Working for an education

I thought that it would be appropriate and of interest to relate some of the jobs my dad and others of his generation had to endure to attend school and at times support a family.
A dear friend of mine, Izzy Hall who I called my second dad, was an attorney He told me the story of how he worked all summer in Atlantic City as a waiter and had accumulated enough money for tuition for another year at Indiana University. He had secured his money in a handkerchief and stuffed it safely in his hip pocket. Part of the trip back to Indiana was a ferry ride from Cape May, N.J. to Lewes, De. It was a beautiful day and he had gone up to the upper deck to stand at the rail and watch the receding shore and the gulls circling and screeching in the wake of the boat. All of a sudden he had to sneeze and automatically reached in his hip pocket and grabbed his handkerchief, as it unfurled, out flew his entire summer earnings, bills swirling out into the bay. He said that only God’s hand kept him from jumping overboard into the bay after the money. The hard summer of toil of about five hundred dollars, gone
One of my friends dad attended Meharry and between classes worked on an ice/coal truck
And when he graduated, his son relates that his photograph in the class picture had him sporting a string tie. He told his father that the tie was really hip since no one else had one on and his father replied “ that wasn’t a tie, it was my shoe lace”
Many of our fathers had jobs on trains as Pullman porter’s crisscrossing the country working the servile jobs of serving poor tipping whites. These jobs were demeaning and they were all called “George”; the indignity that they were all the same colored boy, not men, to whites, no matter their age or education. There was a truism that there were more Black lawyers working on trains and in the post office than in private practice during the 20’s,30’s and 40’s.
My dad worked as a bell hop in Atlantic City besides carrying bags, he secured bootleg liquor and women for the guest at the hotel where he worked. He even would stock some moonshine then hide it in the hotel basement, so he didn’t have to leave, and save empty pint bottles filling them from his supply to sell to his clients.
Later he was able to get a job on “chicken bone beach” as a doctor at the lifeguard station because Dr Richard Fowler, a black physician, had some political pull. By the way Dr Fowler delivered me.
Very few Black physicians could afford to get more than an internship after medical school because there were few opportunities for residency and the stipends were pitiful $15 to $50/ month. Most had delayed marriage and those that had, felt they owed their family’s a comfortable life.
Most of the men I refer to were the first of their families to get an education past grade school. Those who did only had their blessings because they certainly couldn’t help financially. As I write this, I can only admire these men who tread a path for their children to follow, certainly not smooth but imprinted with footsteps for us to follow and succeed.