Virgal Tyrone Woolfolk, Lynne Jackson
Editor’s note: Virgal Tyrone Woolfolk is a St. Louis-based award-winning author who just released “
Among other things, the book chronicles his time working with his family’s boarding house to welcome Black baseball players in town to play the Cardinals as well as big-name Black entertainers, who becasue of their race could not stay at the “Whites Only” hotels.
Woolfolk’s book just came out in January and already it has won an award. He will receive the “Ella Dickey Literacy Award” at the Missouri Cherry Blossom Festival in Marshfield, Missouri in April.
This is an essay he wrote for STL Sports Page for “Black History Month.”
I wrote a book to help younger generations know what it was like during segregation
By Virgal Tyrone Woolfolk
Every February the media does special stories for Black History Month. How did it get started? It’s origin goes back to 1926 started by historian Carter G. Woodson and was called “Negro History Week.” The purpose was to promote the study of African American contributors to history and expanded to a month in 1976.
Why February? The month coincides with the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln, Feb. 12; and Frederick Douglass, Feb. 14.
President Gerald Ford officially recognized “Black History Month” urging Americans to “seize the opportunity to honor the too-often neglected accomplishments of Black Americans in every area of endeavor throughout our history.”
I am honored to know Lynne Jackson, the Executive Director of the Dred Scott Heritage Foundation. Lynne M. Jackson, is a descendant of Dred Scot and also the Negro Leagues Baseball star Oscar Charleston. She works every day to keep our history alive, and you can see what she does on her website: DredScottLives.org.
Black History Month is celebrated in Missouri (sort of) —despite its history and ongoing challenges with systemic racism—primarily because it serves as a crucial, state-sanctioned initiative to educate the public, acknowledge past atrocities, and celebrate the significant contributions of Black Americans to the state and nation.
Black History is “American History,” especially here in Missouri. My ancestors have been here in Missouri from time beginning through the Cherokee Nation.
My great grandmother on my mother side was full Cherokee. My great-grandfather (6X) traveled with Daniel Boone across the country, to the Salt Lake City region. He was a free Black until all the lands south of the Missouri River were declared to allow slaves.
On my father side, we are not only Black but German Jews. My ancestors on my father side were slaves near what is now Moscow Mills. There was a revolt and the slaves killed the slave owners. All the adult males and females were murdered and their children sold to folks in St Louis. That is why we have cousins who spell their names either being “Woolfolk”, Woolfork, Wolfolk, or Wolfork.
I wrote my book to tell one family’s story, but that story is really of many Black families. I tried to write the book as if I was telling the story of my life to my grandchildren.
I am also writing for those poor kids living in America who see their friends living in better houses, wearing the coolest clothes, or going on big family vacations.
I remember meeting members of the casts of the Brady Bunch – Susan Olsen (Cindy Brady) and Eve Plumb (Jan Brady), and saying the only time we went on a vacation in the summertime, was when they went on vacation.
They both said they heard that many times from fans. But unlike many children growing up on J Road, we never went hungry and to quote Stevie Wonder, “never were our clothes dirty.” My grandchildren, the youngest at one year old has flown on vacation to Hawaii. He has his own bedroom, television and bed. He has learned how to swim and is attending preschool and he is not even two. He had a toy car that he can drive around his house or yard. And he is one year old!
My oldest granddaughter is 33 years old is in the medical field, and a member of MENSA. All of them, I am proud to say, are productive citizens. But I don’t think they realize that only a few generations ago, people like me grew up in a house with one bedroom with an outside well and outdoor toilets.
Do the kids of today know Blacks my age may have attended a one-room schoolhouse with one teacher and over sixty kids–with no running water? The school had outdoor toilets and books that were old and had been written in by students decades earlier. This is all while the white kids who lived in the same area as me had nicer schools.
I grew up in a house no larger than my current garage with a living room, a kitchen and one bedroom, with my parents and seven siblings. Yet, in our household, compared to other families on J Road in Wright City, we were considered a “middle income family.”
Both my parents worked at good jobs. We had a television, piano, telephone, our flooring in our house was not dirt, we had electricity. We had property for a garden and kept livestock, we had a washing machine.
We had a Christmas tree at Christmas, and we shopped at Sears and J.C. Penny’s for new clothes at Christmas and Easter. We had clean clothes and our mom cooked We had Sunday dinner after church.
I want children and young adults to read my book, and for the parents of young children to read this book to them. Yes, sit down and read this book together.
Black History is not just something that should be mentioned in February, but we all—Black or white—should be passing down the stories of our childhoods so the future generations can learn from the bad and remember and continue the good.
Despite the world facing racial injustices, my mother made sure we had family time and responsibilities with chores. Those are good things to pass down through the generations. We need more of that today.
And likewise there were things that should never happen again and if we don’t talk about it then we run the risk of history repeating itself.
By reading books like mine about America during segregation, and specifically here in Missouri hopefully both children and young adults become better people. It is my hope that it fosters empathy or others, challenges stereotypes, and cultivates a deeper understanding of racial injustice.
Hopefully, they will see a part of themselves in “Tyrone” trying to grow up and the book will act as a “mirror and/or window,” allowing readers to see themselves, learn about different perspectives, and develop into informed, compassionate, and active allies.
By the grace of God, I hope my book has the same impact or greater that the great Stan Lee comics had on me. In my book I talk about the two most important things I read in my life: The Bible and Marvel Comics. That may sound like a stretch comparing the two, but they were both the moral compass of right and wrong I lived by. All those stories including, Spiderman, Daredevil and “The Thing” helped mold me and I’ll always remember Stan Lee for that reason.
Also, I wanted my book to encourage children to read. I hope it encourages them to learn; to think.
For maximum impact, caregivers (parents, other relatives, teachers) can use these books to initiate open, honest conversations about race, inequality, and the importance of treating everyone with dignity.
I had my good friend Father Bob Sampson pray over my book. I am not Catholic, but Father Bob and I are good friends. Father Bob prayed over my book that this book would be an “awaking.”
I pray that reading books like mine and opening dialogs about our history would cause us to be better people and a better nation. I hope so.
For information on my book: CLICK HERE.
