[MD-AtLarge] Homework for Tomorrow Night's Meeting

[nfbmd]

Hello All!

 

President Marguerite Woods gave us homework! Please read the article below
so that we can discuss it tomorrow.  Don't sit on the sidelines! 

Thanks. 

 

 

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. 

 

You can read more in my Book at
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/831366 

 

 

 

 

Sharon Maneki, Director of Legislation and Advocacy

National Federation of the Blind of Maryland

410-715-9596

 

The National Federation of the Blind of Maryland knows that blindness is not
the characteristic that defines you or your future. Every day we raise the
expectations of blind people, because low expectations create obstacles
between blind people and our dreams. You can live the life you want;
blindness is not what holds you back.

 

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