The Protest

Children’s realities are often shaped around the dinner table listening to people talk about their day, politics, family, and community. In southern Indiana, stories were told with such finesse that you’d think you were sitting right there when it happened. My dad, a mechanic and wrecker-driver, was disgusted with how poorly the city was being run and he ran to become the city’s first full-time mayor. Mayor Charlie Hoodenpyl, who ran the town’s drug store, told dad that if he shut the door and didn’t answer the phone, it would be good enough. But being good-enough was never enough for Dad.

The year was 1965. The place was Jeffersonville, Indiana, which is directly across the Ohio River from Louisville, Kentucky. It was sixty years ago but when I remember the story he told about his day as we sat eating fried chicken dinner that night, yet it still feels like it happened today. It catapults me back to the past with present-felt emotion. Yet I can look at it now with the wisdom that the future unfolds as we age. This is the story as I recall it.

First, a handful of people gathered in the lobby of the Jeffersonville City-Clark County building. Then more walked through the door, some alone or in groups of two, three or ten. They crammed into the elevator or trudged up the four flights to the top floor to the Mayor’s Office. Dad’s secretary, Eulalia, looked up from her desk as the first people entered her office that also served as the Mayor’s waiting room. Quickly, anxiety must have overtaken her as the room became packed with African American members of the community who said they had “come to talk with the Mayor”. Most were men, some older, some young, dressed in sport coats, crisp shirts, and attire fitting to meet with someone as important as the Mayor. When the waiting room became so jam-packed that not another soul could fit in, the crowd spilled out into the hall in front of the elevators. When that was full, more members of the community jammed into the downstairs lobby. They had come for a specific purpose, and they had no intention of leaving until it was addressed.

“We want to see the Mayor,” an elder spokesman announced. “He knows why we’re here.”

Eulalia’s jaw must have tightened, along with her fingers and the muscles around her chest.

“Do you have an appointment?” She said she tried to act nonchalant while her innards were trembling.

“No,” the spokesman said with pursed lips as he looked her straight in the eyes.

“Wait here,” she nervously ordered. “I’ll see if he’s in.”

“He’s in alright,” the men nodded to each other as tension in the room was so thick it hung like heavy fog, but one that you could see through. Muttering in the back of the room soon escalated to shouting. Simmering anger began to bubble up and out.

“Tell him to get out here and talk to us!” someone near the door hollered as the crowd pushed forward.

“Hell, no, we won’t go!” someone yelled.

“Black Power!” another shouted, with fist flung high over his head.

Color drained from Eulalia’s face, and with her heart pounding, she muscled past the crowd and squeezed her over-sized self into a small crack into the Mayor’s office. Moving as fast as she could, she smushed her back against it as she closed it tight.

“What’s the ruckus?” the Mayor asked. He’d heard noise, but he was on the phone and had no idea about why there was a commotion in the waiting room.

Looking at her white-fright face, it didn’t take him long to put two and two together. He knew this moment was coming sooner or later — he just didn’t know it was going to be today, right now.

“Just go out your side door and head down the back stairs to the Sheriff’s Department. Then you can get out of here,” Eulalia whispered her caring advice. “Do you want me to call the police to get up here and break them up?”

He was the mayor, and our cousin, Eulalia, loved him dearly. She didn’t want anything bad to happen to him. It was a time of fear and uncertainty for everyone. The Civil Rights Movement was in full-swing. The white public didn’t know what to make of the work of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. because on one hand he was a preacher fighting for justice, but on the other hand violent race rebellions seemed to sweep over the nation. Race riots were breaking out all across the country. Four little girls were killed as they prepared for church services at the 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham when it was bombed by white supremacists. Governor George Wallace of Alabama stood in front of the university doors prohibiting black students to attend, with his promise of keeping “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever”. The Watts riots in Los Angeles lasted almost a week and resulted in thousands of arrests and millions of dollars in damages to the community. Police brutality during the Civil Rights era was not unusual, and protestors demanded an end to police violence against the African American community. In what has become known as The Children’s March, young people of Birmingham in 1963 braved fire hoses, police beatings, and vicious police dogs in a protest that has been credited for bringing segregation to its knees.

Thousands of miles away from Los Angeles or Birmingham, the fabric of segregation in mostly-white towns like Jeffersonville was ripping away. Poverty wasn’t a stranger for anyone living in Jeff, but it was much more common and severe for people who were black. As racial inequality was impossible to avoid, and police tendency to use aggressive tactics to keep black people “in their place” became intolerable, members of the African American community in Jeffersonville became part of a national movement to rectify political resistance to employ them in visible and important positions of authority in city government.

With hundreds of angry black protestors on the other side of the door, the Mayor was confronted with a moment of truth, when his decision would reflect what kind of person he was. Whatever decision he made would have ripple repercussions into the future. He could simply exit through his secret escape door and avoid what could be a livid or even violent confrontation. My dad, a reluctant World War II soldier, was short in stature. If he waded into a mob of fuming tempers, he could get seriously hurt and he knew it.

He said he stood up, patted Eulalia on the arm, and pushed her aside.

“You’re not going out there, are you?” She was terrified for him.

“Of course I am,” he calmly responded. “These are our neighbors and our friends.”

Alone, he walked out the door into the packed waiting room.

The crowd was heated. Their demands were simple. They wanted the Mayor to appoint black police officers and firefighters, especially to serve in the city’s neighborhoods which were largely nonwhite.

For much of his life, the white Mayor, his parents, and his wife and us children had lived in Claysburg, the largely black enclave of the city. Dad meant it when he said the upset people who had come to protest the lack of minority representation in city government were his neighbors and his friends. They were, in every sense of the words.

While it was a different time, a different place, and a different situation than today’s racial protests, I am overwhelmed with the singularity of being faced with a moment in time when government leaders must make a decision that will reflect their own integrity and courage. The Mayor chose to embrace his neighbors and his friends as people who had justified righteous indignation over their lack of representation and the community’s historic institutionalized racism. He took immediate action to remedy their concerns.

If he had slipped out the back door or let Eulalia call the cops to come break up what was a peaceful protest of concerned citizens, the future would have evolved differently. Instead, he talked with the protesters in the waiting room. He walked with them into the packed hallway in front of the elevator, and then down the stairs with them into the lobby crowded with community members who had come there to protest and plead for change. He listened carefully to what they had to say. Their heated voices cooled as they were heard. He smiled, shook hands, called people by name, asked about their children or grandmas. Instead of a riot, his friendly demeanor evoked peace.

Soon afterwards, the city celebrated its first black police officer and firefighter. Since that day, many more nonwhite appointments have followed. He became beloved and was the longest elected Democrat mayor in the state of Indiana as a result. “I never met Saint Christopher,” one greying politician recalled at Dad’s funeral, “but I can’t imagine he was a nicer guy than your dad.” Jeffersonville today is reported to have one of the most diverse police departments in the area. The way that all parties handled the protest that day has had long-term positive benefits.

As a young child, that experience was burned into my memory. I have grown to become internationally renowned as a human rights expert, especially in the topic of human rights education. My specialty is advocating for the human rights of children and youth and fighting for the underdogs of society, especially those who are poor, homeless, abused, or maltreated because of (dis)abilities. The impact of what happened that day, and what he told me as we sat around the dinner table that night, helped to shape my life.

Watching the current unraveling of society around a racial issue we had hoped was addressed in the 1960s is heart-breaking. We are again witnessing the power of peaceful protests and wondering if there will be a respectful government response. The human rights — human dignity model holds enormous power for positive social transformation. It is a stark reminder that the decisions that we make and the words and conversations we say within ear-shot of children matter.