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Class of 92

BLACK DAD—WHITE DAD

A beautiful tapestry woven with threads of racism, American history,

extreme poverty, alcoholism, fortitude, illiteracy, tension, paternal

rejection, sexual exploitation, domestic violence, and extreme risk taking all sustained by the

redemptive love of Christ.

THE JAMES WOMACK STORY

Co-author

Anna Allen

Black Dad—White Dad

Black Dad—White Dad

The James Womack Story

James WomackCo-author Anna Allen

AuthorHouse™1663 Liberty DriveBloomington, IN 47403www.authorhouse.comPhone: 1-800-839-8640

© 2013 by James Womack. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 03/22/2013

ISBN: 978-1-4817-1605-5 (sc)ISBN: 978-1-4817-1606-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013902659

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

This book is printed on acid-free paper.

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN: 978-1-4817-1605-5 (sc)ISBN: 978-1-4817-1606-2 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2013902659

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Contents

Preface........................................................................................................ixDedication ...............................................................................................xixAcknowledgments ....................................................................................xxiForeword................................................................................................. xxvxxvxxNote...................................................................................................... xxvii

Chapter ......................................................................................... 3

Chapter 2Born Here, Rejected Here.................................................................... 5

Chapter 3Separate but Equal Education............................................................ 13

Chapter 4O “My God” What a Revelation........................................................ 20

Chapter 5Faith to Believe in Myself...................................................................Faith to Believe in Myself...................................................................Faith to Believe in Myself 29

Chapter 6Evil Lurked in Yazoo City .................................................................. 36

Chapter 7Strict Adherence to Rules................................................................... 39

Chapter 8Dead Bodies Can’t Testify .................................................................. 44

Note......................................................................................................

Part IThe Formative Years

Chapter 1Mr. Samson .........................................................................................

Chapter 2

Chapter 9Living in the Crescent City................................................................ 55

Chapter 10Introduction to German Culture ....................................................... 64

Chapter 11I Discovered Authentic Freedom........................................................ 69

Chapter 12Mom Accepts Her Invitation ............................................................. 75

Part IIService to God, Family, and Country

Chapter 13I Met an Angel................................................................................... 85

Chapter 14Marriage Made in Heaven ................................................................. 96

Chapter 1Herodias’s Revenge 106

Chapter 1A Year in Hell 113

Chapter 1Emancipated from Hell ................................................................... 129

Chapter 18An Unfulfilled Promise .................................................................... 136

Chapter 19Marriage Illegal in Georgia .............................................................. 145

Chapter 20Family Reunion ............................................................................... 153

Chapter 21Ministers Flawed Ministry ............................................................... 155

Chapter 22Urinalysis Testing............................................................................. 162

Chapter 23Item Test Writer............................................................................... 166

Chapter 14Marriage Made in Heaven .................................................................

Chapter 15Herodias’s Revenge ..........................................................................

Chapter 16A Year in Hell ..................................................................................

Chapter 17

Chapter 24Qualified but Not Selected .............................................................. 169

Chapter 25Tossing the Tassel............................................................................. 176

Chapter 26Daughter’s Journey to Eternity......................................................... 184

Chapter 27Bathsheba’s Revenge......................................................................... 189

Chapter 28The Marion County “Bread-and-Breakfast,” Where No Meal Is Denied............................................................... 197

Part IIIAt Peace with LifeAt Peace with LifeAt Peace with Lif

Chapter 2................................................................. 207

Chapter 3.................................................................. 210

Notes ..................................................................................................... 217Bibliography........................................................................................... 219Definitions ............................................................................................. 221

At Peace with LifeAt Peace with LifeAt Peace with LifChapter 29

Christ Renews His Parish.................................................................Chapter 30

White Lightning Rituals ..................................................................

Notes .....................................................................................................

ix

Preface

ROYGBIV. Or as my fifth-grade teacher, Mr. Zinn, used to say, “Roy G. Biv.” For those of you who have misplaced your mental file labeled “fifth-grade science (circa 1983)” this crafty little initialism is to help young students remember their primary colors. Of course they are red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. How could you have forgotten?

Modern physics seems to have come to an understanding about what color is—that light refracts and disperses into the atmosphere. It illuminates our world and reflects offof everything. We can calculate light into a mathematical equation far beyond my literal understanding, but at the end of the rainbow, all you have is color; beautiful and vibrant not only for the world it brings to life but also for the shadows it casts that grant us perspective and mystery as well.

