A poem by Louie Crew
I saw Jim Crow in the mirror
and I did not like him.
For twenty-five years I thought doors
opened for me because of who I am,
because of what I have achieved….
yea, like the encyclopedias my parents bought me,
like the prep school they sent me to,
like the food our maid lovingly prepared,
glad that at least they let her “steal”
enough food for her own family,
glad that riding only in the back seat
she could easily stash it under the laundry
they told her they needed washed by tomorrow.
I saw Jim Crow in the mirror
and I did not like him.
I could have named 100 people I
know who I thought more qualified
to play that role, but there he was
staring me in the face.
the spitting image of me.
I thought I was free of racism
because my ancestors were Quakers
driven from England by 1640,
because my Grandfather
would not join the Klan and
stood down his brother-in-law,
the head of the Alabama Klan.
When I became a man,
I had not yet seen Jim Crow in the mirror,
or had not yet recognized him.
My parents made sure that I, a carrot top,
would never hear until fully grown
that red-headed people are supposed
to have hot tempers, lest knowing
the stereotype, I would make of it
a license to rage. So too they feared
that I might glorify the Klan’s propaganda
if I spent time with my Klansman uncle’s children
who believed they genuinely defended
noble Southern traditions like honor,
Motherhood, and hospitality.
yea, like leading the Klan
in one of its worst years of lynching.
yea, like not paying the Colored a living wage,
yea, like not allowing me as a child to call
black people Mr. or Mrs.
or calling or knowing their family names.
I saw Jim Crow in the mirror
when, already 25, I first encountered
black folks who were educated
more than I was — over 100 of them
interviewed with three of us whites
for the same 50 jobs in Ghana,
all 100 of the blacks with doctorates,
mostly in animal science or agronomy,
while I had only a masters in English
and an undergraduate minor in Greek
Yet I got one of the jobs because
the British made the Ghanians value
Greek more than the farming skills
Ghana sorely needed.
I saw Jim Crow in the mirror
and winced when I thought of how much
I might have to pay if held accountable
for all the free labor, all the property,
all the spoils slavery had bequeathed me
without my ever having to dirty my white
hands or trouble my conscience one whit
as I hummed Negro spirituals
or danced to jazz
or merely winced when the Adams boys
burned the Freedom Rider bus in my hometown
or put itching powder on the stage
when Nat King Cole sang in Birmingham,
or when mother and the other ladies
at the Knox Music Club mocked Mrs. Roosevelt
as a misguided Yankee do-gooder.
I saw Jim Crow in the mirror
and did not like it when the best he could do
was straighten his tie, brush his coat,
and move away with all his privileges
to the North, then to England, then…..
I saw Jim Crow when at last I realized —
it’s awfully convenient to be a slow a learner —
that I’m part of the problem, not of the solution,
that the drama is not about me
but about justice and fairness and kindness,
about all of which I have been digressing.
I saw that only as Jim Crow can I play out the role
I inherited and integrate, can be in solidarity with,
the marvelous human race,
one smile,
one kindness,
one friendship,
one shared vulnerability,
one act of grace,
at a time.
Listen to the author reading the poem