Update 1-11-11

Hi,

Note the neat date.

This week's mail:  A number of notes saying how happy people were to read the first article about Booker Gibson.  A couple of notes about other things.  And an article from Robert Fiveson about the present shortage of drinking water in Panama.  But all those can wait till next week.  First, the second article about Booker, for people who didn't simply follow the link and read ahead.

Second of two parts.

Booker T. Gibson -- Witness To History
An African-American Educator Sees a Nation Overcome Segregation -- And Survive
Scott Brinton
Long Island Herald.

On Aug. 28, 1963, Booker T. Gibson made his way to the National Mall in Washington, D.C. “It was hot. In August, it was hot,” Gibson said during a recent interview, stressing the word “hot.”

An estimated 200,000 people had gathered on the mall to hear a speech that would help alter the course of history. There, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his now legendary “I Have a Dream” address to a nation divided along racial lines.

Only eight months earlier, Alabama’s governor, George Wallace, had declared his unflinching support for segregation in his inaugural address. “Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!” was Wallace’s inflammatory battle cry.

Against this backdrop came the March for Freedom and Jobs on the Mall, led by King and a host of civil rights and religious leaders of several denominations, including Catholicism and Judaism.

“It was an event. I was there. I’ll never forget it,” said Gibson, 80, an African-American music educator who had grown up and lived most of his life in predominately white Merrick.

The times were indeed a-changin’

Gibson was 32 at the time of King’s speech. He had done what many had thought impossible of a black man: He had graduated from Mepham High School in Bellmore with honors, where he was president of the House of Representatives; gone on to earn his college degree from the virtually all-white SUNY Potsdam, where he was president of his class; and secured a teaching position in the music department at the all-white South Junior-Senior High School in the Valley Stream Central High School District in 1956. He was the school’s first African-American teacher.

At the march on Washington, Gibson ran into the white mother of one of his South students. He was astounded that he found her amid the sea of people on the Mall that day. He cannot recall her name, but, he said, he can see her face clearly in his mind.

Gibson also remembers the rabbi who spoke before King, Dr. Joachim Prinz, president of the American Jewish Congress. "I speak to you as an American Jew,” Prinz said. “As Americans we share the profound concern of millions of people about the shame and disgrace of inequality and injustice, which make a mockery of the great American idea.”

“I was moved by the rabbi’s speech,” Gibson said. King’s address then brought him to tears.

“Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksand of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood,” King said from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. “Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God’s children.”

Indeed, that sweltering August day was a triumphal moment for Gibson –– and the nation.

A decade earlier, in 1953, Gibson was in the U.S. Air Force, hitchhiking from Illinois to New Mexico, where he was to serve at Walker Air Force Base outside Roswell. He stayed one night in a black hotel in St. Louis, where he ran into baseball legend Jackie Robinson, the first African-American to play in the major leagues. Despite his status as an All-Star for the Brooklyn Dodgers, Robinson was unable to room with his teammates in segregated states like Missouri.

In a meeting room at the hotel, Robinson spoke with a group of white teenagers. Then he sat and chatted with Gibson for half an hour. “I didn’t have the nerve to tell him I was a Yankees fan,” Gibson said with a laugh.

Hope for the future

King’s 17-minute speech in 1963 could not undo the nation’s long history of segregation and slavery, but it was a turning point in race relations. The Civil Rights Act, outlawing segregation, took effect on July 2, 1964.

Throughout the turbulent ’60s, Gibson focused on his teaching at South High School. He also served as the piano accompanist for the school’s drama productions. The class of 1965 honored him for his efforts by establishing a scholarship in his name, known as the Booker T. Gibson Music Award.

Emily Schreiber, who graduated from South and now lives in Bellmore, was among Gibson’s first students. “As a former student of his, I will tell you that he positively impacted the lives of the Valley Stream South High School community for decades, and he is still doing that,” said Schreiber, who is president of the South High School Alumni Association. She noted that Gibson regularly attends alumni association meetings.

The group held a birthday celebration for Gibson at the Bordeaux Wine Bar in Rockville Centre when he recently turned 80. “Even though it was the night of a nor’easter, the place was packed with well-wishers,” Schreiber said.

Gibson retired from teaching in 1986, but to this day he continues working as a musician, performing at the Irish Coffee Pub, an upscale, Zagat-rated catering hall in East Islip, where he plays hits made famous by Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett and others. He and his wife, Frances, have three grown children, Joshua, Paul — also a pianist — and Brock.

Booker and Frances, who make their home in North Merrick, both said they see racial prejudice and injustice abating with each successive generation. “In our world, people were defined by their race first,” Frances said. These days, young people tend to see the person first and then his or her race, if they notice race at all, she added.

Booker said that while Long Island remains highly segregated, he sees it becoming gradually more integrated. As an example, he cited Valley Stream, where whites make up nearly 79 percent of the population, and Hispanics, African-Americans and Asians comprise the other 21 percent, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

“If it can happen in Valley Stream,” Gibson said, “it can happen anywhere.”

The link to part 1 -- if you missed it last week: 
http://www.liherald.com/franklinsquare/stories/Breaking-racial-barriers-at-every-turn,29105

Rich