A journal entry from George Swanson Starling


From the journal of George Swanson Starling – dated 1939-1940




I must find a way to get back to school.  My rage blinded me and now my decision to marry Inez has backfired.  Big George has turned my own actions against me and now he has a public excuse to not send me back to school.  How dare he constrain me to a life of poverty and racism because it is the only life he has ever known.  I know better things are out there; I know that I am worth more than the amount of cotton I can pick, or more accurately, feign to pick in a day.
I can no longer accept the rules that nobody bothered to explain to me as a child.  I accepted these ridiculous social rules as normal because I had no other choice.  The caste system here in Florida is not up for debate, it is just viewed as the way life is.  If I didn’t give up my place in line for ice cream at the pharmacy whenever a white person showed up, I knew violence was in store for me – the only question of the matter was if I would die or not. 
The possibility of death over an ice cream cone is absurd but all too true.  I watched as members of the black community in my town were murdered repeatedly – without consequence and for the entertainment of the other white folks.  How tragic it is, to live in a world where mothers and fathers must punish their own children for any misbehavior, no matter how small, so that they learn young to not act out in order to avoid being lynched.  Worse, our word carries no weight.  Even if we did nothing wrong no jury would believe us (if we ever lasted long enough to get to the trial). 
 So I put my head down and worked, but what good did that do me?  Big George fought me the whole way; he saw time spent at college as time squandered that could’ve and should’ve been spent earning good money in the fields.  But as a land laborer, I have no power because whatever the white man in charge says goes.  I know I can be more than what my father is and what my town funnels me to become.  I’m going to find a way to save money to finish school on my own.  I know my education will be my ticket to freedom.  Let my town and my family criticize me all they want.  I’ve heard of the wonders and splendors up North and I know I can live a better life.  I will not be restricted by the racism that dominates my home even though it has been decades since the Emancipation Proclamation.  I will escape.  Now to figure out what to do about Inez…


George.

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