Culture Shock
Another look back:
Oregon boys encounter the Jim Crow South
Oregon entered the Union in 1859 as a free state. Its pioneer residents primarily came from northern states along the Oregon Trail to the fertile Willamette Valley. Oregonians opposed slavery. They also opposed Black residents, writing exclusionary laws that prohibited Blacks from owning property, voting, or remaining in Oregon.
A hundred years later the exclusionary laws were gone, but the reality on the ground was a state with few Black residents, even in the Portland area. Tam Moore and Larry Slessler are members of the Silent Generation, boys who grew up and went to school in the small cities of Medford and Corvallis, each of which then had about 18,000 people. Moore remembers one Black girl in junior high school, who moved away before high school. Larry Slessler remembers no Blacks at Medford High School in the 1950s.
Moore and Slessler each graduated from college, entered the military service, and were sent to Vietnam. Each had military training in the American South which brought them into contact with the pre-Civil Rights culture.
My fellow Baby Boomers came of age as the Civil Rights era was underway. Our vivid early memories were of demonstrations, police dogs, fire hoses, and Martin Luther King. It was a period of change. Moore and Slessler were outsiders, witnessing with fresh eyes what came before the change.
Tam Moore:
My own life in the South during military times reflected similar distain for the Jim Crow culture.
I sold my car in early 1957 before my Corvallis High buddy Jack Young and I drove east to Columbus, GA for second lieutenant school at Fort Benning. It was a red Olds 88, a great car. And sure enough in late spring I found a used Ford Thunderbird for sale at a Fort Lauderdale service station. Of course I bought it.
The tires were worn, the only thing wrong. So on a day off from the Infantry School, I drove the T-Bird into a Columbus, Georgia tire shop for a new set of really-good tires. A White guy who literally had a red neck took my order for what was probably the shop's biggest single order of the day -- five new tires. What I watched, while those tires went on, was the "redneck" verbally abusing the sweating Black men who did all of the work in the bays. The boss man never put a hand on a tire, just talked, sometimes condescendingly. It left a lasting impression.
That memory lingered again, and I shared it with Medford lawyer Tom Parks, a former Peace Corps volunteer, who sadly just died this month. I shared it after he told me the story of two White college kids (he was one of them) riding bicycles across the South to join the 1963 Freedom March. He told me they experienced culture shock. Repeatedly.
Larry Slessler:
In 1962 I was a young Lt. stationed in South Carolina. In late September 1962; my wife Kathie, 5 month old daughter Jennifer and I moved to a different rental. Our landlord and his wife, Mr. and Mrs. “P” were a middle aged couple living next door. They could not have been kinder to us.
Both Mr. and Mrs. P treated Kathie and me like a son and daughter and Jennifer like a granddaughter. Mr. P took me fishing and taught me the fine art of southern lake fishing. Spending time with him was a pleasure.
Things went a bit “South” for us after a few months into 1963. I had made friends with a fellow Lt and Kathie liked his wife. We invited them over for dinner and social time. Quintin and Edna were a well-educated black couple from the northeast. We four had a grand evening and I looked forward to seeing Quinten at work. We both were huge sports fans and had a lot in common.The next evening Mr. P called on me. He said; “I told the boys you are just a dumb northerner and don’t know any better. If you ever repeat last night I can’t keep them off you.” That threat was delivered with a real edge that left no doubt about what would happen. From that moment on Quinton and our wives could socialize only on a military installation. Jim Crow and the KKK were alive and well in 1963 South Carolina.
Later that year Mr. and Mrs. P came to us for a favor. Mrs. P had been diagnosed with cancer. The nearest place for the treatment she required was at Duke Hospital in North Carolina. Mr. P ask us to take care of their place as they would be gone for at least 10 days-two weeks. We agreed to care take.
To my surprise, Mr. and Mrs. P were back in two or three days. I asked them why they were back so soon. I was hoping for good news like a false diagnoses. Mrs. P looked me in the eye and said; “There were “N’s” in the hospital and she would die first before she would be in a hospital with “N’s.” And she did--die of cancer.
To this day I cannot grasp the kind of inner racial hatred that consumed Mrs. P. She was so kind and loving on one hand and so full of venomous hate on the other based solely on skin color. I didn’t understand in 1963 and I still don’t in 2022.