Mr. Brown, Meet Mr. Smalls

I Don't Want Nobody to Give Me Nothing (Open Up the Door, I'll Get It Myself), Part I, by James Brown.

I've been living in Thailand long enough to know my way around a few things. Early on I visited a lot of schools out in the rice fields. Taught a lot of classes out there, too. I learned a lot about the teachers and the students.

There was one school in particular that I liked a lot, and even after I had moved to Bangkok I would visit that little school in the rice field every year or two. It was a school for grades K through 6, and there were children that I had known all the way from grade 1 or 2 to grade 6. There were a few that I knew to be very intelligent children, based on clear evidence in lessons that I had taught their classes, but you'd never know it just to see what they had learned in eight years at that school (Thailand's system features two years of Kindergarten). They hadn't learned anything, because no one really cared. They were just going to be farmers anyway.

I am reminded of those children thinking of Mr. Brown and Mr. Smalls.

Robert Smalls was born a slave, so educating him was forbidden by law. He turned out to be a highly intelligent man in spite of that omission in his youth. He made himself a hero in the Civil War, and a self-educated hero to the entire American nation thereafter. It's a great story. You can look it up.

James Brown was born in Georgia. It seems that he was put in the position of raising himself from an early age. It is apparent that he had a hardscrabble childhood, to say the very least. He also turned out to be a highly intelligent man, and he made himself a success by sheer force of will.

I hope that some of those really bright Thai children found ways to rise above people's expectations the way that these two men did.

Here's what Robert Smalls had written on his tombstone:

“My race needs no special defense, for the past history of them in this country proves them to be the equal of any people anywhere. All they need is an equal chance in the battle of life.”

Ain't it the truth! I've been saying it on this blog for more than ten years now. Anyone can win a poker game with a Full House, Queens over Tens. It takes a special talent to hang in the game all night if your best hand was Aces and Eights, and usually you were lucky to pull a low pair. Black Americans have shown incredible resilience, talent, energy, and resourcefulness, and they get precious little recognition for their accomplishments.

The above song proves that James Brown and Robert Smalls were on the same page regarding black Americans. Just even up that playing field, and we'll be fine.

Mr. Smalls had to take many life-threatening chances to build his eventual success. He was a man who would not take “no” for an answer. He stood up, repeatedly, and does anyone doubt that he faced severe opposition? Mr. Brown had to face a lot of the old Jim Crow, and a lot of patronizing from people that he wouldn't let shine his shoes (I'm sure that he was very particular about who shined his shoes). What they shared was the deep conviction that they were as good as anybody, whatever anybody else said or thought.

And they were right.

May they both rest in peace, and never be forgotten.