NAME: Ira Grupper
EMAIL: irag@iglou.com
DATE: 11/10/2008

TITLE: MARY SPENCER

LABOR PAEANS—November 2008
by Ira Grupper
(published by FORsooth, newspaper of Louisville, Kentucky chapter of F.O.R. [Fellowship of Reconciliation] )

MARY SPENCER

The issues of race and racism seem never out of any discussion of U.S. politics. When the U.S. Supreme Court rules on affirmative action, the death penalty or a myriad of other issues, race is in the mix.

The U.S. Congress—from the days of slavery to the Reconstruction period, to the control by southern Democratic Party racists in the 1960’s, like James O. Eastland of Mississippi, who held the legislative agenda hostage with his virulent racism, to the Republican Southern Strategy—race is a core issue.

And now comes Barack Obama, getting set to become the first Black president of the U.S., and race once again is front and center, as opposed to the content of his character and his program for governance.

So, your columnist must think back to the 1960’s, when he was a civil rights worker, in Georgia and Mississippi. The rest of this column contains the text of your humble scribe’s eulogy for a most extraordinary woman, who died recently at age 84. We were at Owens Chapel Missionary Baptist Church in a small Mississippi town in the southern part of the state, located between Jackson, Mississippi and New Orleans.

I first met Ms. Mary Spencer during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s, here in Columbia, Mississippi.

Ms. Mary was one of the most dedicated freedom fighters I have ever known. She was smart, tenacious, determined—and kind and gentle as well.

Her life was not easy. She worked long hours in a white woman’s house, cooking, cleaning, and then some. Then she came home to cook some more: for her husband, Lonzo; and her son, Robert; and a lovely little girl, Sheila, who the Spencers took into their home.

As if that were not enough, Ms. Mary fed Curtis Styles, a civil rights worker who had come to Columbia some time earlier to open up Marion County to the Movement, as we called it back then.

She also fed me, and she sometimes fed W.J. McClinton, a legendary civil rights worker who was born right here in Columbia.

And, just so you’ll know, having anything to do with the MFDP, the Mississippi Freedom Democratic Party, could cost you your job, your house, and sometimes your life.

It cost Ms. Mary her house: the bank foreclosed, and the family had to move out.

Ms. Mary had little formal education. But she had a real education in true life, in the struggle for a world free from racial segregation, apartheid made right here in the U.S.A.

After Ms. Mary fed us, she would stand while we sat and ate—in her own house. Curt and I didn’t know what to do. We did not want to disrespect Ms. Mary in her own house, and yet we felt so ashamed, sitting while she stood.

So we hit on a plan. Ms. Mary served us dinner one day, and stood while we ate. Curtis and I stood up. Curtis said, very gently but very determinedly: “Ms. Mary, if you have to stand while you eat, so do we.”

So, Ms. Mary sat down, in her own house, and ate. She had tears in her eyes, and so did Curtis. And so did I.

We would not let the racists control us ideologically, and Ms. Mary knew this. After the meal, she hugged Curt and me very tightly.

Now, I was known to have a big nasty dirty mouth. I was alone with Ms. Mary in her house, and uttered a bad four-letter word.

Says Ms. Mary: “Boy, get you into the bathroom.” So I went to the bathroom. “Boy, fill that glass up with water, and put the bar of soap in the glass.”

“Now, drink the water.” I replied: “I aint gonna do it.” “You what?,” Ms. Mary said, with her hands on her hips, and with her blocking the bathroom door.

So, I drank some of the water, and she moved out of the way. When I reached the front door, and opened it, sick to my stomach, Ms. Mary asked me: “Now, boy, what have you learned today?”

And I responded: “I learned not to curse in your damn house.” She came after me, but I ran out of the house. When I looked back, Ms. Mary was shaking her head, but also smiling like a Cheshire cat.

Not many of you know this, but Ms. Mary tried to organize a maids’ union in Columbia. Unfortunately, she found it impossible to do so—too many separate workplaces. But this indicates how determined Ms. Mary was to build a better world.

Some of you younger people need to write a history of the Movement here in Columbia. When you do, the name “Mary Spencer” will have a prominent place. Now, at age 84, she joins the ancestors.

Ms. Mary truly personified the words in one civil rights song:

And before I’ll be a slave

I’ll be buried in my grave,

And go home to my Lord

And be free.

Rest in peace, Ms. Mary Spencer.

Contact Ira Grupper: irag@iglou.com


April, 2008 Newspaper
http://www.ccds.org/newsletters/labor_paeans_Apr08.html

March, 2007 Newspaper
http://www.ccds.org/newsletters/labor_paeans_Mar08.html

February, 2007 Newspaper
http://www.ccds.org/newsletters/labor_paeans_Feb08.html