Home > Gwinnett > Rick Badie / My Opinion > Archives > 2008 > January > 18 > Entry
DEL.ICIO.US“From the back of the line”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
She got arrested four times.
She slept on cold, concrete jail floors. Jailers cursed her.
She was a teen at the time, a 16-year-old protesting state-sanctioned segregation in Albany, her hometown. Gloria Ward Wright, now 61, doesn’t think she suffered all that much.
Others, she said, fared worse.
“I rode the paddy wagon,” she told me, “but I didn’t get hurt like some of my classmates. One girl went to a mental institution, and she hasn’t been the same since.”
On Monday, the country pauses to observe the first and only black man to be honored with a federal holiday. There will be parades, marches, songs and sermons. Yet it seems like the essence of the holiday, reflection on the civil rights era, rings hollow.
Maybe it’s because we’re fat, jaded, content. Maybe it’s because we’re taught so little history about anything, much less what truly transpired back then. We lack knowledge of the unnamed and unheralded folks who risked life and limb for a moral movement.
Or as the oldtimers call it, “the struggle.”
“After a while, it’s going to be hard to believe it even happened,” said Wright, a retired high school teacher who holds master’s and doctorate degrees in theology/pastoral studies.
“We say keep Dr. King’s dream alive. Well, we have to keep the kids alive. The things that happen to kids today - it’s mind-boggling.”
Wright wants youth of all hues to know America’s civil rights history. Most important, she wants them to understand they can be agents of change. She’s written and self-published a book about the Albany Movement. It’s called “From the Back of the Line: The Views of a Teenager From the Civil Rights Movement.” It includes a poignant foreword written by a white Albany native on a path of reconciliation and redemption. (More on that later.)
Wright’s story doesn’t end with the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. She chronicles her life from the back of the line to current roles of activism. She taught high school for 25 years; she’s been a minister for 20, and is former pastor of Simmons Chapel AME Zion Church in Lawrenceville. She’s currently on tour for her book.
“The clarion call is to help - to help the homeless, to help the hurting, to help the hungry, to help the lost, to help the least, and yes, to help those left behind,” she writes in the book.
It’s a mindset shared by Robbie S. Moore, president of the United Ebony Society of Gwinnett County. This civil rights group recently lobbied hold-outs Snellville and Grayson to observe King Day. Wright’s book made Moore cry.
“The desire was in her heart to make a difference,” she said. “If only young people had that same feeling today.”
In 1962, a rally in Albany drew national media. Wright, then 16, was in the thick of it. An Associated Press story about the protest quoted two opposing views - those of Kay Smith, an 18-year-old white girl, and Wright’s. Their photos appeared with the article. The girls didn’t know each other; they attended segregated schools.
“I will give up my life for freedom and the children I hope to have someday to have,” Wright told the reporter.
Smith expressed an opposing view, one learned from her racist family, she told me.
The marches were “useless” and “just for publicity,” she told the reporter. She proclaimed she was a segregationist.
Those words haunt Smith to this day. She’s a Pedrotti now, but there’s been a profound change in her life aside from the name.
For decades, Pedrotti tried to find Wright. The women found each other through a mutual acquaintance. They met for the first time in 1997. An apology was given. Forgiveness offered. Foes became friends.
In 2000, Wright invited Pedrotti to Simmons Chapel AME Zion Church in Lawrenceville for a service of racial harmony. Journalists who attended the event wrote and photographed the women just as they’d done decades ago.
“Everyday of my life I regret saying what I said in that story,” Pedrotti told me. “I know I’ve been forgiven for it a dozen times by the Lord, Gloria and other friends, black and white.
“But it still hurts.”
Pedrotti, a former AJC reporter, lives in Lamar County. She, like Wright, shares the mission to educate.
She said young people, black or white, aren’t taught to respect people responsible for positive racial change. The fact that schools trivialize events like the civil rights movement and Holocaust doesn’t help.
“There has to be an intensive study,” she said.
Pedrotti gives workshops that help (mostly white) congregations understand their own prejudices. She’s a trained “anti-racism facilitator” for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.
“Ask any 10 white people you know if they think they are privileged,” she said. “They will tell you, ‘no.’”
In the foreword she wrote for the book, Pedrotti praises Wright for her activism, past and current.
