester, NJ. That's my family home and our candy store, luncheonette and soda fountain, in the background, just behind the rising steam.

If you wanted to enter the parade, you just put on some kind of costume, or decorated your bike, or wrapped yourself in the flag, and in you went!
by Charlie Leck

The Fourth of July was a magical holiday. As a kid, I ranked it right up there with Thanksgiving and Christmas. It was actually more than magical. It was massively magical – at least to a little kid.

One year my father and two brothers built a battlefield tank right around a small child’s wagon. It had its big cannon sticking out the front and there were tracks on the side and a big turret into which I could climb and kneel with my head and shoulders and arms sticking out of the tank. And the turret and cannon would turn a few degrees, too, if I would move a small handle first one way and then the other. I wore a soldier’s helmet on my head and waved to the crowds as I passed, with my father pulling me all the way down Main Street from the East end of town to the West. There were small American flags flying from each of the corners of the tank.

On the floor of the wagon, all around me, was a mountain of penny candy that I proudly threw out whenever we were passing children in the crowd that gathered along both sides of the street. I really thought they were cheering for me, but they were cheering for the candy. I was well known as the lucky kid who lived at the candy store and they were certain that I had a full load of candy at my disposal on that day.

I threw larger portions of the candies out from the tank whenever I passed kids I knew or when I saw friends from my class at Chester P.S..

“Wow, there’s Janet... and there’s Lynn and Teddy!”

Aahh, how grand it was to be a hero of the mighty Second World War, if only for an hour. How splendid to ride through the cheering crowds, feeling like the infantrymen who liberated Paris with flowers and kisses thrown before them.

“Viva les American!”

The band up in front was playing some super-patriotic marches and some mighty horses were inching closer to us from behind.

The town postmaster, Mr. Thompson, was standing on the street near the Chester House with my mother and they laughed heartily when they saw me and Mother waved frantically. Peter, Deanne and Toby Barkman were standing on the stairs leading to the porch of their father’s soda fountain. Peter and Deanne, as near-teenagers, looked embarrassed by our little family entry, but Toby waved wildly to me and looked envious of my position in the tank. When I threw candy, he came running down the porch stairs, to the sidewalk, and out to the street, to retrieve something of what I threw. Unsatisfied, he came running up beside me, to inspect my tank, I handed him a great handful portion of wrapped penny candies and he ran back to share them with his brother and sister.

Who came to the parade? Beacoup le monde! It seemed, anyway, that it was all the world – everyone! It was an occasion! Towns all around Chester were showing off their new fire engines, and farmers displayed their fanciest tractors, and the service clubs – the Lions and Rotarians and the Shriners – marched in their fancy caps and carried their proud flags.

The crowds at the Chester 4th of July Parade -- Beaucoup la monde! -- were always incredibly large and very involved! These people,waiting for the parade to begin are immediately next to my home (our store) that would be just to the left (out of picture).

Though my poor father, who had pulled me for nearly two miles, was relieved, it was sad to come to the end of the parade. The cheering ended and there was only the chaos of one parade display after another arriving at the end line of the parade route, trying to figure out where to go to not be in the way of other entries marching down Main Street.

There is nothing like a small town parade – especially a small town parade that doesn’t try to act bigger than it is. Nearly everyone entered a float or a display of some sort. Even Sturgenegger’s Service Station had a grand “old” car from the 20s putt-putting up the street and pretty Ellen, a year younger than I, was riding in the back seat waving gayly to everyone.

There, at the end of the parade, I stood with Carol Rademacher on the steps of her home and we watched together as the floats and entries, which had been trailing behind me, arrived. The IGA grocery store had a big onion walking in the parade, promoting its fresh produce and local, but affiliated, ownership. The town's new ambulance was all shined up and decorated with red, white and blue crepe paper streamers. A big Holstein bull walked along on a lead rope, guided by one of the workers at Pleasant Hill Farms. On the bull's back was a big sign promoting America on Wheels, a roller rink operation with locations all over the East Coast. Clowns from the clown club in Mendham, were scattered throughout the parade. The local coal company showed off its brand new delivery truck and Abe Meyers proudly drove his brand new Cadilac. Even the town library had a float that urged people to come in to get to know the services the library offered. And, there were horses and riders by the dozens -- police horses, jumping horses, roping horses and backyard horses and ponies.

The Bernardsville High School marching band was the hit of the parade and a spectacular drum majorette led the band down the street. The crowd greeted them wildly and the band played loudly and (oh, who cared) not so awfully well.

From where did the rodeo riders come? And were there still left-overs of the Women’s Christian Temperance League?

The Congregational Church had a float that carried a replica of their lovely building up there on Hillside Road. Also on the float, the church's choir, led by Ellen Howell, rode along and sang some of the great military hymns for the Army, Navy and Marines. They were drowned out by the noise of the big farm tractor that followed them. The Presbyterians wanted to try to out-do the Congregationalists, but their reserve wouldn’t allow them to quite let go!

The great climax of the parade displayed a wagon load of turkeys from the Larison Turkey Farm, gobbling all along the route. Larison’s was one of the most famous dining locations in all of central New Jersey, especially known for its family style turkey dinners. People came from far and wide to experience the thrill of eating there. What a wonderous float – there were the Pilgrims and there were the live turkeys, gobbling, gobbling, gobbling, from the beginning of the parade route to where it ended in front of the grand turkey farm itself.

Larison's Turkey Farm was packed with diners on weekends, especially on Sundays for the family style turkey dinner.

The parade was only the beginning of the day’s festivities, but it was also the most important part of the celebration.

Hot dogs and hamburgers were grilling all over town. Early fresh apples were ready for tasting and so were mountains of cold watermelon. The lettuce was fantastic. Early tomatoes and onions were sliced, ready to be added as toppings for the hamburgers. My parents had a few too many gin and tonics and the laughter and cheering was loud and endless.

The fireworks, laid out professionally, on the parkland just a block west of our store, began to boom, boom, boom. As the sun settled in the west and a darkness surrounded the little town, the big boomers exploded in the sky.

“Oooh! Aaah!”

The crowds screamed with each release of another display. It grew darker and darker and the sky showered down all its magnificent colors and exploding lights. Children ran around on the grass, waving bright, spitting sparklers. Somewhere, a band was playing as the sky continued to explode with the rockets' red glare.

It had been an exhausting day and my eye-lids were laden with heaviness. I laid there in my bed that looked out over Main Street and I heard the screams and cries of celebration and I heard the boom, boom, booming of small fireworks from first this yard and then another. I fell into a peaceful, wonderful and ecstatic sleep.

And, I awoke on the 5th of July. It was astonishingly quiet. Even the birds remained resting and silent. The sun was just beginning to sprinkle the tops of the trees. Nothing moved out on the street. Life only slowly returned to normal.

This photograph from a parade (circa 1947) is of Lee Case waiting to enter the parade on this Farmall tractor that is pulling a float. [Photo by Ann Apgar and courtesty the Chester Historical Society]


Chester P. Apgar Hardware, in the 1949 parade, showing off its brand new Centennial Building. My brother, John, right after his marriage lived in a second floor apartment in this building. [Photo by Clara Ammerman and courtesy the Chester Historical Society]