A further understanding of physics and light reveals a very interesting feature of light and color; the colors we see are merely the shades of the rainbow that are reflected from the surface of whatever it is we look at. Ironically, the one color we are able to see is the only color something is not! The question looms: in the absence of light, what not! The question looms: in the absence of light, what notcolor is that shirt you are wearing or that car you are driving? An even more compelling question might be, “What, exactly is the color of your skin?”

The reality is that none of us actually are as we are perceived to be. Sadly, it is true that perception is reality.

red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. How could you have forgotten?

Modern physics seems to have come to an understanding about what color is—that light refracts and disperses into the atmosphere. It illuminates our world and reflects offof everything. We can calculate light into a mathematical equation far beyond my literal understanding, but at the end of the rainbow, all you have is color;

xxii Black Dad—White Dad

Special thanks to Frank Tilton, a table leader for CRHP 4 and Ms. Debra Smith, a communications expert who read my first draft and offered constructive criticism, hope, and encouragement to write this book.

Special thanks to Anne Allen, co-author, without whose help, this book would not have come to be. Anne devoted many long hours of hard work to bring a collage of unrelated personal ideas and events into an organized chronological narrative that became Black Dad-White Dad.

Special Thanks to Debra Atkerson of RaceMarketingPR who inspired me to add color and personality to events that would have otherwise been dry statements of facts and history.

I would also like to acknowledge the people at Author house: Gian Brown, Amanda Carmichael, Mark Andrews, Benjam Anthony Mosquera, . who have helped me to accomplish in successfully finishing this book.

A very special thanks to my dad, Anderson Womack, and my mom, Dora (Tippen) Womack, who gave me life. They each gave me the best of themselves under the conditions in which they lived. I am eternally grateful to Debra Atkerson of RaceMarketingPR. Her suggestions and moral support were gargantuan in helping me establish a chronology of events with a broader expansion of humble thoughts and ideas.

Thanks to Mr. Andrew Ebrwine of www.andrewweberwine.comfor restoring a very old black and white photo of my mother to the resolution required for inclusion in my book.

Thanks to Portraits N More by Veronica at www.protraits-n-more.www.protraits-n-more.com for the cover photo.

I would also like to acknowledge the people at Author house: Gian Brown, Amanda Carmichael, Mark Andrews, Benjam Anthony Mosquera, . . . . who have helped me to accomplish in successfully finishing this book.

A very special thanks to my dad, Anderson Womack, and my mom, Dora (Tippen) Womack, who gave me life. They each gave me the best of themselves under the conditions in which they lived.

xxv

Foreword

It had taken me all my life to get through this door, the one marked with a “Christ Renews His Parish” sign. I didn’t really know what that meant at the time: “Christ Renews His Parish.” I also didn’t know what to expect from the day. But, I told myself, at least I’m here. As I talked to the other men at the conference, I quickly learned that they had traveled from all over the county to attend. Like me, they had come to be changed, to share their stories of pain and abuse—stories, like mine, of deprived childhoods. The conference got started.

Emotions ran deep. I could feel the power of Christ’s love; it shined at the conference like the star that sparkled to guide the three Wise Men to Bethlehem. God was at work in my heart, and in the hearts of the other men around me. I felt a raw exposition of deep, painful emotions, emotions that had the potential to destroy the soul of weaker men and men of no faith. Like the men around me, I was brought to tears.

But for the first time, I was not alone in my pain.

We were all transforming together. We were growing in faith, into more profound men of God. But my heart was still wounded . . . In the back of my mind, in the deepest recess of my heart, I heard a voice—the voice of my father.

“You are not my son.”

The voice weighed me down, pulling me back to my childhood. I had never felt the love of my earthly father, and the retreat resurrected

talked to the other men at the conference, I quickly learned that they had traveled from all over the county to attend. Like me, they had come to be changed, to share their stories of pain and abuse—stories, like mine, of deprived childhoods. The conference got started.

Emotions ran deep. I could feel the power of Christ’s love; it shined at the conference like the star that sparkled to guide the three Wise Men to Bethlehem. God was at work in my heart, and in the hearts of the

xxvi Black Dad—White Dad

my paternal alienation in a deeper way than I had experienced in more than forty years. I was still broken.

