FIFTY YEARS AGO, I met some of the most learned and intelligent men I have encountered in my life.
I “taught” a class in Black History at McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary, near Tacoma and Seattle, Washington. I was a “visiting instructor” while a Captain in the USAF at McChord Air Force Base. Taught is in quotes because at the time my knowledge of Black history was from a smattering of information I had picked up and from reading two books ONLY: “The Autobiography of Malcolm X” and the inimitable Lerone Bennett’s “They Came Before the Mayflower.” But the 20+ Brothers in my class were true students — most of them — of our People’s history. The only Black History I recall being taught in school was a photo in an elementary school textbook of enslaved Africans picking cotton and fragmentary mentions of Harriet Tubman and George Washington Carver’s experiments with peanuts.
At the current moment, my wife Ife and I are preparing for the imminent public release of our historical novel — “CLANDESTINE: The Times and Secret Life of Mariah Otey Reddick,” so….
I WANT TO THANK YOU, THE BROTHERS OF MCNEIL ISLAND, for mentoring me in the early days of my five decades-long search to recover the historical knowledge of my People and my Ancestors that was denied to, and hidden from, me and others in schools, entertainment (TV, movies, etc.), church, associations and other institutions of society.
Most of the Brothers’ names have faded in my memory, but wherever you are -alive or not, still incarcerated or free — you ALL have my endless GRATITUDE! That includes:
– the artist whose gift of a painting (“Esteem”) on velvet of a dignified Black woman with a big Afro still adorns our home,
– the CPA serving time for tax evasion,
– the Brother who made the long, curved Afro comb for Ife,
as well as
– ‘Pep’ Young (the poet),
– Raymond Beckles (whose son managed the Black Front grocery store on 20th Ave. in the Central District of Seattle, and we coincidentally met “on the outside.”),
– Leo 10X (reputedly serving time for double murder),
– Acosta, the Puerto Rican from New York via California, who was weary of being referred to as a Mexican (Chicano was the preferred term then),
– the members of: the Descendants of Angola African Society, the Nation of Islam, the Black Panthers and US,
and most especially
— Ronald Benjamin Jarrett, better known as Ron Ben Jar, the star of the class.
On the first day of class, Ron Ben Jar asked me, “Brother Bill, what epoch of Black history will you be teaching us?” He then listed several periods of ancient and modern Black history that I had never even heard of! Wisely, I told them that I would be trying to be a resource for them. I had visited the previous semester’s class taught by my then-mentor, the courageous Carl Brown from Tacoma, so I knew many of them were more knowledgeable than I was. My interaction with those Brothers had a great impact on my life and my perspectives.
Ironically, … I did not know back then that my own great-grandfather Bolen Reddick spent time “inside” in the late 1860’s at the Tennessee State Penitentiary in Nashville. I know the Brothers would have gotten a big laugh out of that! I hope some of them will see this essay and read our book to:
- see how Bolen sought successfully to have the prosecutor removed because he was a KKK member
- learn he challenged (with limited success) the composition of the jury on the basis that the Constitution said they should be “peers”
- discover why Bolen was sentenced to 15 years and… whether he was guilty.
It turns out that McNeil Island Federal Penitentiary, unbeknownst to me until 2014, closed down in 1976, just six years after I was discharged from the US Air Force and went back east to go to graduate school. I enrolled in classes at the Africana Studies and Research Center of Cornell University, directed by Dr. James Turner.
To my dear McNeil Island Brothers,… You prepared me well and sent me on my journey. Wherever you are, RESPECT!
And, Asante Sana! (Thank You!)
UPDATE: After writing this in October 2019, I discovered that Ron Ben Jar was released a few years after I left Tacoma, and became a playwright, director, mentor for alcoholics and a community educator in nearby Seattle. Sadly, according to the Nu Black Arts West Theatre in Seattle, “Ron transitioned in his sleep about 20 years ago. He is sincerely missed.” Yes, he is!
I deeply regret not being able to tell him again, “THANK YOU, Brother!”
Asé
Damani (Bill) & Ife Keene are authors of CLANDESTINE — The Times and Secret Life of Mariah Otey Reddick. Mariah was Damani’s great-grandmother. This essay was first published on Medium.com
