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Friends United Meeting |
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September 1997
The Opposite of Fear Is Love:An Interview with George Sawyer
By Frances L. Peacock
"The only way we can achieve righteousness and justice is to love each other, no matter what."
And for George Sawyer, a Friend from Richmond, Indiana, actions show love-not words. Through action, George has worked hard to promote integration. George Sawyer feels that the integration of races and cultures will bring people to understand and truly love each other-the scriptures show him that this is God's plan.George has spent most of his life placing himself in uncomfortable situations in order to bring justice and peace to his community.
He was born in Kokomo, Indiana, the same city that in 1923 enthusiastically installed D.C. Stephenson as Indiana's "Grand Dragon" of the Ku Klux Klan. By 1925, the year George was born, one third of Indiana's white, Protestant, American-born men and women were members of the Klan. And-according to William Lutholtz's book, Grand Dragon. (Lafayette: Purdue University Press, 1991)-many recruiters anparticipants of this hate group included religious leaders from Methodist churches, Christian churches, and the Religious Society of Friends.
"Most people think that the opposite of love is hate. I don't. I think the opposite of love is fear. Fear keeps us from loving."
When George was about seven-he remembers this clearly-two young African American men in Marion, Indiana, were lynched. They were accused of raping a white woman. Hot tar was poured over their bodies, feathers were tossed and then these men, in desperate pain but still alive, were roped to railroad ties and dragged up and down Main Street until they were dead.
These African-American men were lynched because they were African-American men, and "due process of law" didn't include them."It was a good while before I began to love white people. The realities of my every day life made it difficult for me to love; easy to hate."
When George was in fourth grade, his family moved to Anderson, Indiana. On George's first day of school, a schoolmate sneered him: "Nigger," he said. George immediately punched the boy and a fight ensued; George's brother had to pull him off the boy.
"I whipped him!"
In 1940 George and his father, an active Republican, were on their way to Elwood, Indiana, to attend a rally for Wendell Wilkie, the Republican presidential candidate. When they arrived at Elwood that morning before the convention, they saw two road signs posted at the city limits: "Niggers, read this and run. If you can't read, run anyhow," and "Nigger, don't let the sun set on you in Elwood."
George's father turned the car around and drove back to Anderson. And from then on, he was a Democrat.
"The average white person doesn't realize the state of hopelessness that goes with being an African American."
How did George's parents, both Pentecostal preachers, prepare their eight sons and four daughters for life in this world? They taught them the value of hard work, but most importantly, George says, his parents instilled in them a strong faith in God and belief in the devil.
For George's parents, worship was a part of every day, and Sunday was totally devoted to God and worship. Wednesday nights, George's parents held a Bible study in their home; both earnestly preached to George, his siblings, and everyone else who entered their home. All church and home services included the call at worship's close for people to dedicate their lives to Christ.
"'Open the doors of the church-tonight's the time, so do be wise,' was the call, sung over and over and over again. It scared the hell out of me. Mamma's preaching scared the hell out of me. I joined the Marine Corps to get away from it."
In 1942, George and a friend, Aaron J. Hodgkin, enlisted in the United States Marines. They traveled together from Richmond, Indiana, to Washington, DC, where, after signing on as enlisted men, they boarded a train-nationalized because of the war-and sat in one of the cars with a group of African-American men. Before the train took off, a corporal came through the car and said as he kept walking:
"You people got to move to the Jim Crow car."
The "Jim Crow" car was the designated spot for African Americans; it was the car directly behind the locomotive. The young men ignored the order, and a few minutes later a sergeant walked through, hollering,"You people got to move to the Jim Crow car!"
They didn't. Then a lieutenant came through with the same message-the men sat still. Finally, a major came in, stopped, and said,"Move up to the Jim Crow car right now, or you'll all go to jail when we get to North Carolina."
The African-American men slowly got up and, sadly, moved. These men, volunteers, were on the way to serving their country as United States Marines, in the Jim Crow car.
"Hard-headedness and faith kept us going. I learned early to trust in God's plan. I know a song that says 'Suffering is a part of living. Further along we'll know more about it. We'll understand it all, by and by.'"
George decided he wanted to be a lawyer while he was in the service. But he stuttered badly, so when he was discharged he avoided college even though the G.I. bill would pay for it. Finally his family, and a dangerous job as a mold maker, convinced him to get his education. He chose Earlham. George said he was treated well at Earlham; he was constantly encouraged by people like Arthur Funston, Landrum Bolling, Claude Stinneford, Undine Dunn, and Orville Johnson.
And Earlham introduced him to the Society of Friends: when George was a freshman he was invited to join a student work camp going to a poor neighborhood in Indianapolis.
"The cost was $5.00. It was a lot of money, but I decided to go. I was amazed by the amount of work those Earlham students did-and they paid to do it! I came back from that camp with blisters on my hands and a good feeling in my heart."
