Coffin Nails: Suicide in the Pursuit of Integration

-- By RyanGlover - 13 Mar 2015

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The American Negro simply wishes to be both an American and Negro, without being spit and cursed upon by his fellows, and without having the doors of opportunity closed roughly in his face. ~ W.E.B. DuBois?

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Hunger

My father spent his high-school summer’s working in a steel mill in Gary, Indiana to support his bedridden mother and two younger brothers. During the school year, my father supported his family through basketball hustling—luring lesser skilled basketball players into gambling pennies and nickels.

In 1961, my father moved to Nashville, Tennessee to attend Fisk University, where he earned a full-ride scholarship to play basketball. Under the tutelage of his Afro American History professor, my father not only learned his history, he learned how to read and write.

By the end of his senior year, his Afro African History professor convinced my father to apply to law school. And with his admittance, the Veritas motto had shielded him from the 1969 lottery.

He began his legal career as a civil rights attorney, eventually becoming the national executive director for the Law Students Civil Rights Research Council.

Personality

I fondly remember playing chess with my father at the dining room table when I was young. I remember his hearty laughter as I tried to defend against a scholar’s mate for the first time. I also remember the moment his cheerful disposition was displaced by a competitive ruthlessness once I became familiar with the basics. From then on, he began to enforce two rules without exception. First, if I touched a piece, I had to move it. Second, if I let go of a piece after making a legal move, I was unable to retract that move. My initial response to play as quickly as possible repeatedly left me frustrated; time and again, I found better options after my turn had ended, and my father was more than happy to capitalize.

My mother, who despised my father’s overly competitive nature, wanted me to win as badly as I did. Oftentimes, she peered over my shoulder and encouraged me to slow down, weigh my options, and learn from my mistakes. She would also ask questions such as, “What does it look like he’s trying to do?” and “What should you have done instead?” And in an amusing fashion, she ignored my father’s acrimonious glances and continued to cheer me on.

Cultural Capital: From Lower to Middle Class - The Development of Anomie

Years after beginning his career at the Law Students Civil Rights Research Council, my father became a general partner at the law firm of Isham, Lincoln & Beale. In order to maintain his position for the betterment of African American’s, he joined the board of the City Colleges of Chicago. There he fought to increase the number of African American’s in colleges, and ensure that they would receive an education that will allow them to succeed.

When I was nine, my father, who had recently resigned from the board of the City Colleges of Chicago, began his last job as the President of TLC-LC (formerly known as TLC Beatrice International Holdings). It was through this that he had an opportunity to become a joint member of the Saddle and Cycle Club. The Saddle and Cycle Club is a private club committed to old traditions and catering to blue-blood’s.

We continued our Saturday morning chess matches at the Saddle and Cycle Club before lunch. My father upgraded our wooden board to marble chess set. His jean overalls and open-toed sandals that he would wear on weekend afternoons were replaced by dress pants and boat shoes.

When we played chess at the Saddle and Cycle Club, he no longer leaned over the table in wait, but sat back in his chair, crossed his legs, and puffed on a Dominican cigar that he was first introduced to by another member of the club.

After lunch, where he would order the chicken fingers and macaroni and cheese from the kid’s menu, he would venture inside the Cigar Lounge where he would later emerge and speak as if he were an expert in the arts. And my mother and I would laugh at his new found interests.

Checkmate

I looked forward to our weekend chess matches mostly because it signified my father’s return home from his office in New York. But I had other reasons to be excited; after years of losing to my father, I was finally nearing a victory. Then, in an instant, my opportunity to overcome a meaningful challenge vanished. Shortly after my sixteenth birthday my father was diagnosed with lung cancer. At first, our matches became less frequent, but as his condition worsened we stopped playing altogether. The following year he had passed away. I remember the time I spent with my father before the coroner took him away. I remember holding my younger sister in disbelief that I had just lost the person most important to me. Yet, the worst was the heavy feeling in my stomach that rose every Friday when he didn’t come home.

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