Negro Nights

Every Monday, Friday Saturday at dark it was Negro Night in Independence, KS. Surely, you jest. They were the same thing in Independence not that long ago. Martin Luther King led no marches and Malcolm X still carried the smell of prison. Jackie Robinson and Adam Clayton Powell just started to stir things up on the social scene.

Monday kicked off the week music, dancing and roller-skating. Every Monday, the local skating arena threw open its doors to allow the town's Negroes a chance to whip around a real roller rink. I didn't go until I became a teenager, but I remember a constant A dust storm floated constantly just outside the doors, as cars and people stirred the coco-like dirt into a fine brown mist that coated everything and everybody.

I couldn't skate worth a damn, but I was always good for a few laughs and a guarantee that no girls would even tiptoe past my friends or me. Lois Kennedy with her fine self usually came from Pittsburg with her mean-ass brother, "Tough." Sylvia Williams and Janie Page came up from Coffeyville and always drew a crowd of young men. Carl Carter could skate circles around everyone including Buford Simpson, one of the best athletes in town.

We'd leave the rink around 9 pm and head to the American Legion on the corner Earl and Birch Streets. The "Legion" as we called it, was shotgun building longer than it was wide, but we didn't care because there was music and dancing.

Usually, I held up a wall watching Velma Jean swing to Ike and Tina Turner's "I Idolize You." That was my best move besides dropping a nickel in the jukebox, because I had two left feet and couldn't dance a lick. Occasionally, Linda Anderson had mercy on me and dragged me out on the dance floor, but no one else wanted to put themselves in harm's way.

Mr. Bob ran a tight ship, but that didn’t stop us from having a good time. After I tired of lusting after the tall and shapely Rosemary Knighten, I usually wandered outside where a guaranteed argument awaited. The characters changed often, but argument stayed the same as every Monday night eventually the conversation switched to boxing and who was the greatest fighter of all time. Usually, it was the young versus the old who, no matter what name came up, always said it was Joe Louis.

Everybody came from Coffeyville, Parsons, Cherryvale and Pittsburg. The Lyons brothers, Donnie and Eddie, would be there, The Joker, Helen Jean, Linda Anderson, Carol Sue Pruitt, Riley Cartwright, Brownie, Jimmy Mac and crazy Lloyd Beatty from Pittsburg. Lloyd usually brought the "Gold Dust" twins, Netty and Betty with him. Carver Briley usually found his way to "The Legion" about the time the argument died down, went straight inside and onto the dance floor.

The Legion wasn't a great place, it wasn't even a good place, but it was something to do on Monday night especially seeing that Monday Night Football hadn't started yet. After that, black Friday hit the calendar and the Negroes hit the water at what was then Independence High School where the cement pond opened to Negroes after white folks swam in it all week long. I only have vague memories of it, but my elders assured me it happened.

When the lights went out at ten, it was "everyone out of the pool." After everyone vacated, they drained the pool and filled it with fresh water for Monday when the whites used it until the next Friday. It wasn't an ideal arrangement, but we couldn't swim at the public pool at Riverside Park and the shallow pools around felt like dunking cookies in hot tea. Plenty of swimming holes surrounded the town, but taking a swim in any of them could lead to trouble.

Saturday night brought out everyone when the Independence Civic Center opened its doors to Negroes young and old. On Saturday night at the Civic Center, there was pool, cards and dancing. For the athletically inclined, there was basketball, badminton and ping-pong. Generally, it was a fun filled night, but trouble always comes when it's least expected. In 1954, the world shook for every white person in the United States when the historic Brown vs. The Board of Education effectively ended segregation in the United States of America.

Led by later Supreme Court judge Thurgood Marshal, the ruling less than 200 miles from  Independence in Topeka, KS not only changed old ways across the country, it signaled a new day for all. Negro nights continued about a year after that, but strong action by black leaders in Independence guaranteed those nights disappeared. Of course, some folks didn't take to it willingly, but they quickly found out that the old Negro vanished almost overnight replaced by black men and women out of the mood for bullshit. Soon, the nighttime belonged to everyone, but it took a lot of hard work and cooperation.