By Norma Adams-Wade
People who stand their ground often can move society forward because they refuse to move from positions they know are right.
The key is to know and do what’s right. That makes the difference.
I was just thinking…in our current contentious nation — with political parties and racial groups pushing laws that favor their personal agendas rather than the public good – I’m eager to find ways to return honor to majority rule and help right-thinkers prevail in the face of money and power?
Individuals do come to mind as examples of how to accomplish this goal. One is from the past, one from the present. The first dealt with the divisive issue of school desegregation and busing. The second with the current headache of book banning. Their methods are distinct but show us the power of one individual with a right-thinking, made up mind. More about them later.
When Stand Your Ground goes wrong
We all are painfully familiar with persons from our past who stood for wrong.
Stand-your-ground laws have gone terribly haywire in recent racial incidents and resulted in tragic wrongful deaths.
There also are situations such as when Alabama Gov. George Wallace twice showed his true colors; first when he proudly pledged as a campaign promise, “segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” during his Jan. 14, 1963 inaugural speech as Alabama governor.
Interestingly, the speech was prepared by his new speech writer Asa Carter who also was an official Ku Klux Klan leader. Six months later, the new governor Wallace stood blocking the entrance door to the then all-white University of Alabama to prevent two African American students from entering to enroll and integrate the university. Both stand shamefully wrong.
When Stand Your Ground goes right
Let me introduce you to our two right-thinkers who stood against the odds and prevailed.
For the first, I will remind you about a person who stood for Black education equality against the odds in Dallas in the 1970s. His quiet impact as a parent and citizen still reigns today.
Secondly, the spotlight turns to a Louisiana librarian whose name steadily is gaining recognition.
These two powerhouse forces took on issues that clearly were problems for society. Then, on their own, they stepped forward and made a difference.
Meet Sam Tasby Jr.
Sam Tasby Jr. was the lead plaintiff in the Tasby v. Estes lawsuit that led to the practice of busing non-white Dallas public school students to areas where they would attend previously all-white schools that offered better educational facilities and practices. Many school districts, particularly in the South, had ignored the 1954 Brown v. Board U. S. Supreme Court ruling designed to end legally-sanctioned school segregation. The renegade districts essentially thumbed their noses at the high court and created numerous ways to avoid integration.
The busing practice in Dallas went around the renegade roadblocks. It lasted 32 years, from 1971 to 2003, after being closely monitored by two federal judges Williams M. Taylor and Harold “Barefoot” Sanders. Tasby Jr. left his lasting imprint without fanfare or hysteria. He was the total opposite. Numerous media and people who knew him used many of the same adjectives to describe the World War II veteran who was fired from his long-time plumber’s job because he filed the then-in-famous Class Action suit against the Dallas school district.
Words used to describe him were “soft-spoken, quiet, non-aggressive, reserved, determined, resolute.” No one called him stubborn, but the word seems to fit anyway. Tasby Jr. died early Sunday, Aug. 16, 2015 at age 93. Reporter Tawnell Hobbs wrote his obituary in The Dallas Morning News.
She quoted his words from an earlier interview where Tasby Jr. explained what motivated him to be lead plain- tiff in the class action suit that protested DISD segregation.
The suit claimed DISD policy prohibited the enrollment of two of Tasby’s six children — who were the right age to attend the all-white school nearest their Arlington park home in Dal- las – even though the high court has declared school segregation unconstitutional: “I was tired of being pushed around for no reason because of the color of my skin,” the quote stated.
DISD’s Sam Tasby Middle School, 7001 Fair Oaks Ave. in Dallas, is named in Tasby Jr.’s honor. DISD trustee Dan Micciche represents the area where the Tasby school is located.
In Tasby’s Morning News obituary, Micciche describes the quiet warrior as an “humble man who showed great character…and courage. …He is proof that one person with courage, character and conviction can make a difference. He will be long remembered.”
