Griffin Speaks

AND THE WALLS CAME TUMBLING DOWN

In 1989 Rev. Ralph David Abernathy published his autobiography titled AND THE WALLS CAME TUMBLING DOWN. The autobiography received a lot of criticism from the African American community. He tells of his private and public life, recalling his childhood as well as the leaders he knew intimately. He reveals the intense planning and strategies that went into the civil rights protest that he helped Dr. Martin Luther King lead. He recalls the deaths and defeats that they suffered. He elaborates on the victories that he experienced that led to the integration of America. 

He did not include in his book what I would most definitely have to include in my own autobiography. In 1974 my father invited Dr. Ralph David Abernathy, Angela Davis and several other prominent Civil Rights leaders to our home for dinner while they were visiting Tarboro, North Carolina in protest of the conviction and death sentences handed down for the “Tarboro Three.” I was sixteen years old. 

My father owned the popular downtown “Liberty” restaurant in the small sleepy North Carolina town of 11000 residents. Things were going well. We lived at 1009 South Howard Circle a few doors down from Mr. H. Dail Holderness’s mansion. Dail Holderness was president of Carolina Telephone Company and the wealthiest man in the city. We had truly moved up. We were the Jeffersons. The only Black family living in a white neighborhood. 

His customers called my father “Houseman”. They would debate with him about the issues of the day. One day that debate centered on the arrest of three of my father’s regular customers for the rape of a young white woman. Several of my father’s customers convinced him that the three black men charged with the rape were innocent. My father decided that he would be supportive of the cause. He served many of the protestors’ meals without charge. The white power structure became outraged. As a result of my father’s support of the Tarboro Three we lost everything, the restaurant, the furniture, and yes my new Toronado that I had received for my sixteenth birthday present. The walls came tumbling down! When it all ended my dad could not buy a flea a sportcoat. 

It took me a long time to overcome that ordeal. I found comfort in knowing that my dad supported a cause that he would eventually be proven correct to have supported. The North Carolina Appellate Courts overturned the convictions and death sentences handed down to the Tarboro Three. We moved to Raleigh, North Carolina and started all over again. Starting all over again was rough, but we made it! I ran for student body president of Garner Senior High School the first year that I arrived and almost won. I came in second place losing to the popular Bobby Neal. My mom entered Shaw University and earned her degree within three years with top honors. She was offered a Danforth Fellowship for doctoral work. My dad “Houseman” eventually rebounded and was later honored by Selma University with an Honorary Doctorate Degree in Humanities.  

My video of Rev. Ralph David Abernathy gnawing on a chicken leg and drinking spirits with my dad and reminiscing about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. continues to be one of my favorites. This all occurred just six years after Dr. King’s assassination. This story did not make Rev. Abernathy’s autobiography, but like I said earlier it will certainly make mine. 

Greg Griffin is a free lance writer. You can read his previous articles by visiting his web page at www.gregggriffin.com