Soul Music

September 4, 2021

When hiking with friends and acquaintances at Point Reyes National Seashore, I enjoy taking in the sights of the natural world: pelicans, tule elk, seals, coyotes, wildflowers, and occasionally whales and dolphins. Our trail conversations cover a variety of topics, but race is rarely one of them. Yesterday was one such day.

While eating lunch with my 13 fellow white hikers at the tip of Tomales Point, a woman sat next to me on the sandy hillside, a woman I had never met before. After some small talk, I learned that she grew up in Berkeley, and in recent years had returned to her hometown.

Susan went to public schools there, as did her son, and she was a teacher in the public schools for awhile. She said that the Berkeley public schools were among the best in the nation until the city began busing both black and white students in 1968 in order to achieve racial balance in the schools. Many white parents responded by taking their children out of public schools and putting them in private schools. And she said that the teachers were sometimes overwhelmed by trying to manage the unruly black kids who were bused in from the poorer neighborhoods, and the remaining white kids were bored because the stressed teachers had to spend much of their time maintaining discipline and order among the bused children rather than teaching the more advanced white kids.

I lived in Berkeley until 1955, when I was three years old. Then my family moved to the suburbs, where I got an excellent education in the all white public schools. For that reason I’m glad that I grew up in the suburbs.

At 18 I chose to move back to Berkeley to attend the University of California, where in addition to my academic studies I began my education in racial dynamics by living in predominately black neighborhoods for three and a half years. My motives weren’t lofty; I was working my way through college as a kitchen helper and dishwasher, and I lived where I and my roommates could afford the rent.

In the summer of 1970, after high school but before starting college, I volunteered with a handful of other idealistic white and Asian teens to help provide recreational opportunities for black kids living in two housing projects in San Francisco. My naivete was rewarded when I was targeted by a black boy who threw a rock that struck me between the eyes, opening a gash that bloodied my face.

One time we took the kids on a field trip to the zoo, and while on public transportation the boys behaved like wild animals while the girls were their usual charming, sweet selves. I imagine that those boys ended up either in prison or in early graves.

I did not then and do not now believe in segregation, but I certainly gained an appreciation for why one would choose to be selective about the kinds of people with whom one associates. If you are black, there are legitimate reasons to resent white oppression, and if you are white, Asian, or Latino, it is understandable if you fear black crime or other anti-social behaviors.

A few days ago I was reminded of segregation and racial animosity when for the first time I finally read To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee, then watched for the umpteenth time the movie of the same name starring Gregory Peck. Both book and movie are first rate classics, though the book provides far more detail and nuance about the coming of age story of the two Finch children, Scout and Jem, the nobility of character of their father, attorney Atticus Finch, the class divides between white people, and the racial abuse of black people by whites in a small Alabama town in the 1930’s during the Great Depression.

The title of the book and movie refers to a quote from Atticus, who told his son Jem and daughter Scout that it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird because they are innocent creatures that harm no one but instead make music for everyone to enjoy.

The two symbolic mockingbirds of the story are Boo Radley, a white, psychologically abused recluse, and Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of rape and defended in court by Atticus. The townspeople were quick to judge Radley and Robinson, but as Atticus said indirectly of both of them, “You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view – until you climb around in his skin and walk around in it.”

Atticus was a wise, loving father and man of great moral integrity, but he was also realistic about the state of race relations in his town, and he knew that he had little chance of prevailing when he agreed to defend Tom Robinson in court. Even so, he sat alone outside the county jail at night, unarmed, waiting for the lynch mob that came to hang Tom Robinson before the trial.

As Atticus told his young son Jem, courage is “when you’re licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what.”

The black residents of the town watched the drama from the segregated “colored” balcony of the courthouse, and they too were realistic about the outcome of a trial with an all-white male jury judging a black man in Alabama. In spite of that understanding, at the conclusion of the trial, as Atticus prepared to leave the courtroom, all the black spectators stood out of respect and appreciation for his heroic efforts before and during the trial, and a black minister said to Atticus’ daughter, “Miss (Scout), stand up. Your father’s passin’.”

My takeaway from the book, movie, and conversation with Susan from Berkeley: there is ugliness and beauty in this world, but we are better off if, like Atticus Finch, we can choose to focus on doing the right thing even when the deck is stacked against us. As much as possible, we are wiser if we can ignore those who express negative energy, and instead appreciate the songs of the mockingbirds.