The Sunday night after the retreat, my cousin, Dearest, called. Twelve years older than me, she had been raised by my mother, and in return, had cared for my brother and me while my parents worked in the cotton fields. Still heavy with the weight of all that had happened at the retreat, at one point in our conversation I stopped her.

“Dearest? . . .”

“What is it?” she asked.

I paused, not knowing how to say what I knew I had needed to ask since I was old enough to wonder. But the support of my Christian brothers empowered me.

“Was Dad really my dad?”

The other end of the phone remained silent for a moment. Her answer succinctly revealed the mysterious activity never before mentioned that surrounded my birth.

My life would never be the same.

My cousin Dearest Matthews, July 31, 1930–July 22, 2005

Christian brothers empowered me.

“Was Dad really my dad?”

The other end of the phone remained silent for a moment. Her answer succinctly revealed the mysterious activity never before mentioned that surrounded my birth.

My life would never be the same.

The Formative Years

PAPAP rt IThe Formative Years

3

Chapter 1

Mr. Samson

Mr. Samson was a mysteriously diabolical man with many faces and personalities. He was a frugal landowner and businessman by day with a large area of farmland and thirty to forty sharecroppers he directed. When the sun set, his character became more sinister as he quickly transitioned to one of the hooded night riders surrounded by flaming crosses that terrorized sharecroppers who ventured to step out of line. I remember all of that as if it were yesterday.

He smoked a very strong, sweet-smelling cigar with an indisputable aroma. He had a deep, scratchy voice, recognizable by anyone who heard him speak. It was an unforgettable voice with an intonation that invoked fear. Once you heard Mr. Samson talk, by day or night, you never forgot his voice.

Mr. Samson was a dictator who effectively controlled his territory by fear. He did not like it when Dad and his gambling buddies got together, built a barn fire, and gambled after sunset. Very often, privileged light-skinned field hands functioned as spies and reported the activities of their darker-skinned brothers. Frequently, more than three black men in a group were deemed an out-of-control group, and hooded night riders dressed in white robes with flaming fiery crosses visited the farmhouses to restore “order.”

personalities. He was a frugal landowner and businessman by day with a large area of farmland and thirty to forty sharecroppers he directed. When the sun set, his character became more sinister as he quickly transitioned to one of the hooded night riders surrounded by flaming crosses that terrorized sharecroppers who ventured to step out of line. I remember all of that as if it were yesterday.

He smoked a very strong, sweet-smelling cigar with an

4 Black Dad—White Dad

The night riders would belt out commands such as, “Break up that group now, nigger, or die!” or, “You had better not be seen in town this weekend or it will be your last visit to the city.” One of the voices was undeniably that of Mr. Samson.

His voice was unpleasant. We heard it on the first Friday of every month when he delivered a five-gallon jug of white lightning, a colorless brew of homemade whiskey, to my father. His appearance on the horizon was a signal that Dad had to vacate his home immediately. Mr. Samson had a habit of bellowing out orders from about three hundred feet from our home. He became highly upset when his orders were not immediately complied with. He never came close enough for anyone to see his face, except for Mom. He always wore a large yellow straw hat and overalls and rode an old gray mule.

Mr. Samson waited on the horizon till Dad took his fishing gear and departed our home on a fishing trip. Dad would then remain out of sight for three days.

As soon as Dad disappeared, Mom rushed Dearest, my brother, and me off to the neighbor, who lived a quarter of a mile away, with instructions not to return until called for.

My brother and I were overjoyed when we were able to visit our neighbors because they had two beautiful girls. Ironically, we thought it was a “vacation.” We had no idea of the repugnant activities that generated that monthly visit. We were just kids excited to visit and play with the neighbor’s two beautiful girls and their brothers. We were never allowed to visit girls unless they had brothers.

I always enjoyed these times, but I never understood why Mr. Samson kept such a distance. He certainly had no reason to fear Mom or the children. He also knew that Dad always vacated our home before his arrival. I can now only imagine that his guilty conscience, laden with evil intentions, prevented him from looking my family directly in the eyes.

Mr. Samson waited on the horizon till Dad took his fishing gear and departed our home on a fishing trip. Dad would then remain out of sight for three days.

As soon as Dad disappeared, Mom rushed Dearest, my brother, and me off to the neighbor, who lived a quarter of a mile away, with instructions not to return until called for.

