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About Portland observer. (Portland, Or.) 1970-current | View Entire Issue (Aug. 23, 1979)
Page 6 Portland Observer Thursday. August 23. 1979 Moon eclipse visible Sept. 6 Behind the Wall by Larry Maker » J5021 O. .S'. /< Í orrespondenl BUS ME? BAD. BITTER AND BLACK His name was Leo Sm iih—alias Richard Smith, Thomas Henry, and William Thomas—but we’ ll jusi call him "H om e Boy," a nickname he acquired from fellow prisoners while incarcerated al O.S.P from 1956- 1959. He served a five year sentence for the sale o f narcotics (heroin). As a child, Home Boy lived in Medden, I ouisiana. Home Boy was the oldest o f three children belong ing to Leatha Mae and Torn Smith. Tom was shot and killed by a white farm er who caught him stealing chickens from the henhouse. The year was 1937, the middle o f the Depression. Home Boy was 7-years- old at the lime, and remembered the county sheriff beckoning his mother from the cotton field on that hot summer day to break the news o f his father’s death. He also remembered how she had been thrown into the back seat of a car and taken away for questioning. His father had been killed less than a mile from where Home Boy, his tw o sisters, and mother had gone to pick cotton early that morning. He remembered that no one had had anything to eat that morning because the farmer from whom the Smith fam ily rented a small one room board-up shack had demanded all his father’s money the night before, to make up a months back pay in rent, leaving them with no money for food. Alter walking five miles to the field that morning, Home Boy overheard his mother pleading w ith his father, not to worry, because after that days cotton picking she would go and beg the owner o f the cotton patch for an ad vance on the weekly pay to buy food. Home Boy and his father could go rabbit trapping and catfishing. It w asn't long after they started picking that his father disappeared and his mother picked nervously with tears in her eyes, Home Boy never forgot those tears. Home Boy’ s mother was returned to the field after a couple o f hours, lo o k her children and walked back to their little shack. His mother im m ediately placed all the fa m ily belongings into a flour sack and they went to a nearby freight yard to catch a freight train to his mother’s sisters place in Baton Rouge. During that tr ip another tragedy struck Home Boy’s life. In the middle o f the night the boxcar Home Boy, his mother, and his two younger sisters were huddled in was suddenly in vaded by four while hobos in their mid 40s, who were d rin kin g . He remembered how his mother fought them o ff as they made sexual advances to her. A ll o f a sudden he watched two o f those men throw his baby sisters, aged four and five, out o f the boxcar into the night while the train was moving at a very high rate o f speed, and how he was torn from his mother's arms and thrown out also. The next thing he remembered was waking up in a hospital only to be questioned about the deaths o f his sisters and the rape-death o f his m other. Home Boy’ s aunt, a p ro stitu te in Baton Rouge, was located, and she retrieved Home Boy and he lived with her fo r awhile before she placed him with a Black minister and his family. Home Boy was forced to go to a tenthouse church meeting every H om e Boy was already well acquainted with hard work in the field, so 12 hours a day regardless if it was picking cotton or digging stumps, he knew he was going to get three meals a day and a place to sleep at nig ht. Never having attended school was no loss, because as he pul it, "H o w can you lose something you never had." He even knew how to handle the lashings he would receive by the white guard who would catch him talking to a fellow inmate when he wasn't supposed to. He didn’ t even mind being called "N igger” by white folks because he thought that was what all Blacks were automa tically called. Even red beans and rice became his favorite meal when served. Home Boy was only at the reform school three years before he was at tacked by a Black crew boss who tried to force Home Boy into a homosexual act. Home Boy ended up splitting the big Black prisoner’s head open, causing instant death. Then he was told by a court that he could not be released until he turned 21 years o f age. fo r the next few years, Home Boy learned one lesson and learned that lesson well. How to hate whiles without letting that hate be known. Home B oy’ s sentence was cut short by the conflict o f the Korean W ar. At the age o f 20, he was recruited right out o f the Louisiana Stale Reformatory, straight into the Army and was sent to I t. l ewis, Washington. I, was there that he met and m arried l.ealha May Jackson, a Black girl o f IK, who worked as a maid fo r a high-ranking o ffice r. Leatha became pregnant and had twin boys while Home Boy was over seas. Home Boy had a good Army record, because he was used to taking orders all his life. But in March 