Let’s talk about things we don’t want to talk about. I flew into the door at Cinemagic Theater out on Jefferson. I’d dropped in to see what all the buzz was about. With hundreds of other Athenians, I watched 

“Coming Through the Fire,” a film about overcoming “race and place.” It is based on a book by C. Eric Lincoln. Lincoln was a graduate of our formerly segregated, now gone, Trinity School here in Athens. His story tells of his early years growing up in our town, up until he went off to college. The film covered his story through the 1920s and ’30s, but resonates today.

It was hard for anyone to watch this film. It was hard to watch because it was true and pulled no punches. We heard actual statements made in those days, when a certain derogatory term was casual and pandemic. This movie, produced by the Athens-Limestone Community Association, is exceptionally well informed, thought provoking and powerful.    

Lincoln grew up like any youngster, wanting to play with others his age. Yet there were rules, but they weren’t written down anywhere. The rules dealt with race, and his black skin meant he’d better learn them fast or he could end up quite literally dead. Literally dead, because the Ku Klux Klan was present at all levels of society. The larger society allowed for legal Jim Crow discrimination, which prevented Blacks from being in certain places with whites. A severe racial hierarchy prevented Blacks from basic equal treatment, and kept them in their “place,” cut off from advancement beyond simple manual labor. 

It was after the Civil War that the emancipation of the slaves revealed a crying need for their education. Religiously motivated women from Connecticut volunteered their lives to fulfilling this need, and they built Trinity School for the recently freed. Lincoln remembers the second generation of these teachers with a fondness and respect any of us would have for our own caring educators. He is especially kind in his remembrance of Jay Wright. Wright, who was the principal during Lincoln’s time there, would strive valiantly to help Blacks learn enough to go off to college elsewhere; they were not allowed to enter any Alabama State-funded University. Alabama, in those days, deemed the sixth grade sufficient for Black education. 

I mentioned “discrimination,” “place” and “hierarchy” dominated our town. Those words are too abstract. Lincoln tells us, and the film brutally shows us, what those words meant in practice. As a 9-year-old boy, Lincoln was screamed at and pulled out of line by a nurse giving shots when he dared to innocently stand in front of a white child. Later, he was beaten bloody by a white gin operator who stole his delivered cotton. When the white man didn’t pay for Lincoln’s bag of cotton gleanings, he asked politely if he could please be paid. The white man raged, “You calling me a liar? I already paid you! You counting after a white man?”  Lincoln persisted. His request was met with punches by the adult to this child’s face, then with mighty kicks causing broken bones and cracked teeth. Lincoln learned a law written nowhere. This near-death, savage pounding by the gin operator was his education. He was supposed to learn his place: that white men were better than he was. 

Which makes our statue to the Confederate soldier on the square all that more problematic. What does he represent? If you read its inscription on the back side of the monument, he represents “the knightliest of the knightly race.” That tells me this is a monument to racial superiority. Is that what we are about nowadays? Was the mean nurse, or the gin operator, right then? Are they still right now? 

The clear English words on the Confederate monument need to be discussed in light of American history. We need to ask ourselves if it says who we are today? What do you tell a 9-year-old, such as C. Eric Lincoln, who asks about that monument? We need to show one another movies like “Coming Through the Fire.” Movies like this make Athens special. It shows we aren’t afraid to discuss things, even difficult topics. We should follow this practice at home, at school and in the workplace. We are a place that should be without fear of facing our past and making our future together better, happier and more productive for everybody. That all begins with honesty.

When all the people left the theater, some were in tears. Others reached out to speak to others, some to anyone. It was a realization. It is the type of thing that happens when people realize we are all part of the human family. We belong to each other.

 

— John William Davis is a retired U.S. Army counterintelligence officer, civil servant and linguist. He was commissioned from Washington University in St. Louis in 1975. He entered counterintelligence and served some 37 years. A linguist, Davis learned foreign languages in each country in which he served. His published works include “Rainy Street Stories: Reflections on Secret Wars, Terrorism and Espionage” and “Around the Corner: Reflections on American Wars, Violence, Terrorism and Hope.”