Part Five: Go Fight Giants!

[Chapters from my book, Black Eyes Shut - White Lips Sealed, by Jean Howard-Hill]


CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

GO FIGHT GIANTS!

“My child, never fear the Goliaths in your life. Just remember to
always keep a smooth stone of wisdom and love at your side, and trust
God to steady your hand, and guide your aim, so that you will be skillful and successful in fighting the most fierce giants, and defeating evil in whatever form, measure and size it may come.” Golden Nuggets of Wisdom to My Daughter LaShunda__jhh

After an indepth review of history, I realized that racism is a Goliath, in which God ordains the Davids of each generation to fight. From David to Harriet Tubman, to Dr. Martin Luther King, they have slain the racial Goliaths of their time. In the 21st century, we still have remnants of those same Goliaths within our society. Because of this, God again is raising up spiritually equipped Davids to defeat racial Goliaths.

Entering first grade was something special for me! My mother had prepared each one of us at home to begin school, with her own special way of home schooling. I could write my name, knew my birth date, numbers and alphabets! Back then …that was a lot! But the training my brother, Ed gave me seemed to me the most crucial of my pre-school preparation.

I weighed about thirty pounds soaking wet. My tiny body was the smallest of all of the kids I knew in the neighborhood. We had recently moved to the Shepherd community right before I was to begin first grade. Although I later got to know most of the kids from my summer church, and from taking them to weekly Camp Cedine Bible classes, in the beginning my size made me a sure target for being picked on. Or at least that is what my brother told me. Ed was very mischievous to say the least. No! I take that back. At times the boy was a living terror!

I remember him taking me down in the woods, and tying me to a tree all day long. He told me to stay there until he came back to rescue me. Off he went to fight the Indians. (No offense to my Native American heritage. But at that time, this was the sort of indoctrination you got from watching television, and as kids, we didn’t know any better back then.) I stayed tied to that tree until it was almost time for dinner. It wasn’t until Mama asked where I was that Ed remembered I was still tied to the tree in the woods! He came chasing through the woods, with his play gun raised, and his holster around his waist.

“Hi ho Silver!” He shouted.

I had been brave all day long, but when I saw him, I started crying, because I was moved by his daring rescue of me from the wild. He was my hero! He knelt down, wiped my tears, and cut me loose from the tree. Despite him being my hero, the first thing that came out of my mouth was …guess what?
“ I am gonna tell Mama on you!”

This struck the fear of God and Mama in him, because he knew he was in trouble then!

Again he fell to his knees, passionately begging and pleading with me to save him from the wrath to come.

“Please don’t tell Mama”, he pleaded. “You know I am the only boy in the family, and they don’t like me. So if you tell on me they will kill me, and throw my body in the river!”

This story of his cruel and brutal demise always got to me. He pulled this one on me whenever he was in trouble, and didn’t want me to tell on him.

“See you are skinny. That’s why I call you Bony Maroonie. Mama and Daddy won’t beat you like they beat me, because they know your little puny legs will break! Just tell Mama you were playing in the woods and fell asleep.”

He wiped my eyes again, and said, “Okay, Bony Maroonie?”

You are talking about being dumb! The boy was calling me names, and begging me for mercy at the same time, and I was dumb enough to give in to him!

“And don’t tell them about the names I call you either. Okay, Puny Dog?” He said.

He didn’t want Mama and Daddy to know he had called me out of my name. That spelled double trouble for him if they knew. In our house, we were forbidden from calling each other any name other than that which was on our birth certificates!
I responded, “But you left me out here in the woods to die. The Indians and the bears could have killed me!”

“No I didn’t!” He emphatically declared. “My horse Silver broke his leg, and Tonto had to shoot him, and I had to wait to get another horse. That’s what kept me so long.”

He added to that, “I was coming back for you, but I had to stop by the saloon to see Ms. Kitty about some men folk’s business.”
Then he hugged me, and said, “You know you are my favorite sister, and I always
take care of you. Don’t I?”

I nodded my head, and said, “Yes”.

“You know how when you get candy, I always taste it first, to make sure you don’t get poisoned?”