“The back of the line, the cold concrete floors of the jails, the swelling songs of the march - these things helped to shape her into the vessel that overflows with love,” she wrote.
“I’ve been splashed again and again. “Thank you Mrs. Gloria Ward Wright.”
For more information about Gloria Ward Wright’s book, visit www2.xlibris.com. Rick Badie’s column appears on Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays. Contact him at 770-263-3875 or e-mail rbadie@ajc.com.
Permalink | Comments (30) | Post your comment | Categories: Rick Badie
Comments
By Bruce Wicox
January 18, 2008 11:19 PM | Link to this
I wonder how Congressman Louis, Ms Wright and so many others feel when they see a county with cities, a county away, from the very center of the Civil Rights Movement, finally recognize the Doctor Martin Luther King holiday?
Sadder still is the history is being lost, where did it go? I ask myself this as a white, I grew up in the North, I worked for the only Black manager in the Howard Johnson chain which had over 800 restaurants. I learned from him it’s not the color of the skin that makes the man, it’s what inside the man that makes the man.
Sorry to say, now a days, there doesn’t seem to be that much of a difference between Blacks or Whites when it comes to where they came from or their history. I can trace my roots to a wee villiage in Ireland, one of the first families of settlers in Canada and what I am most proud of the Potawatomi, the native Americans of lower Michigan. I guess you just have to pass it on to the parents for not passing down the pride.
By James McCoy
January 19, 2008 9:28 AM | Link to this
No jobs,no hope and you want me to worry about civil rights?Give me a reason to hope first,then and only then can I see the light.Then as history has proven when I do see some daylight,I forget the hard times!
By ngrhtr
January 19, 2008 1:05 PM | Link to this
Nice race baiting again, Badie. You people aren’t civil, so what’s up with civil rights? Blacks are illiterate, violent, lazy slobs. Blacks and wetbacks are the downfall of this country. I can’t wait for the revolution!!
By Airborne
January 19, 2008 7:33 PM | Link to this
To the coward that’s afraid to id himself by using the abbrevation “ngrhtr”.You better read the news and see for yourself who’s violent.As far as being illiterate is concerned you must don’t know about our history,being lazy is something we learn from slave masters,because all they did was sit and drink liquor they learned to make from the native americans.Get out of the trailer park and learn to read about the history of all the races that make up this country,and if a revolution should come it’s racist like you that will be the first to run,and if you don’t like the mixture of people in this country,then you need to take your sorry tobacco chewing,pabst blue ribbon beer drinking, only can fight when you’re drunk behind back in the woods and continue to hide behind your mask,by the way have you finished elementary school? Or took the time to ask your parents about your ancestors,because it was a lot of race mixing back in the day and we might be related.Think about it while waiting for the revolution we might be relatives.One more thing i have to say to you,it’s people like you that need to leave the country if you don’t like what’s going on or the way it’s run,it’s the different cultures that make this country unique.In case your illiterate butt did’nt know,hispanics have just as much rights to live in this country as you do,and the phrase “you people” can also be used to describe you.People with thought patterns like you can cause the downfall of a country.You have no battle plan,what will you do if all the minorities leave this country?You won’t be able to sit back and drink your mint juleps,you can’t work in the sun to long because of your chemical body make up,you need someone else to show you how to do something,ask the native americans,the list can go on but i don’t have the time to explain what civil rights mean because to you it’s like talking to a hopeless outcast,and be careful for what you wish for,or be ready if your wish comes true,i’ll be ready and been waiting for that big change to come.
By ngrhtr
January 20, 2008 1:36 PM | Link to this
airborne
I’ve read about history, but your knowledge of history seems to be jaded. That’s what happens when you attend black schools. And the “cultures” you mention? I have more culture on my fvckin shower curtain than you people have in your entire race.
“I have a dream” BOOM!! Now you have a fatal stomach wound!
Happy MLK day to you, fool.
MY dream came true!
By Bruce Wicox
January 20, 2008 11:07 PM | Link to this
It always amazes me when someone like ngrhtr steps right up to prove how some are still living with a fifties mentality.
I pretty sure that ngrhtr could trace his family tree back to under the rock from which it came, after all it only had one branch.
By LT5000
January 20, 2008 11:19 PM | Link to this
Pedrotti gives workshops that help (mostly white) congregations understand their own prejudices. She’s a trained “anti-racism facilitator” for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. * *“Ask any 10 white people you know if they think they are privileged,” she said. “They will tell you, ‘no.