The James Womack Story 5

He knew that Dad owned a double-barreled shotgun for hunting. I can only guess that Mr. Samson felt safe at a three-hundred-foot distance. He remained there until Mom gave him the all-clear signal. At that distance, if Dad lost control and fired his shotgun, Mr. Samson would receive only a few shotgun pellets.

Chapter 2

Born Here, Rejected Here

My dad, Anderson Womack, August 5, 1885–December 27, 1967. This is the only photo that I have of Dad. It was taken in October 1966 when I returned from Vietnam. It was the last chance we had to have an adult conversation,

but he refused to talk to me.

6 Black Dad—White Dad

Before I was conceived in my mother’s womb, the Constitution of the United States established the framework to allow me to be born a free man in this great experiment of constitutional government called America. I proudly recite the Pledge of Allegiance each time I see Old Glory fly: “I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

On Wednesday, June 12, 1940, at 5:15 a.m., the clouds opened wide while angels sang and smiled graciously on Mom as she delivered her firstborn son. I was so very special that I burst into existence singing boldly of God’s goodness. My beautiful melodies were encoded such that only Mom could interpret their meaning. God created me with a unique personality and temperament, an unquenchable curiosity, with fingerprints and DNA that are different from every other human on planet Earth.

I was born in a on the Decent Plantation near Belzoni, Mississippi, to illiterate sharecropper parents who worked on the same plantation as my grandparents. When I was about eighteen months old, my family moved from a sharecropper arrangement on the Decent Plantation near Belzoni to a sharecropper arrangement on the Wolf Lake Plantation. Wolf Lake is a large body of land, an approximate ten-mile square, that lies about four miles north and west of Yazoo City, which is bordered on the west by a large lake: Wolf Lake.

Although my family changed the shotgun home on the Decent Plantation for one on the Wolf Lake Plantation, and changed plantation owners, the social status and work requirements didn’t change.

Wolf Lake, the lake, is a half mile wide at its widest point and seven miles long. All the entities on the land or lake incorporated “Wolf Lake” into its identity: Wolf Lake Baptist Church, Wolf Lake (Mr. McGee’s) Country Store, Wolf Lake School System, and so on.

I was created to be different.

from every other human on planet Earth.

I was born in a shotgun home on the Decent Plantation near Belzoni, Mississippi, to illiterate sharecropper parents who worked on the same plantation as my grandparents. When I was about eighteen months old, my family moved from a sharecropper arrangement on the Decent Plantation near Belzoni to a sharecropper arrangement on the Wolf Lake Plantation. Wolf Lake is a large body of land, an

The James Womack Story 7

But I have never needed or sought anyone’s permission to be. I do not look to my contemporaries for approval. My decisions are based on my reality of truth as modeled by Mom, learned from the University of Hard Knocks, or enumerated in the Holy Bible.

I was born as free as the wind that blew into an awesome world of magnificent beauty in the most fertile farmland in central Mississippi. Tall trees of many varieties decorated the skyline around my home like soldiers dressed for a formal military parade.

The countryside produced an abundance of plants, fruits, and berries: strawberries, raspberries, blueberries, apples, peaches, pears, plums, and persimmons. I loved the aroma of the honeysuckle tree and was fascinated by the hummingbirds that pollinated its nectar.

Mom planted her garden with countless vegetables and herbs. She canned an average of 500 jars of fruits and vegetables each year. She canned fruits and vegetables without modern-day synthetic preservatives. Her ability to preserve food provided the family with pure, unadulterated, organic, nutritional food during the lean winter months.

The aroma of fresh fruits and vegetables permeated the atmosphere during the summer months. However, the strong smell of fresh apples and cherries penetrated the countryside during winter months when Mom baked. The canned apples retained their original smell and taste when opened.

When Mom cooked fruits and vegetables to be canned, she poured the cooked produce into Ball jars and placed a burning match on top. The burning match snuffed out the oxygen as she tightened the lid. The burning match removed the oxygen from the jar and served as a natural preservative to prevent the product from spoiling.

Mom displayed this strong sense of purity and perfection in mind, spirit, and soul. Every dish she prepared was prepared as if it were being presented to a king. Her dress, manners, patience, demeanor,

Mom planted her garden with countless vegetables and herbs. She canned an average of 500 jars of fruits and vegetables each year. She canned fruits and vegetables without modern-day synthetic preservatives. Her ability to preserve food provided the family with pure, unadulterated, organic, nutritional food during the lean winter months.

The aroma of fresh fruits and vegetables permeated the