“Yes”, I responded.

“Well just like I do that, I am going to take you home to Mama to protect you from the Indians and the bears.”

Cowboy Ed, May 1959


It wasn’t until I was older that I realized when my brother called himself eating off the poison, he was really helping himself to my goodies! I should have known better because the only times there was poison, was when I had candy, cookies, cake, ice cream or soda pop. But I trusted him because he was my big brother, and my hero, and was always looking out for me.

We ran home together, happy as a lark! Mama never asked me where I was, and I never told that my brother had tied me to a tree, …all day long!

Actually my brother really was a very nice person, with a good heart. He was just so mischievous. But when he got in trouble, he could always depend upon my loyalty and love for him to soften the blow of his punishment! But I didn’t mind. He made up for it in all the nice things he did for me. Like the toys and clothes he bought me when he got his first job, and his first paycheck. He spent it all on me, …his darling, sweet, little dumb sister!

Ed taught me a lot of lessons. He told me now that I was beginning school, he had to teach me how to protect myself, and to keep from getting beat up. So he taught me how to fight. Mama and Daddy did not allow fighting in our house. They believed in getting along with each other. If we were caught fighting, we got a whipping that made us remember for life that we were “kin”, and that “kin folks” don’t fight each other. Then we were made to beg each other’s pardon, and stand there for what seemed like hours, hugging each other. It worked, because we grew up not fighting each other, after that first initial whipping!

Anyway …Ed put me in summer training two weeks before school started. The first thing he taught me was to go for the biggest and baddest kid in school, and if I could take them on, then I would never have to worry about anyone else messing with me ever again. So I trained to take the biggest and baddest out!

The first rule was to keep my eyes on the person I was supposed to fight, and before they could strike, hit them with three punches. One in the eye, the second in face, and the third to the head. Shoving them with my body weight, this would take them down. Once they were down, I was to dive on top of them and continue to beat the hell out of them! Of course Mama and Daddy didn’t have an inkling about the pre-school offensive combat training that my brother was giving me. It was “our” little secret.

I learned the lesson well, and for the first three days of school, I put what he had taught me into action. …At least I tried.

The first fight was with the boys! I beat the hell out of Scott Phinease! I would have done the same to Thaddeus Lewis, but he had a crutch that he used to chase and hit all of us upside the head. So I saved him for another day. Then I went for Fat Dorothy. After these two successes, I went for the Tate and the Weaver kids. But this proved to be a bad move. They were known in the neighborhood as the kids who could and would fight. When I tackled them, this time, they beat the hell out of me!

My first grade teacher, Ms. Izetta Taylor [Thurmond] sent word to my Mama, and after hearing what I had done, Mama literally beat the hell out of me, and put the heaven and the fear of God and her, back into me! That slowed me down in tackling giants, and made me reserve my fighting for those times when there was a real need, and when others were mistreated or being picked on. From that I learned that you only fight giants when you are called to, and absolutely have to! But you never should have the fear to fight when the right cause is at stake. Of course my brother again pleaded with me, never to tell Mama and Daddy that he was behind my sudden need to fight giants.

As I grew up, my brother never quite stopped being so mischievous, and right up until his death, we remained close and each other’s best friend. I knew he really loved me, and in his own way, what he did really was to protect me. He continued to protect me for the rest of his life, especially when he and I resided in Washington, D.C. I always felt safe knowing that my big brother was around. Ed was in school studying to be a doctor. He was going to doctor on me, and I was going to be a lawyer to defend him against medical malpractice suits. Even as adults, we had it all planned, just how our lives would always be meshed together.

I am grateful that when we were children, he taught me how to fight. He certainly knew how. He was the president of the NAACP student chapter at school, and had been a part of the sit-ins and other demonstrations during the Civil Rights Movement. I remember when he and a group of student demonstrators went to Florida for a civil rights rally. He came back with a renewed and a deeper resolve to fight for freedom. Yes, he taught me how to defend myself, but just as he had learned, from his days of non-violent protest, life’s lessons teach us when, how, and under what circumstances to fight, and the proper instruments of war we are to use. Even in this, I knew as a child that not only did I need to be equipped with the gospel to save souls, but I also had to know how, and be prepared to fight for those causes that were right, just, honorable and fair. But the fight God wanted me engaged in was spiritual warfare-a fight which was not with carnal means and weapons, but with mighty spiritual weapons, waging war in the heavenly, and pulling down strongholds, and every thought and imagination which exalted itself above the knowledge of God.

