In Birmingham, Ala., in 1954, it didn’t take much for a black man to get in trouble. All Charles Patrick had to do was complain to the woman who had cut him off for a downtown parking spot. That woman happened to be the chief of police’s wife, and by the end of the day, Patrick, then 36, had not only been arrested and charged with disorderly conduct, but also beaten in the city jail by the police chief and two more officers.
But what happened next was unusual: Patrick fought back, legally, first to have his name cleared, then to have the officers punished for their behavior. In her new book, Speak Truth to Power: The Story of Charles Patrick, a Civil Rights Pioneer (University of Alabama Press, 130 pp., $16)Houston writer and teacher Mignette Patrick Dorsey, provides a meticulously researched account of how her father’s case united a racially divided city, if even only for a time. I spoke with Dorsey about her father, who turns 92 today. Here are excerpts from that conversation.
Q: Why, after so many years of being familiar with the story, did you decide write the book now?
A: I actually started researching the book while I was still at the Houston Post in the mid- ’90s. (Because of work commitments) it took a long time. When you’re dealing with someone in their late 80s, you have to go at their pace.
Q: What was your father’s reaction when you said you wanted to write it?
A: He was the one driving it; he needed there to be a story. It was happiness — even more intense than that: joy.
Q: You write that your father’s actions after the beating were not the result of a particular over-arching concern for civil rights, but rather a reflection of who he was and how he was raised.
A: It had to have been; these beatings happened all the time. I have to credit his faith. He believed, “I’ll be in heaven,” so being lynched didn’t bother him. He’d been in World War II and re-enlisted. He was in Korea. He has a certain warrior bravado behind him. He just wasn’t afraid of dying, and everyone he knew and he loved was telling him to “tell the truth, tell the truth, tell the truth.”
Q: Do you think the incident changed him?
A: Changed? It deepened him. It deepened his faith. He became more confident with every step of the way After he was cleared of the charges, he said, ‘Now I’m ready for them to be fired.”
Q: You write that your perceptions of the South and of Birmingham in particular changed while writing the book. Did writing it change your perception of your father?
A: At times, I thought he was crazy. He stood up against a society, and he didn’t care. That he didn’t have a zillion people standing behind him – I had more respect for him.
Q: What was the most surprising thing you learned during your research?
A: One of the biggest surprising things was there were citizens who were white and Jewish who were willing to demand justice for a black man – to not only demand, but to put it in writing.
The tone of the letters to the editor was vicious. And the support of the black community: They paid his house note (when he couldn’t work because of the beating), medical expenses. That to me was encouraging as well, and that there were white attorneys willing to battle for my father.
Q: What’s the most important lesson in your father’s story?
A: There are several. Don’t be afraid to speak truth to power. I can’t emphasize that enough, that you just can’t fear it, if for no other reason, because of what happened after that.
I believe my father speaking to power laid a foundation for the blacks who remained in Birmingham. If you are the oppressed, the important lesson is not all of the oppressors are against you, and that’s hard to keep in mind when you’re segregated. It’s time that whites and younger blacks embrace this kind of history.
Young blacks don’t really want to look back at what happened because it makes them hate white people, who have the guilt factor: “I can’t process the guilt right now.” This is a huge, huge mistake. It’s not good for America to reject American history.
Q: Has your father read your book?
A: He has started reading it, but his eyes get tired, and he puts it down, so Mom will read it to him. But there are not a lot of moments he will allow that, he’s so distracted by sports. He’s a sports junkie.
Q: Did he like it?
A: He liked what he read.
roberta.macinnis@chron.com
