The Civil Rights Movement: In the Words of My Father

by Orin McCauley

When I visit the birthplace of my father, I can still see remnants of the Old South. Cotton fields, dilapidated tobacco barns, and the occasional Confederate flag still line the rural streets. Such sights allows me to imagine Jim Crow police with fire hoses, dogs, and billy clubs attacking protesters. I recall the footage of grown men crying after receiving the news of MLK’s murder. I have always been in awe of the strength black people had to display during a time where they were considered three fourths of a human being. I’ve seen and read about the National Guard escorting little black children to school. Today this seems so unimaginable. Sadly, these events occurred, and my father, Edward McCauley, was there to witness.

When I asked my father to describe his life in rural Mt. Gilead, NC, during the Civil Rights Movement, I did not know what he would say. I hoped that I would not hear that he had not been exposed to the hurt and pain associated with being thought of as “less than.” I hoped that rural little Mt. Gilead was removed from the injustices suffered by Blacks in bigger cities like Birmingham or Cleveland. When I expressed these thoughts to my father, he replied, “Boy, don’t you know the Civil Rights Movement started an hour up the road?” Then he began to tell me about the Greensboro Four. On February 1, 1960, four college students entered a Woolworth’s store in Greensboro. They sat down at the whites-only lunch counter and refused to get up. News of this courageous move by the four young black men in a segregated South soon spread, and the next day more students joined in and sat at the Woolworth’s whites-only lunch counter. The sit-ins, which occurred for several more days, catapulted the Civil Rights Movement in the South.

When I asked my father about the emotions associated with the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., his head dropped. Then he began to speak about the loss of Medger Evans, Malcolm X, and President John F. Kennedy. He spoke about the feelings of anger and despair. He said he had heard the adults in his family and community saying that everyone who tried to stand up for the civil rights of Blacks had been gunned down. They spoke about being discouraged but not being defeated. My father said, “When all them died, everybody kinda knew that equality would be a slow, uphill battle.”

To my dismay, my father was exposed to the pain associated with the Civil Rights Movement. However, the effect it had on him does not sadden me. It makes me proud. I believe he is proud too. He is respectful, strong, and ethical. When I asked Daddy about feeling "less than" as a black man in the South, he quoted James Brown’s 1968 hit, “Say it loud! I’m Black and I’m proud.”

Work Cited

McCauley, Edward C. Personal interview. 6 Feb. 2011.

Note: Orin McCauley, who is lives in Ellerbe, is majoring in business administration at Sandhills Community College.