Jon Paden

Jon Paden

The right way to answer

No lofty ideal: it’s just plain human decency – liberty, an unalienable right with which their Creator endowed humans.

  • By Jon Paden
  • Saturday, July 21, 2018 9:26pm
  • Neighbors

“Are you for or against innigeration?” asked Junior. A cold autumn in ‘59 wasn’t it, overnighting at my friend’s in rural Texas.

Junior’s parents worked as tenant cotton farmers, some called them poor white trash. They lived in an uninsulated house on the farm for nominal rent, got shares from the sale of cotton. The rest of the shares went to the land owner.

Stepping onto a weather-worn front porch, you watched for missing planks. No plumbing, you got water from an outside well, and used an outhouse. The kitchen stove doubled as heater. On waking up you dreaded putting on frozen jeans. Stove-heated water sufficed for weekly baths for two girls and two boys, one at a time in a “number 3 tub.” Somebody held a towel strategically when it was your turn. A low watt bulb cast dim shadows from the rafters.

Sort of like classic Alaskan bush life-style … except for electricity and cotton farming.

Junior had a TV (we did not). He got to watch Gunsmoke and 77 Sunset Strip, he was up on the news, too. The perennial clash of American racial cultures featured occasionally.

Now, I was a preacher kid. We had a cottage in town and, upscale to Junior, lived lower middle class. My folks both had enrolled in graduate school, commuting distantly from where dad preached. After their masters’, they planned to enter foreign missions to open a school.

This night they went to college, farming out their kids among families in the congregation. After a day of grade 8 schooling, afternoon farm chores and playing kick-the-can following supper, Junior and I bedded down talking until sleep won.

He was pretty smart in math; a big kid, too, good at football. I, however, youngest in the class and third smallest, did average work, and did OK enough in baseball for peer acceptance. We talked about cars and sports, and lately, girls. Well, he did. Mostly I listened.

Things got quiet. That’s when he posed the question.

Not understanding, I responded, “Am I for what?”

“Are you for innigeration?” As though I were slow of understanding (well, yeah), “You know,” he emphasized, “innigeration?”

Oh! Did I mention that if you went to that town, you’d find rigidly partitioned zones, one where black people lived and went to school, and the other where whites lived and went to school. Racial segregation held in schools and living arrangements: separate but equal education was the idea. And separate most everything else, too. But virtually nothing equal.

Anyway, no idea what Junior was talking about. Racked the old brain. Nothing.

You know when somebody asks and you just know from the posing what the right way to answer is? Whatever “innigeration” was, clearly, I shouldn’t favor it. Besides, any human being with half a lick of sense ought to know what he was talking about. Thus, no call for elucidation.

So I didn’t. Astutely I said, “Against.”

He said, “Good.”

Then he added skeptically, “But, you know, your parents are for it; are you sure you’re against it?”

My heart froze. I did not know they were for it. I did not know they worked against the prevailing order and for the integration of all the kids. (I learned that much later.)

Betrayer of family honor, dignity and reputation, I felt Judas’ remorse … still conflicted unwittingly by this mystery. Didn’t know why they should be for it and didn’t know why I should be against it, just knowing the right way to answer.

“Yep, against,” said I, remorse redoubling against my weak soul.

Some six decades since passed, the justice of integration long recognized. No lofty ideal: it’s just plain human decency – liberty, an unalienable right with which their Creator endowed humans.

Then I look to Jesus: betrayed by weaklings, outcast by insiders, sacrificed by the powerful. Through these he answers to build a forever community of deep integration, a mending of all things in heaven and on earth, to the glory of God, Creator of us all.


• Jon Paden is an elder with the Juneau Church of Christ. “Living & Growing” is a weekly column written by different authors and submitted by local clergy and spiritual leaders.


More in Neighbors

Photo courtesy Scott Burton
The first Resilience Circles cohort gathers in Juneau for a cohort retreat.
Woven Peoples and Place: Bridging knowledge systems

Across Southeast Alaska, partners are advancing the co-production of knowledge

Dave Ringle, special projects coordinator at Society of St. Vincent de Paul, talks about infrastructure replacements on Aug. 20, 2021. (Michael S. Lockett / Juneau Empire file photo)
Living and Growing: Speaking our values with action

Service changes when there is a relationship involved

Gina Del Rosario. (Peter Segall / Juneau Empire file photo)
Living and Growing: Love

Do you remember the movie “The Ten Commandments?” I was in high… Continue reading

Shrimp pasta salad à la New Orleans limits the vegetables to celery and green onions and is mixed with a mayonnaise-based sauce. (Photo by Patty Schied)
Cooking for Pleasure: Making local shrimp the star

Shrimp pasta à la New Orleans focuses on the seafood

calendar
Community calendar of upcoming events

This is a calendar updated daily of upcoming local events during the… Continue reading

calendar
Community calendar of upcoming events

This calendar is updated daily with notices of upcoming local events provided… Continue reading

calendar
Community calendar of upcoming events

This calendar is updated daily with notices of upcoming local events provided… Continue reading

calendar
Community calendar of upcoming events

This is a calendar updated daily of upcoming local events during the… Continue reading

WASP pilot Ellen Wimberly Campbell, 44-W-7, at the controls of a Beech AT-10 Wichita trainer, 1944. Location uncertain but likely Columbus Army Air Field, Columbus, Mississippi, United States. (Photo courtesy of Campbell family)
Living and Growing: Saints among us

Lately, I have been thinking about an amazing woman who lived in… Continue reading

calendar
Community calendar of upcoming events

This is a calendar updated daily of upcoming local events during the… Continue reading

Chicken tacos with mango salsa. (Photo by Patty Schied)
Cooking For Pleasure: Chicken tacos with mango salsa

In celebration of Flag Day, a feast with chicken tacos is definitely… Continue reading

Grandma Nita Tupou shares her culture, love and smile surrounded by her grandchildren Feao Tupou, Vaipuna, Mahina, Meki and Talitia Toutaiolepo. (Photo provided by Jacqueline Tupou)
Living and Growing: Welcoming all

How should we be living our lives? What can we do to… Continue reading