1952, Home Boy was seriously in jured in the back by a grenade and was sent back to the slates, receiving a medical discharge It was while recuperating in the Arm y hospital that he was first introduced to drugs. Home Boy, his wile and children eventually settled in Portland, but because o f his back injury, he was spottilv employed. He began to sell the drugs that he was issued by the hospital. Drug sales brought in enough money to allow his family a decent liv in g . More drugs, more money, and in a short lime Home Boy started buying and selling drugs from other soldiers who received medical treatment from the hospital. Many o f the wounded soldiers would o btain large quantities illegally. Another child was born to Home Boy’s wife, and in 1956, Home Boy was arrested, tried and convicted for selling drugs and sentenced to five years at O.S.P. By this time Home Boy himself was a drug addict. Leatha May and their children were placed on Welfare and waited Julius Snowden, Editor Spinning in one’s solitary orbit. Surrounded by a measure o f Memories still too full to bear And tangling one's web o f life O ' sphere o f agony that permeates Essence o f being and self— It holds its own with a control Too tight to let go. Swallow the et hoes that must be borne— Ignore the mind that wanders on_ O' world that only holds more O f the same waste, waste, waste Where will it all end' Must there Always be a tomorrow fo r pretending* It is only games I play And tears o f bitterness are welling by Robert Henjamm ! rankhn Assistani Correspondent night, and work hard in the fields each day. He was forced to pray forgiveness for the wickedness of his father’ s stealing and his mother’ s submitting to sex before her death If he d id n ’ t he was beaten by the m inister, fin a lly . Home Boy ran away, only to be caught a day later breaking into a grocery store for food. He was placed in jail and sent to the state reformatory. Prison Poets WEB Da vid Cra wford kJ 98JO LEGACY I don't know where I'm going, And almost know where I've been Hut the moment that the world Stopped Jor thee And went whirling on fo r me— Has made the difference. For time cannot stop, and not Leave a part o f me. To linger and swell in memories: This, then is the legacy by Robert Henjamm / ranklin lot Home Boy's release Il was here at O .S .P . that this Correspondent first became acquaint ed wiih I eo Smith, belter known as "H om e Boy " All these years Home Boy had never learned to read or write, and he would pay me a pack of cigarettes tor each letter I wrote to Ins wile and children for him. 1 eatha May would bring money lor him, and Home Boy would buy drugs, either from the inmates or the guards In tact, Home Boy started using more drugs in prison than he did prior to his arrest He became a professional in his dealing, even to the point where he was sending money home to his w ife and children. But shortly before Home Boy was to be released, 1 eatha May became pregnant with an illegitimate child by ney. I he attorney had become rom antically attracted to Leatha May and had helped her out finan cially on many occasions without the knowledge o f Home Boy. Alter returning home, Home Boy and Leal ha May had a stormy rela tionship. but to Home Boy's children he became a hero. Unable to gam employment lor lack ot education, ex-felon record, and medical prob lems, Home Boy went back into drug dealing and his children received almost anything their hearts desired. But in 1963 Horne Boy and Leatha May were divorced. She remarried a year later. She allowed Home Boy to have his children on weekends. One o f his sons would even run away from home occasionally just to be with Home Boy. I did not see Home Boy until ten years later. A beaten man with poor health, one could see that drugs had practically destroyed him. He had been in and out o f jail, hospitals, and prison on num erous occasions during those ten years, but he was still the hero in his children’ s eyes. In 1974, Home Boy was found dead in a Portland park, due to an overdose o f drugs. None o f his children finished high school and Leatha M ay’ s second marriage ended in divorce. She had in many ways lost control over her daughter and two sons lives because they blamed her for not being true to their father. They wanted to live the high style life they thought their father had once lived with plenty o f money. The life o f Home Boy is only the beginning to a tragic story plaguing the Oregon Black youth today. Because it’ s important to note what has happened to Home Boy’ s three children, in order to observe a clearer picture o f the human genocide that is building up in prisons and jails, year alter year. And the problem is going to continue and perpetrate the Oregon Blacks as long as it is not recognized as a problem. Home Boy's sons can be found today serving tim e in tw o state prisons, Oregon and Washington. Both are known drug addicts. One son has fathered four children and the other has three. Home Boy’ s daughter is the mother of four children and is also a drug addict. She has a long extensive police record o f prostitution and forgery Today, Thomas and Leatha Mae Smith's twelve grandchildren range in age from one to twelve years. All are being pumped w ith the ‘ hate whitey and police ’ game fo r the downfall and incarceration o f their parents. A ll the children live in the Black co m m un ity o f P o rtla n d , known as A lb in a . Seven o f the twelve children are enrolled in the Portland School District. And five o f the second children are being bused and all five have become m ajor disciplinary problems to the schools. As I write this true story, I cannot help but remember how the percent age o f the Black population has ex ploded within this prison over the past ten years, and what it will be like ten years from now. Is this the an swer to why the Black population at O.S.P. is l4®/o in a state where the Black population is less than l.3%? Is this the reason O.S.P. holds the d istin ction o f having the second largest population o f concentrated Black people in this state? Are more Black children doomed fo r these prison gales by the built up preju dices, hate and greed that may plague the Black families o f today? The story about Home Boy and his family is not an isolated story in Port land. In fact it is a very common one among Black families who are under privileged, uneducated and unem ployed. To survive everyday living it becomes so easy to become trapped into the illegal activities that may come their way. And now that the busing issue has become the hottest event in years, the question becomes will Black children be given the chance to escape the d o w n fa lls im planted by their knowledge o f seeing what has hap pened to their parents who are in prison? This Correspondent isn’ t going to end this story on a negative note, because once a problem has been ex posed, it is always best to offer a suggestion. Parent training within our penal institutions. Why? Because there are just loo many Home Boys today ro ttin g away behind these bars. Or lace the p o ss ib ility o f— father like son—trend ten years from today. Believe me, I am wit nessing each and every day just loo many Home Boys being herded through these guarded steel gales each year. G arry Stasuik, director o f the K endall P lanetarium at O M S I, reports that the moon will be totally eclipsed in the Portland area during the wee hours o f Thursday, Septem ber 6th. The moon w ill enter the penum- bral shadow o f the earth at 1:20 a.m. P.D.T. on September 6th. Nearly an hour later, at 2:18, the moon will move in to the e a rth ’ s um bral shadow, which will appear as a red dish coppery light across the moon. The total eclipse will occur by 3:31 a m. and end at 4:17, with the moon leaving the umbral shadow at 5:30 According to Stasuik, the reddish coppery glow that will light up the moon during the eclipse appears because the earth’ s atmosphere ab sorbs all the colors radiated by the sun except red light. Register your boy or girl now! PRESCHOOL Separate classes for 3 and 4 year olds 3 yr. olds Tues £r Thurs.; $20/month 4 yr. olds Mon., Wed., Fri.; $27.50/month • In d ivid u a l A tte n tio n •C h ristia n E n vironm ent •Lo ca te d at C oncordia College •M o d e rn In s tru c tio n a l M eth ods For Complete Information, Write or Call CONCORDIA COLLEGE Phone 288 9371 -O ffic e of Dr. John Buuck Office Address 2910 N.E Portland Blvd STOP LOOKING BUY TOMORROW'S SECURITY FOR YOUR FAMILY TODAY New 1 ami 4 hi’dinom huim-s with ot without family rooms in Vancouver i Io-.' io I 5 anil 8 minute-, horn Interstate bridge Include 2 baths, double rj,n.ii|<- brick lirejilar i s. i.mye, dishwasher, garbage disposal, w /w car p e ls All an energy i-thi lent with 10 year Horne Owner's Warranty Cash price for 3 bedroom with 1036 sq. ft. would be $47,000, 10% Annual Per centage Rate with 360 monthly payments at $412.46 principal and interest plus estimated taxes and insurance Veterans move in for $100 00, FHA purchaser's move in approx. $2,650.00 HERMITAGE REALTY. INC. 4715 Sf Johns Rd Vancouver W A 98661 Vane 694 8577 Ptld 223 8229 £ X O D U S ' A / /isl m b r/urr/S rcnef/ a n r / r fte e i/m e n / 'e n /e i 1518 N E KILLINGSWORTH PORTLAND OREGON 972 1 1 284 7997 AUGUST On Aspiration/Responsibility No bird soars too high if he soars with his own wings. William Blake On Conservatism People are conservatives when they are least vigorous, or when they are most luxurious. They are conservative after dinner. Ralph Waldo Emerson On Conservatism What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? Abraham Lincoln On Ancestry I don't know who my grandfather was; I am much more concerned to know what his grandson will be. Abraham Lincoln On Talk Words once spoke can never be recalled. W entworth Dillon, Earl of Roscommon On Truth Be so tru e to thyself as you not be false to others. Francis Bacon On Time Time ripens all things; no person is born wise. Cervantes
