A Tale on Gloria Richardson - Historical Fiction by Jacquelyn Diggs

This story is unauthorized and contains facts about Gloria Richardson’s life obtained from Black Past.org, The Alabama Department of Archives and History, The New York Times, SNCC Digital, and NPR. The picture used for this segment came from the Associated Press. The dramatization comes from my imagination as a writer. The purpose is to engage people in positive black history and build pride and self-worth in the black community. We are an intelligent, enterprising community built on the strength of our black forefathers. We can thrive and be successful in a society that first tried to destroy us; then tolerated us. The dominant race is now trying to find a way to overcome its biases and embrace us and all people of color, sexuality, and backgrounds. Unfortunately, this is being done within a backdrop of people who still uphold privilege, racism, and inequality. Still, we rise.

I have always been a precocious kind of girl, bold, outspoken, and full of life. I guess it was passed down from my granddaddy, Herbert M. St. Clair. He was considered wealthy in the black community, and he was a property and business owner. He has several properties in the second ward of Cambridge, Maryland. In addition, he owned many businesses: a funeral parlor, a butcher shop, and a grocery store, to name a few. I remember helping out sometimes in these businesses as a child. My granddaddy always said, “In order for the colored man to get ahead, he has to make his way and be prepared to fight because it is not going to be given to him; and once he gets it, there will always be a white man looking for a way to take it away.” Sort of like the Black Wall Street and other thriving black communities where the people were murdered and the towns burned and or flooded to hide the fact they ever existed.

My grandfather would talk about the value of an education and saying it was an essential key to obtaining wealth and true freedom. Everyone respected him for his business acumen. He was the only black man to serve on the Cambridge City Council during the first half of the 20th century. It is funny how people don’t recognize or realize that blacks held government positions during the reformation. They were systematically pushed out as whites began to create the minstrels that characterized the black man as a fool. My parents and grandparents always said to watch the narrative painted about the community, via entertainment, the news, etc., because when it is negative, it is always propaganda that is used to perpetuate the image of the black man being ignorant, lazy, and a fool. I always wondered how people could characterize folks that came from slavery where you delivered a baby in the field while working and had to keep going, as lazy.

I was born Gloria St. Clair Hayes on May 6, 1922. My parents, John and Mable Hayes, moved us to Cambridge, MD, during the great depression (1929 - 1933) so that the family could continue to thrive. I was born into privilege. Not the type that white folks had, but I lived in a nice neighborhood, and I never wanted for anything. Despite living well, my parents always said, “Never think that you are better than the poorest black person. The measure of your character is who you can help out along the way.” I took that to heart, having friends from all social and economic backgrounds. I shared my books, my knowledge, and event tutored other kids growing up. I was doing my part to help the community, just like my family did by employing colored folks in our businesses. We hired them to help coloreds build wealth and care for their families financially.

I worked hard in school, and I was a leader; taking after my family. I was on the high school debate team and volunteered at the church, helping to give out meals to hungry families. Performing daycare services during church and listening to black leaders that came through the church to talk about protesting and organizing for freedom. My family always believed in nonviolent protest. However, my parents always told me never to be afraid of the white man when he comes calling with his guns. Better to go down fighting for what is yours than to take a bullet in the back running. That is the language that white folks respect and understand. They did not turn and run when England tried to take their freedom, they stood up and fought for what they felt was theirs, but it really belonged to the Indians that were here first. My family said that we did not ask to come here. Still, the blood, sweat, and tears our black forefathers sacrificed to help build white wealth should give us the same rights, equality, and privileges that any white man in America enjoys.

When I graduated from high school at age 16, everybody knew I was going to college. I was so happy to be accepted into Howard University. Thank God I didn’t have to pass the paper bag test when I went. Quiet as kept, the rumor was that they would not let you in if you did not pass the paper bag test at Howard University once upon a time. I am not sure if it is true. Still, if you look at the pictures for certain sororities and fraternities, there was undoubtedly a paper bag test for acceptance. At least according to an article written by Edward H. Taylor in the school newspaper in 1928.

Colorism definitely existed in the black community. Even in the educated segment, we still needed to overcome the impact of slavery, which caused colorism. How in the world colored folks think they are better because their skin is lighter is beyond me. In the minds of white folks, dark, medium, or light, even if you pass; when they find out you have a drop of colored blood running through your body, you are still called a nigger. In their minds, we are still nothing more than animals. On more than one occasion, my family has been threatened simply because we were colored folks with means. There was a reason why all my grandfather’s businesses and property holdings were in the second ward of Cambridge. Every time he tried to expand outside of their invisible line, somehow, the property which had a for sale sign on it was either under contract or just sold.

It was at Howard University that I really learned the proud heritage of being black. I learned about the African diaspora before slavery, during, and after. It seems that my grandfather was not the only man of color that had means, as there were many before him. Some of these men were highly educated, and others were not. However, there were many more than I ever dreamed of in my life. All of them subscribed to the same school of creating themselves and not accepting the label of poor, downtrodden, and lazy given to coloreds by whites.

Howard University is where I began my career in activism. It was 1938 when I protested at Woolworth’s with a group of students. From there, we protested against Peoples Drug Store for not hiring coloreds. We even protested against Howard University for the poor living conditions of the campus while I attended. As a sociology major at Howard University, I made it my business to study inequalities, not only economic disparities but also access to public services and health care. Unfortunately, this same lack of access killed my uncle and my granddaddy despite their wealth.