Thanks to my brother Ed, I didn’t have any fear of ever tackling any giant, no matter how big or how bad they thought they were.

I could not resist including this tattered picture of my brother Ed that he had in his wallet while he was in Nam. Just the look on his face, and the expression of his two partners with him, tell you that even while in combat in Vietnam, he was still up to mischief.

I also understood the spiritual application of what he had taught me in the natural. When fighting giants, you first arm yourself with wisdom and love as your weapons. Then you seek the will of God, so that He may give you “his” strategy. You never be afraid to take on any giant, regardless of size, if the cause is just and godly. You always look your enemy straight in the eye, because you have no need to fear him, because greater is “He” that is in you. At the right time, if you trust God, wait on him, and seek to do the right thing, He will uncover your enemy’s weaknesses, just as David did Goliath. Then at the godly ordained right moment, you will be able to strike a stunning blow, just when he least expects it, and at a time when he thinks he has overpowered you. One that will level him to the ground, and render him helpless, giving him an opportunity to reconcile himself to what is right.

From what my brother taught me, I was able to apply those lessons throughout my life. I learned to fight both man and beast. I remember when I was around seven years old my first beastly confrontation. In order to get to school each day, we had to walk pass Mr. Henderson’s dogs. He had two of the meanest German shepherds n the Shephard Community and on the face of the earth! They especially took a vicious liking to me. I figured out why years later. Mama cooked bacon and sausage for us for breakfast, and when we ran out of Jergen’s lotion, I took the grease from the bacon and sausage and used it as a substitute to lotion my legs. I guess the dogs thought my skinny little legs were breakfast meat! They came chasing after me every morning, until one morning I decided I had enough!

As I saw one of the dogs coming for me, I crouched down in a springing position looking the dog straight in the eye, and when he got to me, I leaped on top of him, biting and beating him with my fist. I went after him with all I had. When finally they got me off the dog, I was still kicking and hitting at him, with a mouth full of dog hair, and the dog was in worse shape than I was! My brother had taught me never to let anyone bully me, and never to be afraid of tackling anyone or anything if it attacked me. When they asked me why did I bite the dog, I told them, “That’s what he gets for biting me! I gave him some of his own medicine!”

After that, whenever I passed by Mr. Henderson’s house, both dogs would take off running around the back. They no longer wanted any parts of me! I also wasn’t too eager to sink my teeth into another dog! I never had to fight a beastly opponent again, but life often brought those against me who had a beastly nature. The lessons of my youth taught me how to deal even with them.

God has placed The Goliath Call upon many of us, both black and white. It is the call to go fight the giants of our time, who threatens the rights and freedom of those who desire to live in a peaceful and just society.

As I thought about all of the death, violence, and brutality I had witnessed through my research, and the obstacles I had faced within the Republican Party, and throughout my life, I knew God had always used individuals to fight giants. In my life, there certainly had been no shortage of giants to fight. Even before my conception, there was a battle for me to be born. Had it not been for my mother, her best friend, and the grace of God, my own father would have been lynched, and I would have never flowed from his loins because of the giant of racism. Just thinking about what could have been, and the horror of that night that my family experienced as they fled, caused my stomach to churn.

My mother’s best friend overheard whites talking about lynching my father. My mother sent a black man to warn my father, and to tell him to come home. They didn’t have time to take any of their belongings out of the house. My sister Pat was a baby in arms. Mama didn’t even have time to get a coat for her. All she had on was a diaper and shirt. So Daddy took off his coat, and wrapped her up in it. They fled for safety to the home of my Grandmamma and Grandpapa.

