The Summer I Got Angry
February 12, 2002
By Congressman Joe Pitts
When I was a boy, my father and mother moved the family to the Philippines. My father had been stationed there as an Army chaplain during World War II, and we returned with him as a missionary family. The years I spent there were full of jungle adventures and encounters with a culture that seemed very strange to me then. At an age when most American boys were playing football and going to the movies, I was taking long hikes through the rainforest and playing amid the remains of Japanese tanks and artillery batteries.
I graduated from high school there in June of 1957 and headed home to America for college, taking my younger sister with me. Having been away for much of my youth, I looked at my country with great pride and patriotism. A person always values most the things he has missed. When we landed in Los Angeles, I wanted to kiss the ground. From there, we caught a connecting flight to Houston. From there I took a bus to Port Arthur, Texas, where my older brother lived.
That bus ride is one I’ll never forget.
When my sister and I climbed on board, we saw something we had never seen before. Though the bus was mostly empty, all of the black people were seated in the rear and all of the white people were seated in the front. I was only 17, but I had heard about Jim Crow, and I didn’t like it. I was mad. This was not the America I had come home to see.
I told my sister to sit up front. I was going to the back. I defiantly walked all the way to the rear of the bus and sat down in the very last seat. I received a lot of funny looks, but no one said anything.
As the bus went along its route to Port Arthur, the bus began to fill up. Soon, there were no more seats in the back. Finally, when an elderly woman came to the back of the bus and couldn’t find a seat, I offered her mine and moved up front with my sister.
I spent the rest of that summer in south Texas, where water fountains, restrooms, and buses were all segregated. I made a point of drinking from the “colored” water fountains instead of the “white” ones, as I was expected to. I had a lot of heated discussions with people. They didn’t like my attitude, but then I didn’t like theirs either.
Four years later I graduated from college and headed south one more time. I had a summer job in Andalusia, Alabama as a book salesman. I stayed in a little hotel and went out each morning hawking books door-to-door. It was just a summer job, but I hated it. I made one friend that summer, though. His name was Ollie.
Ollie was an African-American, and he worked at the hotel. The woman who owned the hotel treated him terribly. Ollie received no dignity and no respect. She treated him as a second-class citizen, and all because of the color of his skin.
Ollie and I became friends. We used to get together when his work was done and we would pass the time telling stories. The owner of the hotel didn’t like my friendship with Ollie. She told me, “We don’t do things like that.” I ignored her, and stayed friends with Ollie all summer.
I remember Dr. King used to be criticized for trying to “legislate morality.” As I recall, Dr. King answered by saying you can’t change people’s hearts by law, but you can regulate their behavior. By regulating behavior, you help mold the consciences of young people, and you change the culture. That was a cause I believed in. I believed the laws needed to be changed so we wouldn’t have second-class citizens anymore. Dr. King’s goals, and his tactics, were the right ones.
I don’t think I knew in 1957 that Rosa Parks had refused to give up her seat a year-and-a-half before. I don’t think anyone knew then what that simple act of courage would lead to. My own refusal to sit where I was supposed to was not an act of courage, it was an act of anger only my sister and I remember. It was just a way of protesting what I thought was unjust.
