Swallowed Tears is a story of an African American family's courage and perseverance. This story is about one family but there were thousands of unknown individuals and families who daily put their lives on the line to end segregation. Dr. Dupuy H. Anderson was one of these individuals who persisted in spite of numerous threats to his life to change the city of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He was one of the many in Baton Rouge who fought for change. When the moment began in Baton Rouge, no one knew that the impact of the 1953 bus boycott would create universal hope for the rights of equality, justice and freedom. The leaders did not know that Martin Luther King, Jr. would use their model as a catalyst for the Civil Rights Movement. Yet, challenging oppression in the struggle for truth, justice and righteousness, Dr. Dupuy H. Anderson, one man, made a difference.

Swallowed Tears

A MemoirBy Freya Anderson Rivers

AuthorHouse

Copyright © 2012 Freya Anderson Rivers
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4772-1224-0

Contents

Prologue........................................1Negro Society...................................3Revolutionary...................................13Trouble Was Her Name............................26The Family......................................36Six Years Old...................................53Seven Years Old.................................58Eight Years Old.................................64Nine Years Old..................................67Ten Years Old...................................76Eleven and Twelve Years Old.....................88Revolutionary II................................97Trouble Again...................................111Ninth Grade.....................................117Tenth Grade.....................................135Junior Year.....................................144The Beginning...................................167Lee High Rebels.................................194HELL and Beyond.................................221LSU.............................................256Epilogue........................................263ME, Now.........................................266

Chapter One

Revolutionary

Malcolm X took the letter "X" as his last name to signify the African name he never knew and to rid himself of the slave master's name. Denouncing his last name was a protest against having to carry the name of the slave masters and their violence against enslaved African American women. Most African American genealogy began with enslavement followed by rape. Yes, RAPE! When someone owns you, there is no consent involved. You do as you are told or you die. That is the significance of the surname and a part of the African American heritage that we would prefer to forget.

Dupuy Henry Anderson, my father, kept the slave master's names but researched genealogical archives his entire life mailing his last computer printed copies to me on August 1998, ten months before his death. He was determined to find the family history to try to find the families of the perpetrators of injustice. He felt that knowing the past is critical to the future because the past is the foundation for the future. His past, or as much as documentation allows, began in 1806 at a "Public sale of 18 slaves imported from Africa" (ship name: Success). Unnamed: black "Brut" female; age 8; sold to Charles Duval in 1806 in Baton Rouge.

I'm still doing the research and so far I've found Duvall and Devall listed on both sides of Daddy's mother's family: Frozine Duval Cobbs (1859-1923), whose mother Creshy Henesboisn was raped by a white Duvall in West Baton Rouge Parish, and Charles Dupuy's grandmother, who was raped by a Devall in West Feliciana Parish. I don't know if they were related but I'm also scared to find out. Frozine and Charles Dupuy gave birth to Lillie Dupuy (Grandmother, January 18, 1896), Daddy's mother.

Daddy's father, Henry Andrew Anderson (Paw Paw) was listed as mulatto in the 1910 census, which means that he was of mixed heritage, born March 8, 1895. His mother Julia Bockel was the daughter of a white Prussian, Conrad Bockel, who raped his black servant, Margaret Bockel (1870 census). Julia married Henry R. Anderson, Paw Paw's father. His parents John Anderson and Sophy Washington listed themselves in the 1880 census as Black farmers in St. Francisville, West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana. Those Black Andersons in St. Francisville were well respected, not only as entrepreneurs but also for operating the power plant. One brother was the only operator of the plant. He would turn the power on and off daily for the entire area. Henry R. Anderson divorced or left Julia Bockel shortly after Paw Paw was two years old and married Emma George. He remained in contact with Paw Paw and left him his house and car when he died. So, my paternal great grandparents were mixed with whites and were considered mulattoes.

Henry Andrew Anderson (Paw Paw) and Lillie Dupuy (Grandmother) were married April 28, 1917 and had five children: Dupuy Henry Anderson (4/30/1918), my father, was the oldest of Lilburne (Lulu), Uncle Bobby, Uncle Cliff and Aunt Phrozine. Grandmother and Paw Paw lived with her father, Charlie Dupuy, until Lulu was born. After becoming a postman, which was considered a very good job for Blacks at that time because it was a federal job with a pension and benefits, Paw Paw moved his family to North Street in a white neighborhood close to downtown Baton Rouge.

Mixed neighborhoods were strange to other southern cities because most of the south had defined separate housing areas for whites and Blacks, but many of the Baton Rouge neighborhoods were mixed. The Anderson-Dupuy families desegregated North Street. There was Paw Paw and Grandmother's house facing North Street and behind them was Charlie Dupuy, Jr. (Grandmother's brother), who we called "Son." Behind him were NinNee (Grandmother's sister), her husband, Charles Washington and their family, and around the corner lived Aunt Francis Duval Gardette. She was grandmother and NinNee's aunt who lived with her husband, Willie Gardette. We called him Uncle Doo Doo. I don't know how he got that name, but he was one of the best stonemasons in the city who was often drunk because of the humiliation he had to endure. Recognition for his work and salary often went to his white supervisor as did any accomplishments of Negroes at that time. Black men rarely received credit for their work, which caused them to drink or seek other refuge to escape reality. That was the explanation given to us, the children, to explain his drinking.

NinNee's children were George, Sis, Margaret, Eunice, Corrine and Tutti who, living directly behind Grandmother, made up the Anderson-Dupuy-Washington extended family. Daddy played with his siblings and cousins. From eight to ten years of age Daddy and his cousin George also played with some of the white kids in the neighborhood who grew up to become influential political leaders. Daddy was the self-appointed head of the children in the family, and they all attest to the fact that he came into the world as a leader and dictator, albeit a benevolent one, with strong ethics and beliefs wanting everyone to be the best that they could in every situation to make the world a better place. He never let any of them settle for less than their maximum potential.

His siblings described him as headstrong, bull-headed and outright bossy. He knew what he wanted and set out early in life to try to right the wrongs. As a child Daddy wanted to join the Boy Scouts but there were no troops for Blacks. In his junior year of high school he was finally able to join Black Troop 547 organized and chartered by Mount Zion First Baptist Church. J. L. Kraft, football coach for McKinley, Baton Rouge's Black high school, was Troop 547's first Scout Master, but the Black troop could not buy uniforms or go to camp or any of the general gatherings. Daddy always talked about how disappointed he was in the Scouts for their discrimination and how denigrated he felt because of color.

Later, as a young adult working with other local leaders, he organized a fundraiser at the Temple Roof. The Temple was a Black theater downstairs and a social hall upstairs. The money was to purchase uniforms for all the boys in the troop, but even after the money was raised, they were still denied the privilege of purchasing the uniforms. At the time Daddy was working in the stock room at the downtown store, Welsh and Levy, where the uniforms...