Wish I May, Wish I Might...

Racial desegregation was officially abolished by the United States Federal   Government in nineteen fifty-four, the year we moved to Dixon, West Virginia.  Until that time, small outlying schools sent their black eighth grade graduates to the Dixon High School for Colored Students.  It was housed in an old, brick building, once used by the white junior high school student body of Dixon, who were now ensconced inside the old high school for whites.

The newly built high school had held classes for three years prior to our relocation to Dixon, and new policies were being observed inside the walls.  Many black students were enrolled at Dixon High.   The student body seemed peaceful enough.  A few shoving matches occurred in the corridors.  Aside from that, I had heard nothing about any real confrontations during my freshman and sophomore years.

I caught snatches of conversations among disgruntled students sometimes, as I went from class to class.  However, I wasn’t aware of extreme hatred on either side of the segregation issue.  I think that what I had witnessed was a classic case of “the tip of the iceberg.”

During my junior year, Delia Brown’s gym locker was three down from mine.  Delia was a senior, a tall, slender, beautiful girl with ebony skin and long hair that formed shiny ringlets, without a hint of frizz.   She was a precursor of Diana Ross, and heads turned when Delia Brown moved down a hall or entered a classroom.  I was envious of her long, shapely legs.  I told her so, which made Delia laugh.

“You don’t have to worry, Sissy,” she told me.  “You’re put together just fine.”  Along with the West Virginia drawl, which I had come to emulate, Delia’s voice held a warm, husky, honey/South quality that was irresistible.

Following gym class one afternoon, Delia seemed subdued and unusually quiet.  Her answers to my questions were monosyllabic.  I kept pushing.

“Is something wrong?” I asked.  Delia looked at me for a long moment before she answered.

“I’ve been banned from the sock-hops after school.” 

“Why?” I asked.

“They say that my dancing is vulgar.”

I hadn’t seen Delia dance, but I couldn’t imagine that anything she did would be vulgar.  She had too much class.  I hadn’t seen a lot of the world, or even of my own country, at that time.  A lot of my opinions about a lot of things had been formed partially from movies I had seen and books I had read. I was already wise enough to recognize quality in people when I saw it, and Delia was “quality.”

“Show me,” I suggested.  Delia looked at me as if I’d lost my mind, and then she smiled.

“Okay.”

In the middle of the girls’ locker room, filled with teenaged girls in various stages of dress and undress, Delia Brown began to softly sing the words to “That’s All Right, Mama, Anything You Do.”   Dressed only in her white cotton bra and panties, Delia began to move.  She gyrated and twirled and danced in her bare feet, moving to the beat she created with her own singing.

I started to clap my hands to the rhythm, and then more girls joined me.  We formed a ring around Delia, clapping and dancing in spontaneous response to her exuberance and her graceful movements.  The locker room reverberated as other voices took up the song, which bounced off the walls and added volume. 

“What do you think you’re doing?!”

We all stopped in mid-move.   Miss Evers, the girl’s P.E. instructor, shoved her way into our circle.  Something about Miss Evers had always made me uncomfortable.