Yikes. This was the line in the story that got me. Apparently even though I’m not racist, I am racist. Just because I am white.
I personally think if MLK saw what was happening in today’s black community he would turn over in his grave.
The statistics for the black community are staggering. 5 time more likes to perpetrate or be a homicide victim than caucasian. An astronomical high non-matriculation rate from high school. Sky high illegitimate children. The list goes on. And it all can’t be blamed on white people.
The black community has issues within that need to be addressed before rallying against the virtually non existent racism in this country. I realize it is easier to blame someone else for your problems than it is to look inwards. But the “Leaders” of the black community have raised it to an art form.
Listen to Bill Cosby, he’s got it right.
LT5000
By LT5000
January 20, 2008 11:36 PM | Link to this
Some links for people: It helps to have the facts when discussing sensitive issues.
http://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/cr_baeo.htm
http://www.radford.edu/~junnever/bw.htm
It’s some scary stuff, but also an eye opener.
LT5000
By Michael H. Smith
January 21, 2008 10:01 AM | Link to this
The best way to stop racism is to stop using race. Calling yourself a teacher of anti-racism only propagates the use of this ill-fated “social crutch”. Go read what science has to say on this subject of race and you’ll find out that biology has declared “race” a meaningless category. Race has to be invented in the minds of people – the weak-minds! Biology fails to find sufficient evidence to make such divisions among human beings. Don’t you think it is past time to drop the racial baggage, throw away the “social crutches” of something science says does not exist?
Start dealing with what actually does exist: Hate, distrust, fear and ignorance. Those things are very real in this big “human family squabble”; and that will probably be an unending struggle, writers and teachers.
By Bruce Wicox
January 21, 2008 11:26 AM | Link to this
Sounds like a typical dobber solution, pretend racism doesn’t exsist and boom, problem solved, brillant.
By Bruce Wicox
January 21, 2008 11:27 AM | Link to this
Sounds like a typical dobber solution, pretend racism doesn’t exsist and boom, problem solved, brillant.
By Airborne
January 21, 2008 11:28 AM | Link to this
To ngrhtr,i’m not going to allow myself to fall into your ignorant thoughts.For the record you read about your history,and learned behavior from within yor household taught you to think the way you do.I was taught the same way,but as i grew older i learned to ignore people who have no clue as to what is going on in the world.we’re going to be here as long as you are whether you like it or not,and we’re going to continue to be a part of this country.Yor’re skin color does’nt make a difference to be,because your blood is the same color as mine.Try to get rid of that,if you’re so smart.
By Michael H. Smith
January 21, 2008 11:50 AM | Link to this
Sounds like a typical race pimp has made another contribution in keeping racism alive,reinventing it again and again. Go pander.
By Airborne
January 21, 2008 12:23 PM | Link to this
Michael you and ngrhtr must’ve gotten off the same slave ship to think racism is not alive.Let the truth be known,you’re afraid that our history wl change the way your children think about other people.Some things are better left unsaid,especially if it’s ignorance.Afro-americans have contributed a lot to this country and are still contributing.We may have a large crime rate and justice is still not equal,but we tough it out,because we know a change is going to come.No i’m not a race pimp,if you look at your history,you’ll find that you have been pimping off of other races for centuries,ask the native americans,the hispanics,the asians,the list goes on.No MLK is not rolling in his grave because of us,he’s rolling in his grave because some people like you and others that think like you refuse to see the light.This is the 21st century,new things are about to happen,and it’s a shame that you won’t recognize it when it happens.So you keep racism alive because,we’re going to fight harder to continue to slow it down.It’s not going to stop,but it can be slowed down.
By Michael H. Smith
January 21, 2008 12:26 PM | Link to this
And furthermore, Bruce and Mark, between the two of you, one on the one side and the other on the other side, speaking basically in the same talk, only attacking different sides, no real meaningful progress will ever be accomplished to deal with the real social problems that confront each of us, which goes far beyond any differences falsely attributed to our ancestries. There is not enough difference between any of us, black, white, yellow, brown or red for science to define anyone of us as anything but human.
The only thing real that has surfaced in this entire blog discourse is the hate, distrust, fear and ignorance that people refuse to let go of, in beginning to accept the truth.
