Two Ropes

The title, Two Ropes, refers to my profound recollection of two ropes hanging on two different trees in two separate towns in Florida during my childhood. The older of the two ropes was the one dangling from a big limb of a large mulberry tree in Mulberry, Florida. I first saw that rope when my father pointed it out to me as we passed by it on the way to go fishing early one morning. As he pointed to the rope, he explained that it was the rope used by the KKK to hang a young Negro male because he allegedly wolf-whistled toward a white woman. Many years after the hanging, the rope was still in place, dangling from the limb of the relatively well-known “Hanging Tree” of Mulberry. It was left there to remind Negro people, especially males, to stay in their place—or else.

Old movies often showed a White male using a wolf whistle to show that he noticed a pretty White girl. In real life, a Negro male of any age doing the same thing before 1955 with a White woman nearby could mean a death sentence. Showing us that rope and telling us young Negro males the history of the hangings was my dad’s way of teaching us “survival skills” in the land of the Ku Klux Klan land. I saw that rope on the hanging tree many times over ten to fifteen years, until the tree and the rope disappeared as a result of decay or urban development.

The second rope hung over a large limb of an oak tree in Plant City, Florida. The tree was on the property of Russell Brown, a Caucasian friend of my dad (as much of a friendship was possible between Negro and White people in those days—roughly 1950 to 1984). Russell was a junior high school student that my father befriended when they met at the all-White public school, Tomlin Jr. High, where my dad somehow got a job as a handyman and janitor. He was the only non-Caucasian person at the school. His relatively unique and positive status—derived from having that job along with his respected church position in the Negro community—put him in a place to help a lot of kids (White and Black) become more than they otherwise would have been if they hadn’t met him (including me).

While still a junior high student, Russell got a part-time job at Mr. Ellis’s Sinclair Gas and Service Station on the corner of Baker and Wheeler Street, not far from Tomlin Junior High School (also known as the School Farm). Mr. Ellis’s gas station was where my dad routinely refueled the school’s truck and had it serviced. Most of the School Farm staff, including the boss, Mr. Nifong, had their cars serviced at that service station, which was within walking distance of the school.

Russell had been having some behavior problems in school and was sent to my dad to be put to work as punishment. After meeting my dad, he settled down, stayed out of trouble, finished school, and joined the US Marine Corp. After serving in the corps, he came back to town and went to work full time at the station. When Mr. Ellis decided to retire, he gave Russell the opportunity to purchase the business, and Russell accepted the offer. My dad worked with Russell part-time to help him get off to a good start. The ownership changed, but the customers stayed loyal to the station. After a few years, the customers became more loyal to Russell. He always worked hard for each customer and charged them only as much as necessary.

On one occasion, Russell had to remove an engine from a car to make repairs, but he didn’t have the proper equipment. He and my dad came up with an idea borrowed from shade-tree mechanic skills: throw a large hemp rope over a strong limb of an oak tree on the service station property. They attached an affordable pulley system to the rope, which enabled them to pull the engine from the car. However, they decided to remove the engine the following morning, because they finished setting up the pulley system late in the evening, and Dad had a previous engagement.

Dad told Russell he would come by the station early the following morning to help remove the engine. But Dad died suddenly and unexpectedly at age sixty-three that night in 1982 and never made in back to the station. It appears that he died from an asymptomatic and undetected cardiac problem.

Dad’s death was a shock because he looked and behaved like a healthy forty-eight-year-old man. His funeral was held at his church, Mt. Olive AME, located deep in the Negro community in the Dark Town section. The church was packed, and the funeral was attended by mostly Negroes, as expected, plus Russell and many other White friends of my dad, including Mr. Bud Nifong, Dad’s boss. It was rare to see White people on the Negro side of the train tracks unless they were with a Ku Klux Klan rally or there to pick up field workers to harvest their crops.

For many years after my dad’s death and long after Russell procured better equipment for removing car engines than the rope and pulley, Russell left the rope dangling in place on the old oak. He said it reminded him of his friend, my dad, and made him feel that he was still close by.