Radiolab - Ally's Choice

Episode Date: July 2, 2013

Producer Lu Olkowski brings us the story of a tightly-knit family caught on opposite sides of a very big divide. If you ask Ally Manning's mom and sister, they'll tell you there's no question: they're black. But as a teenager, Ally decided that what was true for them didn't make sense for her.

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From W-N-Y-C. See? Yes. And N-P-R. How did you actually bump into this whole thing? Do you want the long-winded version or the short-winded version? Split the difference. Okay.

This is our friend Lou O'Kowski. radio producer. I was there 2008. And where is there? Southern Ohio, Pike County, Ohio, an Appalachian part of Ohio. When you say Appalachian, I think mountains and stuff. Is that the wrong image? No, it's the right image. It's country. And why were you out there? I knew someone working on the campaign. So this is 2008, so this is Barack Obama Part 1. This is Barack Obama Part 1. And that's why I went. Lou says it was the end of October. One week before the election. And in the final days, the Obama campaign was pressing deeper into parts of rural Ohio than almost any other campaign before it. So I went and I followed Barack Obama volunteers around just to see.

How is it going to play? And how's his race going to play in a part of the country that's so white? So she went town to down to town with the campaign eventually ended up in a tiny little hamlet called East Jackson, not even on the map, population 400 or so. It's right in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains. And it's a place where who you are, what color you are, well, that just gets real complicated. I mean, I've got white, Irish, German, and all this. But if anyone would walk up to me today and say,

what race are you? I would say Negro. I'd stand in front of the president today and tell him, hey, I am a Negro and I am a proud American. I'm not black as in color, but I am a Negro. I mean, that's just the way I feel. This is Clarity. Clarice.

Clarice was one of the first people I met in East Jackson. So legal documents ain't supposed to lie, right? Okay, tell me what you're doing. And Clarice... I'm getting a birth certificate out to show you... I think her experience has taught her that enough people think she's white, that she goes out of her way when you meet her. This is a legal document, come on.

To let you know she's black. Okay, this is how it reads. Do you keep this in your purse? Yes, I keep this in my purse. Hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on, hold on. And yes, it says, Harley Harris, Harris. That's her father. And then it comes over and it says, caller erase, and it says what? Migra.

It says, Mary Marguerite Simmons, what's it say? Negro. Okay. So you go as black. So introduce to me your two daughters. Okay. You got to go there, don't you? My oldest daughter. Okay, I'm Carlotta. Carlotta Hickson.

I'm from East Jackson in Pike County, Ohio. Carlotta lives right next to her mom. Yes. And like her mom. If you met her, you'd probably just assume she was white. The only thing you could tell is black on me is my hair. I mean, it's frizzy. That's it. But I've went as black all my life, and I guess I was just raised that way. She's stuck by it.

Carlotta will stand and fight to the end. I don't think you should deny a part of you that is there. Now, my youngest daughter, Alison Manning. That's a whole different story. I'm way too white to be black. She denies the fact that she's a negro. Look at my hair. Look at my skin.

I mean, really creamy, cream, cream, cream. Lots of cream. You know, let's just go really white. Don't ask me why, but she decided that she's white. No, not decide a few years ago that I was going to be white. I have been white since I've been 12, old enough to say that I've been white. You know? See, and that aggravates me.

That aggravates me. It really just, God, it just makes me so mad. To understand why their thing is so intense, please. I think you just need to unpack what this area is all about. Okay, like about five miles from where Clarice lives is a town called Waverly. And Waverly was settled like before the Civil War by a group of white folks who came up from Virginia with the express purpose that it should be an all-white town, even though it was in the north. So to kind of achieve this, one of the things that happened is that a sign was put up on the outskirts of town

warning black people to stay out of Waverly after dark. And to this day, Waverly is still something like 96% white, according to the census. So that was Waverly. Meanwhile, right next door, you had this place called East Jackson, where Clarice now lives. And, you know, back in the day, a completely different situation was happening there. You had Irish and German Timberman who were mixing with runaway slaves and Native Americans who were running from the Trail of Tears, all these different cultures were blending and intermarrying and having these kids and then grandkids who were racially very, very mixed. But to the folks back in

Waverly, all those people in East Jackson, they were just all black. No matter what they looked like? Didn't matter what they looked like. They were the other. And for people in Waverly, the other was black. And so if you lived in East Jackson, you were black. So imagine your Clarity. My dad's mother was a full-blooded white woman. My dad's dad was a German. She's a mixture of all of these things. And if you look at her family tree, you could say she's only one 16th black. But when you are raised from a child up, and you're told you're black. That's all you are. You're a Negro. Well, she says at a certain point, that just becomes who you are. And I'm not ashamed one bit. I'm proud to be a Negro. Very proud.