My father tried to sneak back down to the house, to at least get some of our belongings, but when he got near the house, he could see a group of white men with rifles walking around in the yard. My mother’s best friend was a praying woman. She also was walking around in the yard, rubbing her hands together and praying. My mother lived with the nightmare of them possibly harming her. Daddy ran back to Grand Mamma’s and Grand Papa’s house. Grand Papa sneaked them out to the nearest bus station, and put them on a bus headed for Anniston, Alabama. After being there in Alabama, two white men, under the pretense of being insurance men came to the house looking for my father. Again, they had to flee for safety to Chattanooga, Tennessee. Shortly before that, my mother gave birth to me in Anniston, Alabama.
This meant that I was the only one of five children who was not born in Georgia, and was stripped of my Georgia birthright.

Even to this day, my mother finds it hard to talk about this, and the hardship and racial prejudices she experienced as a child, and watched her mother, father, and grandparents endure. She can never recapture all of our clothing, furniture, and everything they owned and possessed, along with the personal memories, friends and family that they left behind. It was hard to leave Lincolnton, Georgia, a place where she was born and raised. But the racial climate of that time necessitated it be done expeditiously.

I look at my mother now, and it tears me to pieces to know that at the age of nine, she had to work in the cotton fields. Although she was smart as a whip, she was not able to get the opportunity to be educated to her fullest potential. The same is true of my father. He had a mathematical mind that had he been given the opportunity to be properly schooled, he would have been a mathematical wiz. There was work to be done, and back then it didn’t matter if you were an adult or a child. As they used to say, “everybody goes, when the wagon comes!” When the overseer of the place came, he rounded up anything black and breathing, and sent them to the hot fields to work or pick cotton. Fortunately for my father, my Grand Papa was among the few blacks back then that owned their own land. But still my father had to work the land, which meant he also did not get the education he deserved.

I thought about the hardship my Big Mama faced. How hard she worked for just a little flour or meal, a pound of butter, and a watered down jug of sweet milk. Just thinking about being a fourth generation descendant of slaves sometimes makes me cringe, to even think of their misery and suffering.

For me the slavery and segregational cruelties of the past are not as distant as many whites wanted to make it. I can image the pain and suffering the generations before me went through. I also realize the harsh and cruel reality of southern living, and but for the grace of God, Emmett Till and James Byrd would have been Julius Howard. Many times, I have had to go before God to ask for the strength, courage, and above all unconditional, agape love to continue to hold to my resolve to never hate those who hated me because of my color. I continue to ask for the mind to always do nothing more than fight with my head, and with the spiritual weapons of wisdom and love.

My present bout with the Republican Party, made it no less easy to forget the past, and made it even more important for me to rise above my flesh. What was done to me, at times was enough to tempt even the most rooted and grounded spiritual person to fight back with the same measures in which had been dealt to me. But I refused to stain my garment of love and righteousness, and grieve the heart of God by doing anything, which even resembled the demons of hate.

I knew my birth, and my life experiences were not without purpose. Through the death of my father, the enemy knew that I never would have been born. So the threat of his life was about more than just him. It was about cutting me off, and preventing me from fulfilling my divinely ordained purpose that I was called to do in this hour. It was all about purpose. Even that which I presently faced with the Republican Party has a divine purpose, which in time will unfold, and be fully revealed.

I also knew that there were those of us who had been predestined by God, both black and white, rich and poor, Jew and Gentile, to bear the mark of The Goliath Call, which is the call to fight the wicked giants of our time, who stand in absolute power over us, and strike fear and terror in the hearts of those too weak and powerless to fight back.

I spiritually re-energized myself for the battle ahead of me, understanding that where much is given, much is also required. God had given me the blessings of getting the education my parents were prohibited from receiving. He had blessed me to be educated within the white institutions of higher learning, and to hold a doctorate of jurisprudence. The ability to research and write were gifts He had given me to be used for his glory, and to wage his battles. He had placed me at the helm, as a national political leader within and outside of the Republican Party. I knew if I moved in purpose, and with the right motive, God also would grace me with the wisdom, knowledge, and understanding that I needed to engage myself in battle, and be victorious for a good cause. Now I was required to use what was given to me to answer The Goliath Call, …to go fight giants!