Real-Life Story #4––BLACK SAVIOR (1955).

Another "Chicago" story, AGE 11, from my memoir, "TWEVE DEAD FROGS AND OTHER STORIES. It's about the potential of big-city racism, & not becoming so. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0777FHXX2

BLACK SAVIOR (1955)

My mother once cautioned me around the age of eleven about traveling too far from home in Chicago, saying that three missing boys had just turned up naked and dead in a ditch, and that she didn’t want that to happen to me. I told her that it had nothing to do with me or my life. I didn’t want my freedom encroached upon, even at the risk of death, I guess. I needed my space to emotionally survive and I fought for it.

One day my friend Mack and I (read more about us two pre-teen kids in posting “Blue Toilet Fire”) got the bright idea to ride our bikes all the way to downtown Chicago from our South Side district. The trip was about eight miles in total. So we made our way from my 49th street house toward the lower-numbered blocks, pedaling our bikes along Lake Michigan’s waterfront parks. At one point, our journey required that we lift our bikes over a short fence along Lake Shore Drive and frantically run through a tunnel, heaving our bikes back to safety on the other side. We had to get off the roadway before we were met by on-coming traffic (at 50+ miles per hour). For some reason this didn’t seem like an impassable obstacle at the time. Of course if we had tripped or fallen at any point during our mad dash to the other end of the tunnel, we would have either been struck by a car or caused a massive traffic jam.

(Picture of me below—at age 9-10 range––at work on my Lionel train set. Took me 6 months just to save up enough $ for an expensive switch!)

Traveling farther along Lake Michigan, we rode through the small parks that lay along then coast. Everything went smoothly until we entered a grassy area somewhere around 30th street. As I pedaled casually along I started to spot a few kids hiding behind trees. Then suddenly I heard a callout, and we were attacked by a gang of young black kids, who ran toward us from almost every direction. We were completely surrounded and outnumbered, and no matter how hard we pedaled we couldn’t outrace the large net they cast. They blocked us on all sides, and we were brought to a halt. At that point, the leader, a taller kid with a pockmarked face, demanded our money. And when we didn’t immediately cough it up, he hit my buddy Mack in the face to make his point. I watched Mack tumbled backwards over his bike and figured I was next. So I reached into my pocket, grabbed all the change my fingers could encircle – at least three dollar’s worth in pennies, dimes, a few quarters – and threw it out in a fan, as far and wide as I could.

The attackers immediately left our side, fighting among themselves as they dove to the ground, rummaged around, snatching up whatever coins they could find. This was our big chance to escape. But Mack was having problems getting up from under his bike and I was worried he wouldn’t get himself ready to ride in time. Suddenly I heard a loud voice from about fifty feet off, yelling something like, “Stop!” I looked up just in time to see a young black man, well dress like a college kid might be (maybe he was 19-years-old), approaching with an angry face.

“Hey, you kids!” he yelled; “Get away from there and stop bothering those white boys!” The gang members hesitated until this bigger man jogged over, dispelling them in all directions.
“You two go home now ,” he ordered, and as soon as Mack brushed himself off we began pedaling hard, without hesitation, back toward 49th street.

I’m glad to recall this incident. That young man deserves a lot of credit, for making sure at least two South Side White kids didn’t become affected by the “we-good/them-bad” racist nature of that city. There were obviously good and bad people on each side, and this just reinforced that fact. Previously, some bad White kids in local gangs had tried to (1) beat me up, and (2) steal from me (a thief talked me into “loaning” my roller skates). These two stories are told in TWELVE DEAD FROGS. Anyway, this is an important event in my young life that hasn’t faded.