Abner Haynes and Miz Scarlet

In 1956 the University of North Texas gave a football scholarship to Abner Haynes and his friend Leon, the first in all Texas colleges and universities. They couldn't stay in the dorm because blacks weren't allowed to live there, so he stayed with his sister in the east side of Denton. His freshman year the coaches were beginning to see what an amazing player he was. When the freshmen team played in Corsicana and won easily, after the game they went to eat at a local cafe. The owner told them that Abner and friend would have to eat in the kitchen and couldn't sit with the team. The team stood up and left. I love that. 

Then the next year he was moved up to varsity and began a career resulting in All-American status. I had a class with him, a big Music Appreciation class that everyone took because it was fun and easy. He never had an entourage or made any kind of sign to show he was already being courted by pro-teams. Integration at North Texas was handled by Pres. Matthews like a campaign in a war: he wanted no parades, no riots, no words scrawled on walls. He sent out a crew every morning to check to see if anything had been disturbed or written, and if heaven forbid something had been written, they were to get it back to normal by mid-morning. He let every instructor know that classes would be held as usual. Little, scrawny Dr. Matthews let it be known he would have the Texas Rangers or God's angels on the campus if anyone dared to break the peace. The University of Texas would not have a black player until 1970.

And this week HBO announced they were withdrawing Gone With The Wind from its show schedule. People everywhere screamed as if their homes had been looted. I first saw it when I was ten, and Grandma Ida wanted to go see it and got me out of school to go with her. Easy to do in those days.

Let's see if there are any flaws in GWTW. In the opening the slaves are all happy and clean and glad to be helping with bar-b-ques instead of watching their children be sold or working in the hot fields. Later when Scarlett's first husband dies, we don't really care because we really didn't know him. There didn't seem to be too many others dying. When Prissy comes to her in Atlanta and isn't much help, Scarlett smacks her as hard as she can across the face. A master or mistress can do that with an ignorant slave girl. When Scarlett  gets back to Tara, the evil Union soldier tries to rob them and gets killed, even though many Southern boys were making their way back home and taking whatever it might be needed to get there. After the War is over, Scarlet's group tries to feed home-bound southern soldiers who all seem to have arms and legs which not many did after the intense shellings. And then there is Mammy who is moved back and forth from Tara to Atlanta with each new adventure and never gets a last name, workers' comp, or a place of her own. Maybe there are more important things to make us cry out.