When you speak out against the American system or even produce art that talks about the gross injustices in America, you may even have to face the federal government. Just look at what they did to Billie Holiday for singing the song Strange Fruit. This song illustrated the barbaric practice of lynching colored people. If colored folk could only understand that fear of our greatness is what drives racists to commit such heinous acts like what happened to the poor boy Emitt Till a little over 10 years after I graduated from Howard University; then maybe we would begin to fight, instead of stepping and fetching for the establishment.

I graduated from Howard University in 1942 and worked for the Federal Government during WWII in Washington, D.C., before returning to my hometown of Cambridge. Unfortunately, even with my degree, I could not get a job with the Maryland Department of Social Services. For that matter, no colored social worker could gain employment there. So I worked in my family’s businesses until I met Harry Richarson, who turned out to be the man of my dreams at the time.

Harry Richardson and I were married in 1948, and I decided since I could not work in the field of my choice, we would survive off his salary as a local school teacher. For the next 13 years, I cleaned the house, cooked the meals, and raised the children. I raised my children to be proud, educated black people that stood up for justice. In 1961 the civil rights movement came to Cambridge, MD. My daughter Donna was a teenager by then, and like her mom, she wanted to fight for what she calls black people. She educated me that colored was no longer the accepted term for our folks and that the politically correct term was blacks.

It was during this time that Donna became involved in the SNCC, Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee. Their premise was to use nonviolent protest to desegregate public places. It made absolutely no sense that a black person could order carryout from your restaurant, but God forbid we come in and sit down to have a bite to eat. Now that group is out for non-violence, but I do not subscribe to that program. I am not about to sit there and allow someone to beat on me, spray me with hoses, point guns at me, and sit peacefully by. Despite my feelings, I supported my daughter and participated. The organization failed after a year. However, I gathered together a group of parents and created the Cambridge Nonviolent Action Committee (CNAC). This was the only adult-led SNCC affiliate in the history of the civil rights movement. As the result of my studies in sociology, the group’s mandate was expanded to include housing, employment, and healthcare discrimination, and I was selected as its leader.

Now, as you know, I don’t wholly subscribe to nonviolent protest. If I am peacefully protesting and you threaten my life, it is my right and my duty to protect myself. I also broadened the scope of the movement. The protest I led tended to be confrontational and violent when necessary. So fierce that during the 1963 protests, the Governor of Maryland called in the National Guard, and they stayed in place for almost a year. These protests also got the attention of Bobby Kennedy, who tried to broker a deal between the CNAC and white politicians. They called it “The Treaty of Cambridge,” but I never agreed to it. I believed that an agreement was never going to be reached because we would never be beaten, killed, and ridiculed without fighting back. To me, the only folks being asked to make significant concessions were the blacks. Those white folks had no intention of giving us anything.

Spearheading these protests resulted in threatening phone calls in the middle of the night, rocks thrown through the window, and a backlash on my husband at work. We were constantly in fear of being killed. This put a considerable strain on my marriage, and after two years of non-stop protesting, Harry and I called it quits and got a divorce in the late 1950s. During the protests, I met a man named Frank Dandridge, a freelance photographer who sometimes documented the events. We became fast friends, and it budded into a relationship after my divorce. We fell in love, got married in 1964, and moved to New York City with my younger daughter Tamara in tow.

I learned a lot during those protests. First, I realized that I was also fighting against the same folks I was trying to help. I had to fight them because they like Dr. King felt that you should turn the other cheek, even when you’re getting kicked in the teeth and, in some cases, killed. Despite the opposition from some of my own people, I recognized the results of an enslaved mind. So I continued to fight for my people on a less public stage. For seven years, I worked for the Harlem Youth Opportunities Unlimited. This was such a rewarding experience helping young black youth create and take advantage of opportunities that led to black wealth and empowerment. Finally settled at New York’s Department of Aging for the remainder of my working career.

My heart’s song will always be to help my people. Although I no longer participated in activism on the national level, I continued to keep abreast and talk to our people about black activism. I am so very proud of the young people spearheading the Black Lives Matter Organization. They are unapologetically black and ready to fight for their cause and defend their position. So many think that America has made a lot of progress, but I say it is still not enough. When interviewed by Mr. Fitzgerald for his book, I told him, “If everything else doesn’t work, then I think you should make it uncomfortable for them to exist. You have to be in their faces ’til it gets uncomfortable for politicians and corporate leaders to keep opposing activists’ demands.” In a word, fight until there is the same privilege for all. We must continue fighting and holding up a mirror and pushing against bigotry, inequality, hatred, and social and economic injustice.

During my hay day, I hung out with what some might call the radical crew. Like Adam Clayton Powell Jr., Fannie Lou Hamer, Louis Farrakhan, and Malcolm X., I even invited Malcolm to Cambridge. I was supposed to go to Africa with him and his group, but that was not meant to happen, as he was murdered. I was also countered by the likes of George Wallace, the racist governor of Alabama. Can you believe Alabama kept records on me saying I was active in civil disturbances and disseminated this information to the American Nazi Party and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference? I am not sure why they had these records on me. I guess if I kept pressing, they might have killed me like they did Brother Malcolm X. You never know. I always maintained connections with Cambridge, Maryland, because you can never forget where you come from. As I leave this world on July 15, 2021, I still hope and pray that my people will truly be free one day.

Thank you for listening to my story about Gloria Richardson. The next series will tell the story of 37 different towns like The Black Wall Street. You will see black excellence in motion and realize that blacks are intelligent, industrious, and enterprising people. One day we will all be proud people who celebrate our heritage. This will happen when we know who we are and do not subscribe to the barely making-it image America has painted about people of color. These images have been painted through propaganda, misinformation, and only showing blacks coming up the rough side of the mountain via slavery. I hope you enjoyed my story, and there are more to come. So please subscribe to my podcast and share it with others whom you think might enjoy my writing.