The first time I really saw the projects was on a Sunday afternoon drive in 1971 with some friends who wanted to see my school. We had the top down on the car, and I’m sure it must have seemed to the people on their steps and in the yards that we were cruising the area. The result was an occasional obscenity—“Honky! Goddamned (muffled)!” After a few blocks of this, we realized we had made a mistake and quickly left. This was the only time I drove through the interior of the projects. Before and after this my route was straight to and from school on the main streets.
Surely there were four seasons in the projects. What I actually recall though is the heat, and the stench that occasionally rose from the nearby Trinity River. The main artery leading to this area is lined with minor service stations and drive-in groceries on one side and a large playground and housing on the other side. Crossing the river is the beginning of a life generally unknown by so-called white mainstream. Frankly, African-Americans who have grown up as part of the socio-economic mainstream probably know little about the proverbial other side of the river.
The streets and yards in the projects are strewn with the waste and castoffs of its residents. The litter problem was the target of a letter writing contest we held at our school. Each contestant was to write to the city councilman for that area to get something done about the overflowing trash containers and what seemed like negligence of the sanitation department. Actually, the problem is the lack of effort from both the residents and the city. While the city maintains that the residents don’t care about solving the problem, the residents claim that they can’t solve the problem because the city has inadequate trash pickup. The result is that nothing really gets done. One of my students asked me in jest once, “Mister Hollin, does you have rats at yo’ house?” In disbelief I replied, “No!” He then quipped that the rats were so bad in the projects that sometimes when he came home “the rats be sittin’ on the kitchen table shootin’ craps.”
The appearance of the projects is only a manifestation of what actually exists in the area. Our elderly Black principal told me sadly one day that he had seen many changes in the projects during his ten years at the school. There had been a time when he felt safe walking among the blocks. But no longer. Many of the young adults resent what the school represents, and just as easily as they can rip off fans from a locked school building, they can verbally abuse a graying “Uncle Tom” who is pretentious enough to think that he can walk their streets.
The police have little success controlling the crime in the projects because the residents won’t cooperate in answering questions. Robbery, rape, and even murder, are accepted as part of life’s transience. Partially out of fear, partially of a grim fatalism, the residents are victimized by their own.
One of my saddest awakenings during a year teaching in the projects came in the winter. I had been out one day with a cold. The next morning I was in a neighboring teacher’s classroom before school started when one of my students came in and said matter of fact, “Mr. Hollin, that girl, she dead.” “What?” I asked. “That girl, someone shot her last night,” he replied. “Who? I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” I asked. Again, he explained, “Betty Anderson, someone killed her last night.” I was horrified, sick to my stomach. It seemed I would cry, but the hurt was not personal enough.
Betty Anderson had not made a vivid impression on me. Unlike many of the others, she was not loud. She was a good student. Probably she had not been challenged by the work in my class because I struggled to keep enough activities planned for the wide range of students we all had in our classes. I’m sure Betty was bright, and the thought that she had been killed by an intruder in her home made me bitter and angry. The local morning paper had a practice of listing rewards for aid in solving several murders on the books. I watched the papers for months, but I never saw Betty Anderson’s name on the list.
The Projects—Dallas, Texas (1971)
R. Harold Hollis
Surely there were four seasons in the projects. What I actually recall though is the heat, and the stench that occasionally rose from the nearby Trinity River. The main artery leading to this area is lined with minor service stations and drive-in groceries on one side and a large playground and housing on the other side. Crossing the river is the beginning of a life generally unknown by so-called white mainstream. Frankly, African-Americans who have grown up as part of the socio-economic mainstream probably know little about the proverbial other side of the river.
The streets and yards in the projects are strewn with the waste and castoffs of its residents. The litter problem was the target of a letter writing contest we held at our school. Each contestant was to write to the city councilman for that area to get something done about the overflowing trash containers and what seemed like negligence of the sanitation department. Actually, the problem is the lack of effort from both the residents and the city. While the city maintains that the residents don’t care about solving the problem, the residents claim that they can’t solve the problem because the city has inadequate trash pickup. The result is that nothing really gets done. One of my students asked me in jest once, “Mister Hollin, does you have rats at yo’ house?” In disbelief I replied, “No!” He then quipped that the rats were so bad in the projects that sometimes when he came home “the rats be sittin’ on the kitchen table shootin’ craps.”
The appearance of the projects is only a manifestation of what actually exists in the area. Our elderly Black principal told me sadly one day that he had seen many changes in the projects during his ten years at the school. There had been a time when he felt safe walking among the blocks. But no longer. Many of the young adults resent what the school represents, and just as easily as they can rip off fans from a locked school building, they can verbally abuse a graying “Uncle Tom” who is pretentious enough to think that he can walk their streets.
The police have little success controlling the crime in the projects because the residents won’t cooperate in answering questions. Robbery, rape, and even murder, are accepted as part of life’s transience. Partially out of fear, partially of a grim fatalism, the residents are victimized by their own.
One of my saddest awakenings during a year teaching in the projects came in the winter. I had been out one day with a cold. The next morning I was in a neighboring teacher’s classroom before school started when one of my students came in and said matter of fact, “Mr. Hollin, that girl, she dead.” “What?” I asked. “That girl, someone shot her last night,” he replied. “Who? I don’t understand what you’re talking about,” I asked. Again, he explained, “Betty Anderson, someone killed her last night.” I was horrified, sick to my stomach. It seemed I would cry, but the hurt was not personal enough.
Betty Anderson had not made a vivid impression on me. Unlike many of the others, she was not loud. She was a good student. Probably she had not been challenged by the work in my class because I struggled to keep enough activities planned for the wide range of students we all had in our classes. I’m sure Betty was bright, and the thought that she had been killed by an intruder in her home made me bitter and angry. The local morning paper had a practice of listing rewards for aid in solving several murders on the books. I watched the papers for months, but I never saw Betty Anderson’s name on the list.
The Projects—Dallas, Texas (1971)
R. Harold Hollis
No comments:
Post a Comment