Meet Amanda Jones Amanda Jones is the total opposite of Tasby Jr. But a most a decade after he died, she is fighting the same battle for personal freedom. Jones is a Louisiana middle-school librarian and out-spoken, hell-bent warrior against book banning and censorship.
She is blunt, cutting, and often angry about the criticism, name-calling, and mislabeling of her motives as she fights — even getting death-threats for her stand against book banning.
The single mother of a teenage daughter has chronicled her experiences in her recently-released memoir, That Librarian: The Fight Against Book Banning in America. Jones says she grew up in a conservative, white, Christian family but always loved reading all types of books to help her learn about diverse people and their circumstances.
She fell under public scrutiny after she spoke against book banning at a library board meeting in Livingston Parish, a town on the out-skirts of Baton Rouge.
She was roundly bashed by right-wingers who pro- longed their verbal attacks. She filed a lawsuit against persons who she claimed defamed her name, but a judge dismissed the suit.
Despite that outcome, she is prevailing with public recognition of her new book and media attention recognizing her as one of the few librarians to seek legal recourse against book banning.
Also, she is proud of receiving honors including accolades from book-lover Oprah Winfrey, awards that include the 2021 School Librarian of the Year, and being included in the 2021 Library Journals Movers and Shakers List. Some library groups also presented her Intellectual Freedom Awards.
A convincing part of Jones’ argument is that right-wing, pro-censorship advocates push hard to protect children from certain books but close their eyes when it’s time to protect those same children from school shootings and gun violence.
“I never expected any of this…I’m just a school librarian from a two red-light town,” she is quoted by LA Times reporter Jeffrey Fleishman. “I grew up…being taught that God is love…
What I’ve come to realize is what many people mean is that God is love only if you have the same religious and political beliefs as them…”
Others who stood for right and made a difference
Thinking of Tasby Jr. and Jones sent me on a journey remembering others — in the distant, no-so-distant, and recent past — who stood for right causes in diverse arenas: including civil rights, criminal justice, education, communication, political and business gains, history preservation, and the right to determine your own destiny.
Here is my personal list of some who stood firm locally and nationally. Let the names prick your memory of their stand and contributions, or Google them to find out more: L. A. Bedford, C. B. Bunkley Jr., W. J. Durham, Nelson Mandela, Ida B. Wells-Barnett, Edna Pemberton, Curtis King, Eva Partee McMillan and her son Ernie McMillan, Julia Scott Reed, Kathlyn Gilliam, A Maceo Smith, Juanita Craft, Al Lipscomb, Diane Rags- dale, Muhammad Ali, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Dr. Harry Robinson Jr., Shirley Chisholm, John Lewis, Rev. Dr. Frederick Haynes III, Rev. Peter Johnson, El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz (Malcolm X), William Sidney Pittman, James Baldwin, Paul Robe- son, Tina Turner, and Rosa Parks,
I also include Ruby Bridges and her parents Abon and Lucille Bridges; Linda Brown and her parents Oliver and Leola Brown Montgomery: Linda’s mother who, by the way, turned 100 on May 8, 2021 and, unless media failed to report it, still lives, although daughter Linda joined the ancestors March 25, 2018 at age 75; and I include Norma McCorvey, known as Jane Roe in the Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade, although McCorvey changed her stand from pro- choice to prolife when she became a born-again Christian sometime before she died in 2017 at age 69.
Still others who stood
But we can go waaaay back further. … Jane Elkins was an enslaved African in Dallas, TX who became the first woman legally hanged in Texas on May 27, 1853. She was accused of using an ax and killing her “master,” Andrew Wisdom, a widower who had leased her to care for his children. We can guess that Elkins was standing for her human rights.
My apologies to the countless others who are not listed here but certainly deserve honors.
All of you surely have your own lists. Will you stand and add your names?
Norma Adams-Wade, is a proud Dallas native, University of Texas at Austin journalism graduate and retired Dallas Morning News senior staff writer. She is a founder of the National Association of Black Journalists and was its first southwest regional director. She first News’ Black The became full-time reporter in 1974. norma_ adams_wade@yahoo.com.
