Mrs. Gamble introduced me, saying, “This is our little François. He’s in high school and wants to be a singer like you.”
“Well, what do you sing, young man?” she asked.
“I sing spirituals like you.” I didn’t dare say more.
“Well, I’m sure you sing them very well. Keep up the good work, young man. I’ll be looking out for you now.” She was holding my hand the whole time! Finally, I was able to ask her for her autograph. She signed my program, To François, the young singer from Youngstown, my hometown. See you in New York.
I will never forget the kind, encouraging things she said to me. For the rest of my life, I hung on to the special words uttered to me by a total stranger at an important time during my development. Years later, I was able to connect with Betty Allen in New York City, and she proved to still be just as generous and supportive. She was very instrumental in bringing many black singers from all over the boroughs of New York City together to rehearse at the Harlem School of the Arts. Later, we were transported en masse to Berlin, Germany, to sing at the Theater des Westens in the history-making, all-black, complete version of George Gershwin’s stunning production Porgy and Bess, as directed by Götz Friedrich.
AS TIME WENT ON, I SAW WHAT I WAS BEING TAUGHT IN church and frequently in school were not enough to fully satisfy the growing artist deep inside of me. I wanted more than the vocational life frequently pushed toward me, or the church singing my mother wanted for me. There was something powerful and real outside of Youngstown, and I was going to get at it. Maybe my family, my church, and my school weren’t going to help me get it, but I’d find a way. So help me God, if I had to leave walking, I was going to leave Youngstown.
By this time, it was very clear that Aunt Emma and Great-Grandmama Laura Mae were not going to come to the city to live. Aunt Emma had cancer, and Great-Grandmama Laura Mae had stayed down south to take care of her. I was disappointed, but I didn’t feel I could do anything to change it, so I kept singing. Anytime I felt deep disappointment or hurt, I moved even more deeply into my music. Every opportunity I saw, I got out of the house to sing.
I still had a couple of years left to go before I could graduate high school, so I tried to make the best of it.
One of my buddies from the school choir, Mickey Wolsonovich, had a rough second-tenor voice that helped carry the section for the weaker guys. We tenors could be a tight-knit group as we struggled together to sing high notes, learn the new music, and hold our own with the rest of the sections. We used to hang out at Mickey’s house all the time—it didn’t matter that I was the only black kid.
One day Mickey had to go to the Ukrainian Orthodox church to be altar boy for an hour during mass. He invited us to come along. None of us were Catholic, but we all felt that it would be okay to just sit in the pews and wait for him to finish. When we arrived at the church, everyone headed for the rear pews to sit and wait. One of the priests came over to us and asked why we were there. He seemed to be speaking directly to me.
“We’re friends of Mickey’s and we’re going to wait for him to finish so we can all sing together,” we all said.
The priest looked directly at me and said, “You don’t belong here. Why don’t you go home or wait outside?”
I didn’t know what to say. I sat there as he stared, waiting for me to move. I looked at the others, and none of them would let their eyes meet mine. Slowly, I got up, practically in tears, and shuffled reluctantly for the nearest exit. No one else moved. I knew exactly what that priest had meant. That’s the way it was in Youngstown. Nobody had been so direct before, but I knew my place and didn’t try to fight it. I never set foot in that church again.
I went on home and didn’t mention to anyone what had happened to me. I knew my mother or stepfather couldn’t do anything, so why make a fuss? I just tried to wipe it out of my mind and get on with my life.
But I had trouble talking and singing with the guys the next time I saw them in school. I knew that they had let me down, and they knew it too. I moved my seat in choir and only spoke to them when I had to. Regardless of what they were thinking, they never mentioned the incident again. I never forgot it. We hit a racial divide that was too painful for me to renegotiate. They were part of the white world, and I was part of the black world. In spite of what some of my other close white friends did or said, I always knew what could happen if I was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and so I carried a wariness inside of me that they did not.
I wasn’t wrong. When I was a junior it happened again—this time with my buddy Albert. Albert was in the bass section in the choir, and we enjoyed harmonizing together from time to time. One Friday night, Albert mentioned that there was a party at the VFW out on Midlothian Boulevard.
“Have you ever been there?” he asked.
I hadn’t ever heard of it. Albert described it as a big crowd of people from all over—maybe some students from school—with beers and dancing: a lot of fun.
That sounded fine to me, so I agreed. There was a huge parking lot surrounding the VFW, already half full. The action was coming from a dilapidated old two-story brick building.
We parked a little way away and headed for the entrance. We walked in rhythm to the deep thump, thump, thump coming from inside that got louder as we neared the entrance.
When we got to the door, Albert knocked. The bouncer opened the door a crack and looked at us. I could smell the cigarette smoke and feel the visceral rush of the music as the vibrations shook the building. The sound was vintage Little Richard.
“How much is it to get in tonight?” Albert yelled, cupping his hands over his mouth.
“Five bucks for you,” yelled back the bouncer, “but your buddy can’t come in. Tell him to come back on Wednesday, Nigger Night!” His voice was harsh as he directed his refusal toward me. Someone from inside, a guy about thirty wearing tight jeans, came over and looked over the bouncer’s shoulder. He joined in the bouncer’s explanation.
“Yeah, nigger boy, this ain’t Nigger Night. Check with your people and come back then. There’s no niggers allowed here tonight!”
By his body language, I could tell that he wasn’t even talking directly to me. He was yelling to Albert to tell me, as though I couldn’t hear or understand the meaning of his words because of all the noise. It had never occurred to me or to Albert that blacks and whites didn’t go to the VFW on the same nights. We stood there dumbfounded. I could tell that Albert wanted to go in. He had been planning on it for several days. I didn’t want to spoil it for him.
“Look, Albert,” I said, “why don’t you take me home, and you can come on back and do your thing. I don’t need to go in there tonight.” I was already headed back for the car. It was too far to walk home, or I’d have offered to let Albert stay and gone home alone.
When Albert caught up with me in the parking lot, he was all apologies.
“I’m really sorry about this, man,” he said. He was earnest. “I didn’t know. Let’s get out of here. We can head back to my place. I didn’t want to go there anyway.”
We sat in silence in the car. I didn’t feel that it was Albert’s fault, but he was white. I was sure that nothing like this had ever happened to him before. He said as much.
I knew that it wasn’t just the VFW that discriminated against blacks. I heard the older folks talking, and I knew that it could happen all over town. It could happen in any white church, at my school, at certain community functions—like plays where blacks didn’t audition because we knew we’d never be cast as anything except a maid or shoeshine boy. We also didn’t go to the Northside swimming pool or the downtown YMCA. There were neighborhoods that were traditionally white