Jelly Roll: A Black Neighborhood in a Southern Mill Town

8. Deacon Clark: The Children of His Labor

CHAPTER 8 Deacon Clark The Children of His Labor James Clark, unlike so many of the retirees who line the streets of Jelly Roll, is sixty-seven, lean, alert, and still in his prime. Cleareyed , thoughtful, and verbally skillful, self-educated with a broad knowledge of the Bible, he is a highly respected member of his community, a deacon in the large Willow Grove Baptist Church at the center of the black community. Son of a poor cotton farmer from south ofJunction City, he moved to Calion in 1952 when another mill owned by the Company burned to the ground. At that time the Company moved its best employees to its expanding pallet manufacturing operations at Calion, and James, always a good worker, was among them. "When the mill at Junction burned, I left my people back at the homeplace and a town full ofcrooked white men; I crossed the bridge never turnin' back. I got no regrets." James started work at Calion hand-nailing warehouse pallets, and when the plant was converted to the manufacture of furniture parts he eventually moved into the glue room in a semi-skilled position where he remained a conscientious employee with the kind of work record that would gladden any foreman's heart. Always seemingly content in his job, James is quick to point out that through most of these years opportunities for black advancement were mostly nonexistent. When the furniture plant was unionized in 1969 he quietly assumed a major role in its election drive. With the 57 prestige of his church in the background, he gained the support of moderates in a close election. "I told 'em to let us negotiate with management for what we needed, not go beggin' to the office one by one." The union won a majority in the furniture plant, but lost in the other divisions. J ames, having keynoted its success, stepped aside to let others take credit and power; always a soft-spoken and philosophical man, he concluded the subject by remarking wryly, "and things don't change till they have to change." James lives in one of the larger reconditioned old frame houses on Thomas Street directly across from the busy residence of Willie and Babe and just two doors from the home of Saphire Jones, "the night club," he calls it with a disgruntled nod of the head in that direction. Being a devout man who covets only peace and quiet he is perplexed by his fate ofendingup engulfed by the sights and sounds of the "high life" he so disdains. At Saphire's there is "always drinkin', smokin' dope, young men and young mothers swayin' to the music, kissin' and floppin' around while their dirty children are lyin' on the floor like little pigs. Mothers, some still in school and some grey-headed, havin' a joint or shootin' dice on the floor." His face tightens as he speaks, there is emotion in his voice, he sits upright then slumps back in his chair. "They degrade themselves. It's the times. I can't keep up. Lucy Mobile is ninety-four, oldest member of our church, been livin' in the same yard for over sixty years! You think any of these young people gonna stay put six months? No, they got money, borrow it, or get it somehow, go where they please, when they please." James sat back, lost in a reverie from his own youth on the farm, the satisfaction of hard work, little money but plentiful good food, the vivid tastes and smells in youth remembered, all flattened by age, the slow passage of time and the seasons "when Christmas took as long to come as Leap Year does now." Fittingly, James's house is surrounded by thick, head-high privet hedge with only a gap for his walk. He sits on his porch in hopeful meditation or preparing his Sunday School lessons, but flickering past the gap in the hedge is a steady stream of cars and pedestrians, and by 3:00 p.m. on a Friday afternoon the slammingof car doors and howling radios announce the arrival of the weekend party at Saphire's. In the middle of these distractions James struggles to concentrate and continue his recounting of the church's successful record, his voice rises to counteract the sounds from without, "Now we have a full-service Sunday School and youth department, and we have the Sunshine Boys who visit the sick and shut-ins. We...