Dr. Chris Gilmer
I never once heard him complain.
My paternal grandfather, “Papaw” as I called him, worked hard, married the love of his life, reared three sons, and died owning the small farm where he toiled most of his life and where I spent the formative moments of my childhood. Sun up to sun down, aged seven to 70, he plowed, and then he plowed some more. We ate bountifully the products of his labor, never hungry, although always poor. While my maternal grandparents never owned the land they farmed, my uncle still lives on that little patch of native soil that Papaw left him.
Like the song writer Jewel says: “I am the product of such sacrifice. I am the accumulation of the dreams of generations, and their stories live in me like holy water.” I cannot write, read, hear, or sing those words without tears forming in my eyes because, better than any other explanation of my being that I have ever heard, she gets me.
Papaw and all the others gave everything so that I could have something, so that I could in his estimation be something more than he was, so that I could earn the right to provide for the next generation. Make no mistake, the right to make sacrifices for others is still an honor, and families are still giving all they have to lift up their children.
Why, I ask, as a society can we not lift up our children together when there is more than enough to sustain and to nurture all of them? Why must only some of them enjoy the promise and the bounty of the American dream?
Why must some of them be deported, racially profiled, even murdered based on their skin color and their heritage? Why must some of them be bullied and vilified for their gender or sexual orientation? Why must females grow up with the reality that they will likely be paid less than males for doing the same job, and in many cases for doing it better? Why must some continue to live in poverty while others live in more than abundance in a nation where wealth is so unevenly and unfairly distributed?
Why have we as a nation forgotten the fundamental lessons Papaw taught me while we hoed weeds away from tomato and butterbean plants in the garden or fished for our supper?
“Son, you are good as anybody, but better than nobody. You are good enough to do anything, but there’s nothing you are too good to do. It’s your duty to give everything you have and everything you are to make a way for those who will come after you. Really, it’s that simple.”
He did not teach me to make a way for some of those who come after me. He did not teach me that people who have more money are more important or that it is acceptable for me to take what I need with no regard for the needs of others. He did not teach me to assume superiority or dominion over people who look different, who are born of different heritage, or who believe differently than I do. When there were extra vegetables in the garden, as there often were, he invited the neighbors to come and harvest them free of charge. During the fall when he conjured enormous pumpkins out of the ground, he never expected any child to pay for the one of his, her, or their choosing. He only wanted their smile in return. He understood that he was a custodian of the land for a generation, that he did not truly own it, and that its bounty was not his to withhold.
Generosity, both generosity with possessions and generosity of spirit, is a simple lesson to teach and to learn, and one I do not see taught, learned, or practiced often enough right now.
Papaw asked my grandmother, Mamaw Sarah, a high school graduate, to teach him the capital cities of every state. This he did so that he could teach them to me, and we rehearsed every capital from Bismark to Augusta, over and over again, while we milked the cow, picked the strawberries, or repaired the tractor. A practical man much more inclined to hard work than to dreaming, Papaw nurtured one primary dream for as long as I knew him: that his only grandson would be the first person in his family to go to college and that he would grow up to be President of the United States.
He and Mamaw gave me a calf when I was born, and we reared that calf and its progeny to pay my tuition at East Central Junior College. In May of 1985 before he died in November of that year, he shed tears as he watched me walk across the stage a college graduate, a first-generation student literally willed into existence by my family that did not even know the meaning of that term. I will not fulfill the rest of his dream as President of the United States, but I have thus far had the distinct privilege to serve as president of two colleges. I believe this would be enough to please him. Later, my sister became a college graduate as well and an elementary school teacher. Daily, I attempt to live his value of investing all that I am and all that I have into underserved, under-represented, often overlooked and unheard students, both first-generation students like me and those who are marginalized for other prejudicial reasons.
Papaw was a product of the segregated South and born into a racial system that he did not fully understand and that I can never accept. He was taught that wives should submit to their husbands and women should not aspire beyond their homes, although he treated my grandmother with the utmost respect. Like many others, he struggled to resolve the conflicting realities surrounding him, and I do not suggest he was a prefect man. I do claim that he was a good man who tried to find a better way for his family to live and for all the families around him. I was 20 years old when he died, still not fully aware that I would mature into a member of the LGBTQ+ community, and I am sure this reality would have been one more struggle for Papaw had he confronted it.
I believe, however, that his unconditional love and hope for me would have overcome the ignorance and hatred modeled by many in his society. If Carlton Eddie Gilmer could be a champion of equality, an advocate for social justice and for first-generation students in another time and place despite all that he had to overcome and all of the prejudice that was taught to him, how can anyone in the year 2025 still persecute any other person for simply being different?
From Sacramento, California to Jackson, Mississippi, and everywhere between, why can we not hear and honor the voices of the elders calling us all to sacrifice rather than to judge? They are watching, and I believe they are disappointed by so much of what they see.
Dr. Chris Gilmer is Vice President for Strategic Initiatives and Social Justice and Professor of English at Tougaloo College.
