blogger profile

Rhi Bowman

Student/ Writer

Rhi (pronounced Ree) B. is short for Rhiannon Bowman. Rhi B. is me. I’m a young woman– a newly wed, mother of two spoiled rotten cats and student– working hard to get out of college and on with the business of freelance writing. Trading money for words is a lifelong dream. After allowing...

READ MORE

Trick-or-Treating at the Wallace House

Wallace as in George C.

I grew up in, and around, Montgomery, Alabama. My mother worked for George Wallace, Jr., when he was a government official and, for a while, she and I lived down the street from George Wallace, Sr.'s mother, Mozelle. Yes, Grandma Wallace.

Race was always an issue growing up. I remember my mother chastising her brother for using the "n-word" once, even though it was out of character for him. (My mother, an Air Force brat, and her siblings grew up in Germany, not in Alabama. Her parents are from Nebraska.) She didn't want me growing up thinking that we were any different than anyone else-- which is much more in-line with my family's history. (My great-great-grandmother's uncle is Levi Coffin, the Quaker Abolitionist sometimes called the President of the Underground Railroad.)

Though my mother was good about introducing me to friends of every color, she eventually married a man born in L.A. (lower Alabama) and raised in Montgomery during the Civil Rights Movement. His mother drove her maid across town during the Montgomery Bus Boycott, much like in the movie The Long Walk Home.

It was an odd combination-- mild mannered Midwestern grandparents on one side and a debutante, new-rich southern belle grandmother on the other with a well-traveled, liberal mother who married a man I am, to this day, convinced belongs to a militia.

My super-southern-belle-step-grandma thought the fact that we lived down the street from Grandma Wallace was exciting and special, something to really be proud of. I didn't understand. Growing up in Montgomery, children know about the Little White House of the Confederacy and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s church-- or, maybe he just spoke there a time or two; it's a landmark all the same. We learn that Montgomery was the home of the Confederacy and the Civil Right's Movement. That's really something, huh? The two big high schools in Montgomery are, still, Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis and Lee's statue faces north, by the way.

Many of my classmates were also taught that segregation, even if not officially condoned, was the way things were, the way things should be and the way they always would be-- damn-it. Every year of my junior high and high school career some redneck would come to school with a giant rebel flag flying from his monster truck-- seriously, I wish I had pictures. The rest of the day would be full of tension and fighting. Mind you, I graduated in 1995.

The only time I remember even thinking about Grandma Wallace as a child was during Halloween. We, the kids in the neighborhood, decided she must be rich-- what with the famous family and giant house and all-- so we always made a point to ring her bell for candy. We never actually saw her, only her maid-- a middle-aged black woman dressed in a French maid's outfit-- and she only ever gave us peppermints. Every year, the same: old lady peppermints. Bleck. Though, the image of the maid lent itself to our imaginings that Grandma Wallace was loaded, so the peppermints were a real downer. I also tried to sell them Girl Scout Cookies every year, to no avail. Cheap jerks!

It wasn't until much later in life that it even occurred to me to wonder about the maid. I heard my super-southern-belle-step-grandmother telling her stories about the Bus Boycott, talking about those days as if they were a real burden. "I had to drive all the way across town... I don't know why I did that." Of course, we all know why she did that-- having a black maid was a status symbol and she was too busy with her social activities to clean her own house or care for her own children. When I went with her to see The Long Walk Home, the movie where actresses Whoopi Goldberg and Sissy Spacek bond during the Bus Boycott, she said-- with her super-southern-accent, "Well. I would neva letta nigga ride in the front seat with me."

We were at the 99 cent movies. Everyone turned to look. To this day I am convinced the crowd realized she was an old lady who didn't understand that times had changed. I was 13 and thought we were going to die.

Still, my super-southern-step-grandma, and her whole family, feel they are top-crust in Alabama. After all, her brother is a millionaire and her son is, too, and they (the women) all have sharp red fingernails, frosted big hair, drive crazy-expensive cars and wear giant rocks. It's not just that they think they're better than black people, though, they think they are better than anyone who isn't like them which, as we all know, is everyone. (Anyone you know a carbon copy?)

So, I admit-- I never met Grandma Wallace. But, I tend to superimpose my super-step on her. That's the only way I can make sense of the French maid outfit, something I now find completely degrading. But, we know, sometimes a job is a job-- right?-- and we do what we have to do to pay the bills.

Even though I was only a little girl, I sometimes remember those days-- running, laughing to the Wallace's front door for candy-- with shame. If I had known more I would have said something. If I had known more I wouldn't have complained about the cheap candy. If I had known more I probably wouldn't have gone there at all.

Now 31, I am no longer-- and thankfully so-- in touch with my super-steps. I don't care how many planes they own or how big their houses are, I can't stand to be surrounded by bigotry-- no matter how pleasing it is to the eye.

Sometimes it feels like a loosing battle, standing up for what is right and good in this world, but it's a stance I will continue to take because, the bottom line, my friends, is that we are all equal-- so says the Constitution, so says most religions, so says any thinking, fair-minded human. So, stand up.

Read this:My father, George Wallace, and Barack Obama, by Peggy Wallace Kennedy