It wasn’t patriotism that brought my grandfather to the Army recruiting office in 1956, but poverty. After spending his childhood picking cotton and doing odd jobs to support his family, he was close to graduating from high school as his 18th birthday approached. He wanted a better life, and he saw the Army as the way to get there.
He ended up staying three years past the original three-year commitment, and a sepia-toned photo of him in uniform still hangs proudly in his bedroom in Huntsville, Alabama.
For my grandfather, military life was not without challenges. He remembers that he and other black soldiers were always referred to as “boys.” But he stood up to his superiors and told them there were only men in his unit. After this tense, even dangerous, exchange, the superiors spoke to them with respect, a small victory that my grandfather never forgot.
When I asked him why he continued, he replied, “I guess I liked America more than I realized. I liked it a lot more than Russia, for sure.”
The military was the first integrated space he encountered. “We served together, marched together, slept in the same barracks, and learned to respect each other,” he said. During his six years in the military, he graduated from high school and took extra classes. He returned to civilian life with qualifications as a firefighter, merchant mariner and bookkeeper. But in 1960s Alabama, no one was willing to hire him for any of those jobs. His first job was as a janitor.
My grandfather’s feelings about America are alternately fond and critical. He loved his unit and the moments when the white soldiers he served with treated him as an equal. He also lamented the times when that wasn’t the case, especially during his later civilian years. Now 86, he vividly describes his failure to become a firefighter.
His story embodies one of America’s great contradictions: it is both a land of opportunity and, in many ways, a land that thwarts it.
To my kids, he’s like a mythical figure straight out of an American history book, and despite all he accomplished, like opening his own music store in the 1990s, I can’t help but feel like he could have been so much greater.
He is my children’s connection to a past they don’t quite understand.
My children are not alone in not knowing what to make of my grandfather’s story and his complicated form of patriotism, his love held firm despite a deep sense of betrayal.
In this country, patriotism has come to be seen as a positive record of history that glosses over the nation’s sins. Especially on the Fourth of July, a day to wrap oneself in the flag, grill meat and listen to playlists with lyrics that praise America. Talking about slavery, Jim Crow laws, economic exploitation and what happened to black soldiers after they completed their service just ruins the mood.
It doesn’t cost anything to sing “God Bless America,” but it costs a lot more to believe in the places that have betrayed you.
As an African-American speaking out about racism, I often hear the phrase, “If you hate America so much, just leave.” But I don’t tell my grandfather’s story because I hate America. I tell it because omitting stories like his only holds us back from being a better country. On the other side of honesty lies the possibility of change. To me, telling the truth is the most hopeful form of patriotism.
Too often, we worry that telling our children our complicated and sometimes dark history will leave them overwhelmed with embarrassment. But instead of lying to young people, we can give them challenges that will bring out the best in them. We can ask them to bridge the gap that so often appears between ideals and practice. This is the gift our past gives us, a chance to escape old evils and pursue new goods.
It is not enough to imagine ourselves riding down the road with Paul Revere, shouting warnings about the Redcoats, or riding in boats preparing to storm the beaches of Normandy. We must remember that the freedom Revere helped win was for some Americans, not all Americans. We must recognize that African Americans who risked their lives on the shores of France returned to a segregated country where they were targets for lynching.
This year, my mom’s family is hosting a reunion over the Fourth of July weekend, and like everyone else, we’ll have a barbecue and fireworks. Maybe we’ll listen to the national anthem by Marvin Gaye or Whitney Houston while we wait for the meat to cook.
It’s election season, and we’re going to hear criticism of our country. But we’re not just talking about that. We’re going to talk about my family’s long journey from the plantation to the freedom we enjoy today. It’s a story that’s a mix of tragedy and triumph. I’m going to talk about my grandfather’s military service, and the service of his father and two of his uncles, all of whom fought in World War II. In my generation, my cousins ​​also served.
Love, pride, regret reside in the same heart — a true form of patriotism, a love that is not complacent, a love that demands more than crumbs from the table of justice.