Yet, the Earlham community certainly wasn't perfect; George found racism and prejudice there as well. He remembers a Caucasian boy and African-American girl who dated exclusively. The Earlham constituency disapproved, threatened to withdraw funding, and demanded that one of the two leave campus or neither would graduate. So it was arranged for the young man to move to a house across the street.
That worked: technically, one of them was off campus....After Earlham, George enrolled in law school at Howard University in Washington, DC. Despite frustrating struggles with different kinds of racism, he persevered and graduated in 1953. Immediately after graduation, George studied for and passed the bar exam in Indianapolis, and then went straight to the law office of Cornelius Roscoe Richardson in Richmond, Indiana.
C.R. Richardson had been a great support to George while he was at Howard, and soon, George was drawn to working on cases involving the civil rights movement.
"Mr. Richardson called me the 'Leader of the Uplift Movement.' When I first came to town with my law degree I walked straight to Main Street with my law book. I walked into the first restaurant l came to. I sat in a booth.
'I would like to be served,' I told the waitress. She answered, 'George, you know I can't serve you and walked away, back behind the counter.í"
George didn't get up and leave. He continued to sit in the booth at the front of this restaurant with his big, thick book of law. Minutes passed and nothing happened. Finally, the manager came over to him. "George, why are you doing this to me? Go some place else, please, before I have to throw you out!" he said. But George told him, "You'd better serve me, this book says you must. I can file a lawsuit and shut you down if you don't."
So George was served. When he finished eating, he got up, paid for his dinner, and walked down Main into the next eating establishment. By the end of that day George Sawyer had eaten in every "whites only" eating establishment on Main Street.
"The Bible says 'Serve the Lord in fear and trembling' and on that day I did! I was scared to death, but I knew I couldn't let that stop me."
Years later, George moved his family into an all-white neighborhood. The seller of the house received threats because of it, and George's family did as well. One morning when George went outside, he discovered that someone had painted the word "Nigger" all over the front of his house; whoever it was also threatened to blow up his house. He immediately got his family out.
"I called the mayor, Corky Cordell, and told him 'We might have a problem,' and I explained what was going on. He answered, 'We aren't gonna have that,' and arranged for the chief of police and three officers to meet him at my house right away. They searched for a bomb everywhere, even up on the roof, but found nothing. Then my phone rang: 'You'd better get more policemen,' the voice said, and the line went dead."
Without even having to ask, George got help. The Earlham community joined together; neighbors lined their cars in front of George's home and a group of African American students arrived to stand guard with shotguns.
"We don't need that," George told them, but they stayed anyway. The community organized a housewatch, and the days passed quietly. Eventually, George felt it was safe for his family to move back home.
"When you follow the leading of the Spirit, you can't do a bad job."
George Sawyer used his career to fight segregation, racism, and prejudice. Because of this, people of all races eat together in Richmond restaurants, they roller skate together at our skating rink, they bowl and swim and worship together. Students at the high school play in sports together, serve on committees and participate in clubs because George, and others, "served the Lord in fear and trembling."
"One of the beauties of my life is that I have gone through all of this."
While George was working for these rights, he faltered a time or two and made mistakes like all humans do. There were times he relied heavily on tobacco and alcohol. He failed as a husband and for a time, as a father. George eventually left Richmond and moved to Texas, where he felt the need for preaching like the preaching he'd been raised on, and was led to St. Luke's United Methodist Church. There he felt the call to become a pastor, attended divinity school in Fort Worth, and became an assistant pastor, responsible for bringing in new membership.
"When I started at St. Luke's, it had a population of 750 members and only one was Caucasian, but by the time my family came to get me a few years ago (because of poor health) the population of this church was 4500 and we had many white members."
Now back in Richmond, George Sawyer is seventy-two and, with the help of dialysis three days a week and much medicine, he is in stable but poor health. By the standards of this world, this retired lawyer and preacher should be enjoying a gracious retirement in a breezy Florida condominium. He should be spending lazy afternoons sipping herbal tea and lounging on a screened-in-porch full of cushiony, comfortable wicker furniture.
But George Sawyer doesn't have the time or the money for that. He says that despite his health problems he knows God isn't finished with him yet; he will keep pushing himself and others because he feels there is still so much work to be done.
"I think the world is tired of violence, but it's still a very violent place. We need to ask ourselves, 'What can I do to further peace?' We need to conquer our own fears, to go through the fear cycle in order to reach the comfort zone, which is harmony with Jesus. We need to keep pushing ourselves to integrate our neighborhoods. When African-Americans and Caucasians can sit at the table and sup together; when we are able, without fear, to intermarry; when we are able, without fear, to love each other, we will have succeeded. We need to love each other, no matter what."
Frances Peacock, along with husband Tom, and daughters, Bree and Melanie, attends West Richmond Friends, Indiana Yearly Meeting. Frances recently received her masters degree in English and is teaching at Ivy Tech State College in Richmond, Indiana.
Copyright 1997, Friends United Meeting
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