All flesh is of one blood and “race” is a meaningless category.
It has taken too long to get this far to turn back now. I refuse to be untied in the bigotry of dividing humanity.
By Airborne
January 21, 2008 12:35 PM | Link to this
To nghhtr,if you have more skin culture on your shower curtain than anyone can imagine,then it proves how dirty you really are.At least we have enough sense to clean our shower curtains if we see it dirty.It must be learned behavior.They say what’s taught in the house you will bring to the streets.Shame,shame.Go enjoy your dirty shower curtain,maybe you’ll find a culture you can live with.I’m not going to continue to go round and round with you,because it’ll only lower my intelligence level.Hve a nice day,and don’t forget to wash your mind,you may find some clues as to why you exist.Peace,never mind you don’t know what that is.
By Michael H. Smith
January 21, 2008 12:42 PM | Link to this
Airborne – I know plenty of history and I’m not addressing contributions made to this country by any Americans. Obviously you missed something in what you read or you are simply looking for a fight. Either way, I don’t care. My last statement should be very clear and I think you’ll find it is consistence with science, the bible and many of the things Dr. King and his wife strived to achieve their entire lives.
By Airborne
January 21, 2008 12:48 PM | Link to this
Michael,i wish to apologize to you,i misunderstood what you said.I agree with you that we all are of one blood.Why can’t some people see what you see and move on.We’re all going into the same dirt we die,and how hard is that to see.Mike,racism should’nt exist,and it exists because some people are afraid to know there fellow human beings.Again lets move on and be the people god put here on earth to love one another,and not because of skin color,but because we’re suppose to be an intelligent species.
By Mark
January 21, 2008 1:34 PM | Link to this
airborne
“because it’ll only lower my intelligence level.”
Dude, it can’t get much lower. Happy nog day, Sambo
MY dream came true!
By Bruce Wicox
January 21, 2008 4:10 PM | Link to this
“Bruce and Mark,” question, I didn’t see any comments by Mark except the one above, am I missing something here?
By Airborne
January 21, 2008 4:49 PM | Link to this
Mark,seems like you and nghtr have the same mother.Oh well it’s nothing new.It’s what you learn in an ignorant family, who love each other in the wrong way.You better get a dna check,nghtr might be your uncle.You know how you people do.Ask the Rev.you know who i’m talking about.Go back under your rock,or read a book on how to make friends,you lonely bas——.As far as calling me sambo,it’s better than being called a peckerwood racist.Tell your grandmother i said hello and be sure to celebrate mlk day since she was around during the civil war.The only dream that you hope don’t come true is when you may have an Afro-american as your supervisor.Keep hope alive it’s going to happen,that’s why you have so many negative things to say,you’re afraid,that we might meet one day,then call me sambo.If you’re that full of hatred,why don’t you and the coward nghtr go into a black hood and just shout it out about how you feel,i’m sure you’ll get results,that’s if you’re man enough.I did’nt think so,it’s not like back in the 60’s we’ll stand up for our rights,or die defending them.Try it, then let me know when you get out of the hospital what results you got.I’m from up north,and we love people like you and nghtr.We can teach you all you need to know about Black History,go check it out,it might make a man out of you,once you come out of the closet.We’ll wait,we waited all these years to confront non-informed back-woods,deliverance minded people like you.Bring your education and watch how you’ll be surprised to see that we have degrees also.Dumb-dumb,don’t judge all by a few,it’s bad on all sides and i feel bad trying to get information through your backwards a— thinking.Fellow readers i apologize,because i know there are some good people out there,and Mark the fallen angel is not one of them.Bye Mark hope to see you in the hood spouting sambo and nog.Bring your girlfriend the nghtr with you.Good-luck.
By Airborne
January 21, 2008 5:00 PM | Link to this
Mark,one more thing,you did’nt hit a nerve,i think you still have a problem with people of color,and the fact that you were’nt raised to know that every human on this earth has the same color of blood,we may think different,but we’re all going to be buried the same way.In the ground,which has no color barrier.Wake up idiot,it’s the 21st century and you still hav’nt learned about life.I told you before,and i’m telling you again,you should’ve ask for a brain,and not a train,now look at you,you’re still slow.Bye the comments are over with you and you can say what you want,i’m through because i feel bad talking to a child,and i hope some of the readers can understand.
