Compared to today, the 1950s were snail-like in news dissemination.
Before sunrise, the Savannah Morning News skidded on the sidewalk, with damp-from-dew St. Augustine grass acting as a backstop at 111 W. Orange St. During daylight hours, WBGR had a noon newscast. Since we lived in the back of the funeral home, the “Mortuary Hour”—which lasted 10 minutes, maybe—was the most-listened-to broadcast. I can still hear Glenn Thomas Jr.’s baritone voice on the AM station.
And if you rotated the antenna just right, you might get 30 minutes of news on one of three TV channels—two in Savannah, the other in Jacksonville. That is, if Harvey Stuckey had waved his magic repairman’s wand over our 19-inch Majestic black-and-white TV. My sisters and I always pleaded, “Please, Mr. Stuckey, you have to fix it. Daddy won’t buy another.” And until Matlock and Wheel of Fortune emerged decades later, Big Dink could have lived without a TV.
I wasn’t intentionally sheltered in Southeast Georgia. I was just absorbed in a simple, Mayberry-like life: Orange Street Elementary School, First Baptist Church, Little League, Boy Scouts and outdoor stuff, such as riding my bike with buddies to skinny-dip in the Black Hole. Starting with my dad in the 1930s, three generations of NeSmith boys splashed in that secret-but-not-so-secret blackwater swimming hole.
The world was changing. But I was living inside an idyllic “bubble.” The Russians scared us into the Space Age with Sputnik, but I was oblivious to the mounting civil-rights movement with Rosa Parks, Dr. Martin Luther King, John Lewis and others.
I knew there were black schools and white schools, but as a preteen, that’s all I had ever known. We didn’t have a maid, so separate bathrooms—as dramatized in the movie The Help—weren’t an issue in our tiny apartment. Mother scrubbed our floors and even ironed my dad’s boxers.
And I knew Big Dink embalmed bodies for Tom Johnson, who owned Royal Funeral Home, the community’s black mortuary. Years later, I learned Mr. Johnson didn’t have an embalmer’s license. I figured my dad was just helping a friend. And he was.
By 1960, my eyes started to see things outside my bubble. For 35 cents an hour, I did more than pump gas at Pope’s Texaco. There were no leaf blowers. I swept the concrete apron, every day, with a push broom. And I sanitized three restrooms: ladies, men’s and colored.
Up until that point, I hadn’t thought about a third restroom. I doubt many other white 12-year-olds had, either. Ignorance isn’t a good excuse. But not knowing did make it easier to be complacent about the racial divide. After more than a half-century, we’ve made huge strides. But we are not there, not yet.
On MLK Day, I woke up thinking about Danny Stephens, who integrated Wayne County Junior High in 1965. It was relatively peaceful for everyone, except Danny, who endured taunting and bullying.
The next year, I graduated from the county’s last non-integrated, non-consolidated high school. In the fall of 1966, Wayne County Training School, Odum High and Screven High were merged with Wayne County High School in Jesup.
Fast-forward to 1998.
Danny Stephens was knocking on my door. My dad had just died, and he came to give his condolences. Danny said some very nice things. And then he talked about his breaking another color barrier in the late 1970s. I had hired him as a photographer for our newspaper.
I never thought of that, either. I had offered the job because Danny was interested and qualified.
But during our visit 20 years later, Danny told me about the suspicions that he had caused. He had to explain to the police why he was in a “white” neighborhood taking pictures. He was on assignment, taking photos for real estate ads.
Now it’s 2026.
News doesn’t creep anymore. It pulsates, 24-7.
We’ve come a long way since the 1950s.
But we’re not there, not yet.
dnesmith@cninewspapers.com