So you had these kind of twin communities right next door to each other, largely separate. They both had their own schools. Waverly, of course, was bigger and multiple schools. And in East Jackson. We used to have a school in our area, and it was called the East Jackson School. Little one-room schoolhouse. And then in the late 60s or early 70s, the school board voted to close that school. And all of a sudden, all of those kids had to go to Waverly.

We're pretty much everyone was white. When we went to Waverly, schools on Martin Luther King's Day, the white kids at that school would hang up signs saying, go home niggers. And this was in the 80s. What? And so that's when they decided, well, on Martin Luther King's Day, we won't have school. In the 80s? Yeah, I heard that story from Clarity, her sister Juanita, from the neighbors across the road. And even more surprising.

You know, Allie told me when she and her sister got to school in the late 90s, things have. hadn't changed that much. I got made fun of all the time. It was really, really bad. I would have kids, you know, come up to me in class and say, you know, well, she's, you know, she's dirty, you know, because she's from East Jackson and they're all dirty out there. And, you know, when they would do the little check in your head at school thing, they'd be like, oh, you know, she's going to have it because she's black. Because I was black, I'm going to have headlights. I, you know, I'd come home and cry, mom and be like, oh, don't even worry about what they say. You know, you got to be better than them, blah, blah, blah.

But she says she couldn't ignore it. So she started to fight back. I would punch them, you know? Just punch them. Mom was constantly in the office because I was fighting. But at some point during the eighth grade, Ellie says something shifted. We were sitting in class.

Two white girls were sitting behind her. And I didn't even know these girls. And I was just sitting there mine in my own business. And they came up from behind me and just threw this deodorant at me, literally. And they said, here, we thought you might need this. Don't black people need deodorant? Keep in mind, this is in the middle of class. Everybody is in there.

And the teacher's there. It doesn't say anything. Just tells them to calm it down. And I was just like, you know, I tried to ignore him. But they just kept poking me. Hey, hey, hey. They just kept, you know, poking me and telling me I was dirty. Black people are dirty.

You're dirty. You know, we know where you come from. You're dirty. Everyone's dirty out there. You're all dirty. And she said at that moment, she just kind of gave up. I didn't like having to fight. I didn't like feeling like everybody was out to get me. I wanted to be part of the group.

Not the outsider. It sucked being the outsider. I got sick of it. Shortly after that class, she decided, I don't want to be black. I don't have to. When I went into high school, I had a break, you know, the summer break. And over the summer, I decided that I was going to transform myself, my life.

It was going to be a new start for me. That summer alley, dropped a bunch of weight, grew her hair long. I started wearing makeup. And when school started up again that fall, I didn't even look like I did when I was in grade school, you know, or middle school. What did you do? Well, I started hanging out with the older crowd. The, you know, juniors and seniors, so they didn't even know who I was. People had asked what color I was.

I was white. What color are your parents? They're white, you know. And if anyone asks, what can we meet your parents? Well, she's gone on business. Oh, my dad, he works a lot. You know, great. I have two hardworking white parents, and you're never going to meet them.

She came home at night and she said, I had a wonderful day at school. And I said, you did us? That's nice to hear somebody that's black telling me that, and she said, I told you I wasn't going as black. I didn't talk to my sister very much either. Just because every time I would talk to her, I'd have to explain who she was. Carlotta would be telling her friends and pointing at Allie saying, that's my sister. And Ali'd be telling her friends, that's not my sister.

This girl's crazy, you know, don't believe nothing she's saying. Whenever Allie's new friends did run into her sister, they picked on her, they tormented her. Teased and throw things at you. Same way they once brought up. picked on Allie. You know, calling her the N-word. Nobody likes you. Black people are dirty. You're dirty. But did I dare say anything about it? No way. Actually, Ali would lead a lot of the teasing. Yes. She would help them out.

I'd mock her to you. Making fun of me could make her popular, then she would do it. But she would make you cry at school. Well, sure, she would. I saw her cry so many times, and I stood and did nothing. And she wonders why we're not close now. And you don't forget things like that. You don't forget who made your life miserable. She hated high school. She would never go back if you paid her.

And then you have me. I loved it. I had all these friends and I really felt like everybody loved me. Granted, I don't know how good of friends they were because, you know, in a different situation they probably wouldn't have. But I didn't care. I didn't care how they liked to me. I just cared that they liked me.