By Lee
January 21, 2008 10:05 PM | Link to this
Oh good grief.
Pedrotti gives workshops that help (mostly white) congregations understand their own prejudices. She’s a trained “anti-racism facilitator”…
“Ask any 10 white people you know if they think they are privileged,” she said. “They will tell you, ‘no.’”
Oh that’s right. Only white people can be racist. Silly me.
Seems to me that anyone who would form a ‘United Ebony Society of Gwinnett County’ is a hell of a lot more prejudiced than the ‘nine out of ten whites’ previously mentioned.
Maybe it’s because we’re taught so little history about anything, much less what truly transpired back then.
Finally, I statement I agree with. The “history” that is taught to our students is a highly sanitized, politically correct version.
In order to teach a true history, you have to discuss issues that you may disagree with.
Which begs the question, What is locked away in thoses sealed FBI files that they don’t want us to know about MLK?
I guess that judge figured that after 50 years, this society would degenerate to a point that no one would care about MLK’s drinking, adultury, and communist ties. After all, we had a President using a 21 year old intern as a humidore, seems to me we’re almost there.
By Mark
January 22, 2008 10:10 AM | Link to this
airborne
“Bye the comments are over with you and you can say what you want,i’m through because i feel bad talking to a child,and i hope some of the readers can understand.”
then STFU, you ignorant nog. You people just love to flap your xtra large lips…
By Mark
January 22, 2008 10:19 AM | Link to this
Lee
Great post. MLK was just another nog, but with a “title”.
By Airborne
January 22, 2008 12:49 PM | Link to this
If our lips are large,then why are some hollywood women getting plastic surgery to have there lips enlarged.I guess the saying bigger is better.You may have a problem with that in all areas.When are you going to the hood and voice your hatered towards the “nogs’? You never answered that,you’re not afraid are you?Are’nt you a believer in action speaks louder than words? Or do you just sit in your cave and spout a lot of racial comments.I’ve met people like you before,always hiding in the dark,never being man enough to come in the open to face a challege,you’re just the kind of soft guy they like in prison.Here’s some advice for you,go back to school and learn why you have small lips or almost no lips,then tell me why you look the way you do,then go to the hood and ask some of the brothers why they have big lips.Let me know how you made out,if your punk a— survives,and only you would agree with dishrag like lee.
By Airborne
January 22, 2008 1:13 PM | Link to this
Lee,it obvious that you don’t read much,or you’re just plain dumb.MLK may have been the only afro-american that the government maybe witholding information on,you need to find out what info they’re holding on just about every president from 1940 up until now.How much do you know about J.Edgar Hoover?Not only your presidents,but other political figures and movie stars,and everyday people are kept in a memory bank held by the government.Even these comments that are sent back and forth are seen.Check your history out before you single out one man because he’s black.Laws were changed because of MLK,and you and other racist can’t seem to come to grips with it.Nothing ever stays the same,and that’s the way of the world,and if you and mark don’t like the changes then get off at the next stop,because we’re not through yet.This is only the beginning to the end,or is that to deep for you to comprehend? Everyone has a dark secret,including your family.Do we have to wait 50 years to find out if your family had drunks,drug addicts or pedophiles,or marriage with famiy members to come to light? Do you think a judge will wait to bring that information to surface.Think before you talk,don’t be a yo-yo like mark,he’s just a little boy with no toys.
By Lee
January 22, 2008 9:16 PM | Link to this
Thanks for proving my point Airborne. I merely mention MLK and the non-PC version of events and you go on a name calling diatribe.
Since MLK is the only INDIVIDUAL honored with a federal holiday, I think the character of the man deserves to be discussed - including the sealed FBI files. Sorry if you’re too close minded to understand that.
By Mark
January 23, 2008 9:44 AM | Link to this
airborne
Maybe you could explain to me about MLK’s drinking, adultery, and communist ties.
He was a typical nog, only he had a “title”.
By KIM
January 25, 2008 3:33 PM | Link to this
Such postings are a shame for all of humankind. It is with heartfelt disappointment in my generation that so many have perpetuated the putrid and mindless attitude regarding race and that we have not promoted character. The attitudes expressed above emphasize that God’s Grace is all that will save us. Unfortuately Grace will not save us while we are on earth. God help our children to be better than we.