Is it possible to have your eyes wide shut? To see the evidence of something all around you and never acknowledge it or give it a second thought?
I am an African American male from Vicksburg, Mississippi. I grew up there and spent most of my time exploring the land as a child.
For those of you who are not aware or do not know the history of Vicksburg, it’s famous for the siege of Vicksburg in the American Civil War.
About a year and a half ago, I turned the channel to a broadcast that was being aired on Mississippi Public Broadcasting. There was a professor at the University of Mississippi talking to some of his students in the class.
The professor asked, “Has anyone ever heard of the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921? What about the bombing of the Black Wall Street?”
Only a few students raised their hands.
Then one student, who looked to be about 20, said, “I’m from Tulsa! Nothing like that has ever happened there.”
If you could only see the look that came across the professor’s face.
I, too, had a look on my face. But my look was a lot more humble, more sympathetic, and more understanding of his lack of knowledge of the events that took place in Tulsa. Because I, too, was a victim of this unawareness.
I can remember when I was about five or six years and my grandmother would tell us stories around her fireplace. She told us about a bloody war that happened there long before we were born.
She never told us why the war had happened, only that it happened. Her mother as well as her mother’s mother were all natives of Vicksburg and most of the descendants still reside there to this day.
My grandmother described the war to us as a bloody one. She said that her grandmother told her that when the siege was over there were bodies everywhere. The smoke and fire filled the air with a stench that was unbearable. She said that after that day, when it rained, blood would come from the ground because of all the bad and inhumane things that happened there.
That story frightened us. All my siblings and cousins had the same look of horror on their faces as I had. So many thoughts went through my head…
Are humans really this cruel to one another? Why would they kill each other? What happened, or what was the reason it started in the first place?
But that story would stick with me and help shape my adventurous spirit, because every time it rained, I would find my way to my grandma’s house and search outside in the mud for any sign of blood. However, I never did find any. Maybe she was using the “blood coming out of the ground” as a metaphor or a way to express the bloodshed and acts of violence that had happened.
Over the years, I would get to know those battlegrounds. I would get to visit those gravesites. I would read names all day and stare at the huge monuments and statues of the men who had lost their lives in this war. I’ve sat on top of those cannons, walked inside the ships, and felt sad for the lives that were lost there.
What happened? Why are they here? What was the reason for this war in the first place?
No one ever told me. I found out thirty years later by mistake.
I can remember when we used to go on adventure trips as boys and explore the woods and dig for lost treasures or whatever we could find that would have value to it.
We would find rusty cannonballs, cups, knives, from so many years ago. Finding things from the war was not uncommon for me and my family. It was nothing new to us. The evidence has always been there. The chains and the underground tunnels were all dead giveaways. I just couldn’t see.
My ancestors’ freedom depended on this war. All African Americans’ freedom in the South did. There would be no Independence Day if the Confederate soldiers had succeeded.
Looking back on the times I spent as a child in the Military Park, and visiting those cemeteries, I remember that I always encountered tourists from all parts of the world. I would interact with them and take photos for them if they wanted me to. Most of these tourists were white Americans. They were always nice to me and my cousins. That was all that mattered. It was a battleground to the tourists, but it was a playground to us.
My mother and grandmother did not raise us to hate other people. Race was never a big thing in our home. Only to love other human beings, no matter what skin tone they had.
Maybe that was why I was never taught about the history of the war.
Opening up Pandora’s box can be a good or a bad thing. You just have to be prepared for the answer that you get back. Sometimes the truth is ugly. You just have to know how to deal with it.
So yes, I sympathize with the young college student who did not know the history of his state.
I too was lost, just as he was. But now my eyes are open and I finally feel free.
