LEWISTON — Sixth-graders at Martel Elementary School were surprised during a Martin Luther King Jr. read-in Tuesday when civil rights activist James Reese, 93, walked into the classroom.

Sitting with students and their Bates College reading partners, Reese told them what his life was like before segregation was outlawed in 1964.

Reese and his wife, Neola, 89, came to Martel with their son, James Reese, an assistant dean at Bates College. Neola and Jim raised three children in Knoxville, Tennessee. The elder Reese met Dr. King in 1960 when he spoke at the college where Reese was chaplain.

Martel students asked: Did he see people arrested?

Yes.

Did he do any sit-ins?

A lot.

For six months in Knoxville, every morning from Monday through Friday, he and others met at a church for a prayer service. Then they were assigned a restaurant.

“You walk in, sit down at the counter and ask to be served,” Reese said. “No one served you. Sometimes you’d sit there two hours, sometimes five hours.”

He’d be harassed by whites, he said. “A guy walking by with a cigarette stuck it on my neck. Or somebody would walk by with a hat pin and stick you. That was a tough time.”

King insisted that civil rights workers not retaliate: There would be no violence. Not reacting was difficult, Reese said.

While he did sit-ins, his wife was home with three children. “I was scared,” Neola said. “It was a scary time.”

In that era blacks were banned from many public places, a practice society accepted, Reese told students. Blacks couldn’t use drinking fountains or bathrooms that had “Whites” signs. Blacks were banned from public libraries, restaurants and movie theaters.

After paying the fare and getting on a bus, blacks often had to move, or sometimes didn’t get to ride at all, Reese said. He’d get on the bus, head for the back only to find no seats in the black section. He’d get off at the back door and attempt to get back on.

If the bus driver was having a bad day, he drove off, Reese said. “He’s got your money and you’re standing in the street.”

As a boy he liked to read, but couldn’t check out a book in the library. A druggist in town gave him stacks of magazines that didn’t sell that month. “I learned to read well because of magazines.”

When going to a filling station, blacks were told they couldn’t use the men’s room. One time Reese told the station worker if he couldn’t use the men’s room he wouldn’t buy the gas. The white man said, “‘Nobody in town’s going to let you use it either.’ It was a long ride.”

Segregation meant people missed out on relationships. “They didn’t get to know me. I didn’t get to know them,” Reese said.

After the Civil Rights Movement and King’s “I Have a Dream” speech during the March on Washington in 1963, laws changed. Congress outlawed segregation in 1964.

“The day after the law changed, Dad said, ‘Come on. Get in the car. We’re going to McDonald’s,’” said the younger Reese, who was then 9.

He remembers watching his sister order food, “my father standing by the car, looking at this moment,” Reese said.

“All of the dreams and marches, to actually see it, it really meant a whole lot,” he said. It was the first time blacks could go to a restaurant “and be served like everybody else,” he said. “Our children would have a new life which had been denied to those of us who were older.”

Martel teacher Sue Whitney asked what message Reese wanted students to take with them.

What Martin Luther King Jr. said in his speech, Reese said: Do not judge people by the color of their skin.

He encouraged the sixth-graders to have a lot of friends who are different.

“You don’t want all your friends to be just like you. That’s a small package,” Reese said. Having a wide variety of friends “you will become much better.”

MLK read-in books given to Martel Elementary School by Bates students:

“Gone Crazy in Alabama,” by Rita Williams-Garcia

“P.S. Be Eleven,” by Rita Williams-Garcia

“Sonia Sotomayor: A Judge Grows in the Bronx,” by Jonah Winter

“Seeds of Change: Wangari’s Gift to the World,” by Jen Cullerton Johnson

“Nelson Mandela,” by Kadir Nelson

“Martin’s Big Words: The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.,” by Doreen Rappaport

“I Have a Dream,” words by MLK and illustrated by Kadir Nelson

About the ‘I Have a Dream’ speech

James Reese was a civil rights worker from Tennessee when Martin Luther King Jr. gave his “I Have a Dream” speech during the 1963 March on Washington.

“A lot of people wanted to go,” Reese said. “We don’t know how many people were there that day. The estimates go from 250,000 to 600,000. It was a lot of people.”

His favorite part was when King spoke. He was last because organizers “felt his speech was going to be the better speech. And it was. That was the good part.”

King gave 200 speeches a year. He moved people, Reese said. “People wanted to hear what he had to say. They felt their lives were made better by hearing him.”

One student asked if King always said the same thing.

No, but the message was consistent, Reese said.

“The section about ‘I Have a Dream,’ he had given that part a month before,” Reese said. During the March on Washington each speech couldn’t be longer than seven minutes.

“When he got down to five minutes, (Gospel singer) Mahalia (Jackson) said, “‘Martin, tell them about the dream.’ He switched from prepared text and started with his speech about the dream,” Reese said.

The power of his speech was that his words created a vision people could see. It motivated them to work for change, Reese said.

 

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