“May I ask, what is your response to learning that you’re related to the Franklins?”
“Honestly, I’m a little confused, and I tend to be a clear thinker. You know, my father used to talk so badly about those Franklins. He did it constantly, sometimes right to their faces. He had absolutely no respect for them. Called them white trash. Said they didn’t have the gumption to make their own way and that’s why they needed to lie about having a right to Wood Place. And here his own mother was a Franklin! No wonder they were so angry. Not that it excuses their behavior. There’s never an excuse for membership in the Klan or for murder.”
“Do you think Meema—Eliza Two Freeman—knew about the Franklins’ relationship to your father’s family?
“If she did, she never spoke about it in front of me. But Meema never spoke about her relationship to Big Thom, either. She never said a thing about his father and hers being half brothers. My mother is the one who told me. It was a long time before I even knew that Meema originally had been a Pinchard. My mother said the old lady took the last name Freeman right after the Civil War. Meema didn’t say much, but when she did speak, she was a very direct person. A straight shooter, as they say. My mother said Meema was furious when Pearl was born looking just like Big Thom. Said my mother had shamed the family. Pearl even had blond hair as a little girl, before it darkened. There was a real social stigma placed on Negro women engaging in those sorts of relationships; they were seen as consorting with the enemy, but my father didn’t seem to care about stigmas on either side. He even bought her a wedding band, and she wore it until she died. My mother wasn’t demonstrative with him, but he appeared to be very devoted to her.”
“Dr. Hargrace, do you mind telling me one of your earliest memories?”
“I do remember my mother’s funeral quite vividly, because my father tried to throw himself into the coffin!”
“Really?”
“Oh yes! And it was shocking, even for me, and I was a little boy. You know, white people don’t usually carry on at funerals like we Negroes do. Big Thom had been well behaved at the church service. Nobody was going to tell him, it wasn’t seemly for him to be there, back in 1918, and holding the hands of his two Negro children. I tried to pull away from him, but he wouldn’t let me go. And then, when we got to the cemetery out on the farm, he broke down, good-fashion. His face turned red and he started jumping around and flapping his arms. He kept screaming, ‘Don’t leave me, Lil’ May! Don’t leave me, honey!’ I thought he was about to die, too, so I started crying, and then my father ran toward the coffin. It took six grown Negroes to hold him back, right before he fainted. Oh, they talked about that for a while! How a grown white man had acted more colored than anybody else at a Negro homegoing.”
“Do you remember anything else?”
“Nothing special. We lived on the farm and there were animals and a big garden and there were cotton fields. Things like that. And when I was a little boy, they started planting soybeans so the soil wouldn’t give out.”
“And what about your . . . your unique interracial family situation?”
More of his laughter.
“Oh, we’re calling it that! Well, my white father kept his promise to my Negro mother and took care of my sister and me. Pearl was eighteen when my mother died, and so she took over raising me. And my father provided the financial support. He bought all our clothes. He kept us in the house on his land that my mother had lived in. Miss Rose still lives in that same house. And he let us keep the beautiful furniture he gave my mother. I have some of it in my own house. Before my sister was born, there wasn’t even a school for Negro children in town. Big Thom paid for the supplies for that school. I guess he called himself being a nice, white man doing that! And after he passed away, my brother, Tommy Jr., paid. My father sent me to Routledge College, and when he died, Tommy Jr. continued to pay for my education all through graduate school. Tommy bought me my first car. He put money in the bank for me. He even came north for my marriage to Olivia, and I lied to her family that he was Negro, though he didn’t look it. At the reception, he took out his NAACP membership card and showed it around. I must say, that blew my mind!”
“What was your relationship to your brother? Was it close?”
“Not really, though he was crazy about Pearl. And he seemed to be fine with having Negro siblings. Maybe because he had grown up with my mother. She’d been his nanny for a few years. He didn’t remember his own mother, of course. She had died when he was only a few days old.”