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NEWS & LETTERS, June - July 2008
Hollow holiday
My Uncle Al, Alandress Gardner, who is 85 years old, came from a family of nine, born in Vicksburg, Mississippi. His poppa was a Baptist preacher who owned land, but he was lazy. His mother, Grandma Emma, was very mean and treated Uncle Al's mother, Big Momma's children very badly. So Big Momma left her husband and moved to a white man's, Mr. Merce Hawkins, plantation in Vicksburg. Everybody raised cotton and corn and grew a garden for their own food. The plantation also had horses, mules, cows, chickens and other fowl.
What we loved about Uncle Al was he was a jack of all trades. He could do everything. He was the backbone of our family. He could cook and clean, he became Daddy and Mommy to all. Uncle Al only went to the eighth grade--there was no High School in the area. He was a very positive and friendly person.
Uncle Al, his two brothers and his nephew, were called up to the Army at the time of WWII. He spent most of his time in the Philippines and New Guinea in the segregated Army. I remember him writing home that it was so hot he got a heat rash and his skin peeled.
Every year, when I come to Chicago for the News and Letters Committees Convention, I either would call or go to see Uncle Al in Gary, Indiana. This year I called Uncle Al on Memorial Day and asked what he was doing? He said he, "Didn't feel honored as a soldier or when serving my country." He went on to say, "I put my life on the line for my country and my life was in jeopardy. In the Philippines and New Guinea they treated me like a man. But when I returned home in February 1946, I got on the Greyhound bus in Jackson, Mississippi, to return to Vicksburg. There was no one on the bus, just the driver and me in my Army uniform with a duffle bag. I was very tired. I laid my bag on the floor and sat down in the front seat. The driver drove about 10 miles then pulled over to the side of the highway and said, 'Boy, you got to go to the back of the bus.'"
Uncle Al was hurt and angry because he had fought for his country and still had to go to the back of the bus and couldn't even vote in Mississippi. He said, "I couldn't start voting until I moved to Gary, Indiana, in 1953. We still don't have equal justice in this country. My wife and I have had property in Mississippi taken from us by politicians even though all taxes were paid and we had registered deeds. They just took the land."
My Uncle's final word was: "I never took part in military celebrations; I want nothing from them."
--Georgiana Williams
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