And still this day, Allie, is that rotten little child inside. And I love her to death, I do. But still inside, she's still that little insecure child that wants to be friends with the popular crowd. After high school, Allie moved across town. She lives in Pikes in. It's on the other side of Waverly? Yeah, it's on the other side of Waverly.

Into a predominantly white neighborhood. Carlotta stayed in East Jackson, and she stayed black. To be honest, the way I feel about that, it really doesn't. bother me one way or the other. It bothers my mom more than it bothers me. Oh, yes. Ali says it comes up whenever she brings a friend over to her mom's house. As soon as they walk in the door, the very first question out of her mouth, is did

Ali tell you she was black? If she brings a guy or a friend, I tell him we're Negro. I want them to know what we are. I do. I'll call her to the site or whatever, and I'm like, do you have to do this every time? Well, what? You're ashamed of us now? I am not ashamed of anybody, but I am not black.

You know? I am white. Stop doing that. As much as Allie and Clarice argue, they're actually pretty close. Mommy's on the phone, kids. Come here. Nessie? Clarency takes care of Ali's kids a lot. Come here. Mommy's on the phone. They speak on the phone every day.

Caleb wants to talk. Come here, Caleb. Come here, baby. This is Vanessa. Here, take this. Talk to Mommy. Mommy. Mommy. And that's Caleb. These are Ali's two children. Now, Ali's two children. Now, Ali's two children, they'll cry if you tell them that they're a Negro.

Caleb believes that he's white. He's got blonde hair. Blonde hair, and, you know, he's really pale like me. And when you say, excuse me, you know, you're black, he will cry and say, no, I'm not either. I'm white. And she's like, you just ruin those kids. Why don't you want them to be proud of where they came from?

I said, I told him he has black in his family, but he is not black. When I got married, my husband knew beforehand what he was getting into. He lived in Waverly, and he knew she lived in East Jackson. I came from a black community. He'd met my family and said that that was fine with him. And the further we got into our marriage, the more I could see him becoming more and more racist. So they split up, but he still had the right to see his kids. And during one of the visits, I ever heard a conversation that, he was having with Caleb and daddy joined a new group and he wanted Caleb to join it.

He said, you can't right now, but when you get bigger, Daddy's going to introduce you to him. And he said, we get to wear white hats and sheets and we get to beat people up. And I walk in the room and I'm like, what are you talking about? And he goes, oh, I didn't tell you about that. And there was nothing I could do about it. You know, he had visitations on the weekend. Caleb would come back and he would say the god-awfulest things. He would tell my mom, you're a nigger.

You're a nigger, Grandma. We were sitting there one day, and I don't remember exactly. It was a black show on TV that we were watching. I'm thinking it was a Tyler Perry movie. But anyway, Caleb came up to me and he said, Grandma, you're a nigger. I said, no, honey, I'm not a nigger. I'm a nigger. And he said, no, you're a nigger.

I said, who told you to say? say that, Caleb. He said, well, my dad said he's going to get to KKK and come up here and what he's going to do. And I said, my son saying that in a community where people are all black, that doesn't give him much of a fighting chance. Finally, he stopped

saying it. Thank God he was young enough to where it could be stopped. But Caleb is definitely a mini-mea of Ali. Ali's sister Carlotta. I mean, honestly, he acts just like her. and

Lanesa, and even though she's only two years old she'll go around telling you all time, I'm black, I'm black. So I think, you know, that will be another Al-A-Carlada situation as they're growing up. They kind of want more for my family. I'm not going to see why I let them be treated

the way my sister was treated. They don't deserve that. So as long as I can pass for white, I go by white. Sometimes I thought about moving away, but I love my mom so much and I could never leave her but in the event that something ever happens to my mom

me and my kids will pack up and we will leave the state and we won't come back and I will no longer be associated with this area with East Jackson it'll all be just a blur I mean I want out now but I can't leave her

She knows that, I told her. When you're gone, I'm gone. Producer Lou O'Kalski. That story was sponsored by Ohio's Hill Country Heritage Area and made possible with funding from the Ohio Humanities Council. I also want to give a huge thanks to the radio show State of the Reunion, hosted by the brilliant Al Letson. State of the Reunion initially broadcast a version of the story,

which just won a big award. They're an amazing show. We should definitely check them out. State of the Reunion.com. I'm Chad Abumrod. I'm Robert Krilwich. Thanks for listening.