A Story I Heard Once
Mood:  special
Topic: When we came to town.
I don’t know how to start this entry, so bare with me. My family came up in a time when
they saw things like people getting killed just because their skin was red. Their were
others that were killed for having brown skin. My grandfather recalled hearing the stories
of men, both black and white kill Indians because they simply walked by their house
within the range of a bullet. Even my father grew up hearing stories about the Indian
wars. I guess it was a blessing from God that my grandparents and great uncles and aunts
had brown skin and were of mix races. You see that way they could fit in both worlds.
Maybe I should say three worlds. Some could pass for native, some black, and others
white.

On top of dealing with racism there were other families that had control of this place we
call district 5. These families were called outlaws then, but now I guess you would call
them gangs. If the truth is to be known, that’s what it was; a gang. The story has been
told to me that when we arrived here in district 5 the family bought land all over the
district. They were the largest minority land owners in the county. They raised their first
crop before they bought their wives and children into the district.

As time went on they had to deal with other families, or gangs. To make everything clear
they never called themselves gangs. It’s just the term I am using. Wars went on between
them and bodies were left in the dust. My family realized that they too had to live by the
gun.

The gun has been a right of passage in the family for a long time. If it wasn’t for the gun
I might not be sitting here telling this to you now. Those men took nothing from no one.
I have heard the stories of the bodies that lay rotting away from people trying to take
advantage of my family members. There were times where beefs came up with people I
know nothing about and the men would pick up the gun, meet together and leave home
for days until things were safe for them to return home. Several members of the family
had to leave the state to avoid prosecution or execution from the law. In those days we
could not get a fair trial, so some had to go in the wind. I have been told that my
grandfather’s father was the head of the family. My grandfather once told me that he was
afraid of his father. I asked why and he replied, “because he was mean.” His son (my
great uncle) was arrested once for shooting someone and when the police came my great
grandfather did not want him to go with them. The cops had a reputation of beating dark
skin people in their custody. But the cops insisted that they had to be the ones to take him
in. My great grandfather told them that they could take him, but when he came to bail
him out he had better not have a mark on him. My great uncle came home clean as a
whistle.

I can tell this story now because those two great generations are gone on now. They are
no more. But they left a legacy. They had land. They donated land for a school for the
kids in this district. They settle disputes. They rose to the occasion whatever it was. So
family, be proud of those men. They did what other ethnic groups did to survive and
make a living from farming to cooking whisky and then giving back. They did what they
did so we could live free and continue to be free. They even fought for our right to vote
here in Fayette County. They demanded respect and they got it. They fought for this
country in every war and I am proud to be an American. Now here I sit, a product of the
black man, the red man and the white man. All one family. An American family.