[Home-on-the-Range] From the blind history Lady

[Emily Schlenker]

Written by Peggy Chong
(The Blind History Lady)
February, 2019

 
Dear Blind History Lady Fans;

I meant to post this earlier but it has been a busy time for The Blind History Lady. I was in Washington D. C and Baltimore on a Data Dig to locate additional data of our blind ancestors. I had the opportunity to speak at the NFB Central Maryland Chapter while I was out there. It was great fun.

February is Black History month, time to honor the accomplishments of the too-often overlooked black Americans, especially the black and blind. The discrimination a black/blind man faced 100 years ago brings up many questions to ponder. How much was a black man valued in white society? Was a black man privileged or more respected because he was blind? Was he less of a threat? Was he more of a pet?

Today I have a story of a black, blind man, an example of a life that highlighted the paradoxical stereotypes that conflicted the racism and blatant discrimination in our country against the black and the disabled, especially in the South.

Our subject left no papers, letters or autobiography to shed light on his thoughts. Those who wrote about him during his life and indeed after, give us a prickly look at the mindset of the times they were written in. Those who have looked back at his life, try to understand and define the discrimination vs privileges he was given. I find that his life is one of contrasting extremes. 

I hope after you read this, you will go onto the super highway and read more about him. Talk about him with your friends and contemporaries.

Jim Ivy aka “Blind Jim” was born in 1872, the son of a former slave. They moved to Oxford Mississippi when he was a child. Jim grew up with little education. He worked hard from his early teens. When about 20 years old, he was blinded when coal tar paint got into his eyes while helping to build the Tallahatchie River Bridge.

Jim had a strong, booming voice. After he went blind, he went to work singing in the streets and selling peanuts. White passers-by would often harass the blind beggar as they passed him. It was not until he came onto campus of Ole Miss in 1896 during a baseball game against the University of Texas State when he began cheering on the Ole Miss team with his loud booming voice. According to those at that game and as the legend proclaims, it was the loud and happy cheers of the blind peanut vendor for the home team that spurred them on from far behind to win. Blind Jim was hailed as the good luck charm for the team. He sold all of his peanuts that day and the next.

From then on, his primary sales territory was the campus. Jim proclaimed himself the Dean of Freshmen and each year, he spoke to the incoming class to, as he said, keep them out of trouble. 
Jim soon became the “mascot” for the school. He let pep rallies before games. He said he attended every football game from 1896 until he retired in the 1950’s and never saw them lose. When he stepped up onto the platform of the dignitaries at home games, he sat in the middle of the stage amongst the white people. He sat in the stands with the white students during games. The only black man to do so. Yet, when he traveled with the school to attend games, he had to stay in the hotel for the colored and eat at establishments for the colored.

There were no black students on campus during Blind Jim’s lifetime. There were only black staff working as janitors or kitchen help. On a normal day at the school, Jim ate with the colored staff, not the white staff or students.

A tradition began in 1923 by a salesman from the Schwartz Tailoring Company. Jim’s clothes were tattered. The tailor who came on campus to fit the classmen for their new suit thought it was a disgrace the condition of the peanut vendor’s clothes when the students were dressed in style. The salesman gave up his commission and collected additional funds from the students to make Jim a brown suit. After that year, the Freshmen class took up a collection for a new suit for their “Dean”.

Students were appointed from the freshman class to lead “Blind Jim” around campus each year. By 1950, he had been led by three generations of families.

On more than one occasion when the school contracted with food service vendors that would exclude Blind Jim from selling his peanuts on campus, students made such a ruckus that the contracts were amended to allow Jim to sell on campus. Eventually, he even got an inside stand to sell his candy and nuts.

A column in the Ole Miss newsletter “As Blind Jim Sees It” appeared frequently. Family members believe that Jim did have input into the column. Blind Jim also liked a good joke. He helped freshmen play tricks on each other. He actively partook in jokes that challenged racial lines. There are photographs of Blind Jim, sitting at a desk in a faculty member’s office with his feet on top the desk. Many thought such photo’s were funny at that time. Had a black janitor had such a picture taken, the consequences might have been severe.

All of Jim’s lifetime, he heard of the lynching of many black men who “did not know their place”. Some were public spectacles with crowds of 500 or more where the press showed up to cover and photograph the drawn out torture and murder of young black men. One such man was L. Q. Ivy who may have been a relative of Jim’s. No one was ever arrested even though photos appeared in local papers clearly showing faces of those actively participating and those in the crowd. How did these events effect Jim’s relationship with those on campus?

During the depression, Blind Jim was endanger of losing his shanty that he had built. A local newspaper shamed the Ole Miss students and staff into helping Jim pay off the loan for his little home. The money was raised in time, but most of the funds came from one alumnus who lived out of state and read it in the newspaper from home.

When Jim died in 1955, his body was brought back to Oxford for two funerals at the Second Baptist Church. One was for the white people from the community and Ole Miss who knew the peanut vendor. This funeral lasted just over a half hour. Then the funeral for the black. Many of Jim’s extended family, church members and others from the black community attended to celebrate his life.

For us as blind people, does fears of blindness trump racial discrimination? Did Blind Jim bring about racial understanding? Was he viewed as a “Good Darkie” by the whites? Did he change the views of those on campus about the blind or the black? We can debate this all month. Indeed, those who have written about Blind Jim debate and come to diverse conclusions. If we could talk to Jim Ivy today, would he tell us he was just trying to get by the only way he could? 

Let me know what you think of the life of Blind Jim.

Sent from my iPhone