It’s the autumn of 1984. I am four years old. My father has tickets for us both to see whomever the University of Alabama is playing that game. The site is the Old Grey Lady of Greymont Avenue, the so-called Football Capital of the South, Legion Field. That precise slogan is emblazoned across the bridge of the upper deck. The venerable old stadium has seen better days, a paint job from dark green to battleship grey, and before the University will eventually greatly expand its own on-site stadium capacity, it plays its marquee regular season games in Birmingham.
Legion Field was once a predominately white, working class area peopled by those who made steel on their day jobs, living in the Ensley neighborhood that surrounds the stadium. In time, white flight drove White Americans towards the surrounding suburbs and Black Americans moved inside the now vacated property. The area becomes rough, crime ridden, sketchy. But the University, for now, retains its games there, particularly when it plays the always competitive and memorable rivalry with the University of Tennessee.
An uneasy truce exists between White and Black, smoothed over by Black residents who know they can collect quite a bit of money by parking cars from their more affluent racial metropolitan neighbors by housing them temporarily in their own front yards, back yards, and driveways. They madly wave towels and white t-shirts advertising their prices. Somehow the system works. Somehow slightly over 80,000 cars find themselves parked surrounding the stadium as wave after wave of fans file their way into the gates and takes their seats.
I admit that, up until now, I have lived a sheltered life. I have not lived among many Black people in the whole of my life. The northern suburb where I live is lily-white. Seeing so many Black faces surround me, I begin to panic, unsure of how to respond. My father comes up with the most brilliant response of all time. “Kevin,” he said, lowering himself down to my level to look me in the eye, “I want you to know that they’re just as afraid of you as you are of them.”
And I’ve taken this as a valuable life lesson, particularly with our latest round of racial upheaval and discord. I have no doubt that Derek Chauvin was deathly afraid of George Floyd, just as George Floyd was deathly afraid of Derek Chauvin. But I’m going to go out on a line here and say something controversial, words I have heard from conservatives, but not from well-meaning liberals. Though trigger-happy policemen are commonplace, there is far too much Black on Black crime in this country. You don’t have to be a fearful four-year-old boy as I once was to pick up on it. The inner city core of the small city where I live is one of the most violent municipalities in the country.
And through modest gentrification (itself a problem in and of itself) has reversed some of that grime and poverty, most of the city of Birmingham remains a dangerous place, particularly after dark. The Quaker Meeting that is my house of worship has been broken into on more than one instance. Nothing was taken, because we own little of value, but we are greatly thankful for a new fire station that was built directly next to our property. When, planning on conducting a morning group, I accidentally triggered the burglar alarm. A uniformed police officer was on site within five minutes. Myself and the person in charge of organizing found that deeply comforting and highly vigilant on the officer’s part.
This post is not meant to pose some great scheme to fix a very complicated problem. I’m not wise enough to figure it out on my own even if I could. But I do know that we are still afraid of each other, perhaps for related reasons, perhaps for our very own. The anger and hostility, no matter how justified it might be, regardless from which it stems, is very real.
I’ll tell you another brief anecdote. At the time, I was living in the District of Columbia. Finding a place to park, for those of you who have ever lived there, is next to impossible. Doing so often requires a visit to the local police station, where a temporary pass printed on paper will need to be filled out and displayed on the car’s front window. After stumbling around helplessly, as I am famous for having absolutely no sense of direction, I asked a Black man driving a garbage truck where I could find the police station. He took my inquiry as a great insult. To him, I was implying that African-Americans had no business being in the affluent area of town in which I lived.
I relay that story not to blame or shame him or anyone of his racial makeup, but to show how easy it is for perceived racial animosity to be taken at face value. I did so as a little child. He did so as an adult. We were both wrong. And if we can honestly risk being taken wrongly, even for greater growth, there is no telling what benefit we might reap.
To conclude as I began, as for Legion Field, its lasting legacy is up in the air. The University of Alabama has not played a single game there since 2003. Lasting alumni complaints about the dangerous atmosphere around the stadium led the university to expand capacity at its on-campus stadium and play all of its games in Tuscaloosa. The University of Alabama at Birmingham played its home games at Legion Field until last season. This season, a brand new stadium with half the capacity, but four times the hopes and wishes will open for next season’s games.
Despite its historic nature, Legion Field has seen its best days come and go. Legendary players like Joe Namath, Kenny Stabler, Archie Manning, Bo Jackson, Pat Sullivan, Ozzy Newsome, many more, and, moreover, the most legendary college football coach of all, Paul “Bear” Bryant, once trod across its surface on many game days. It is sad to see how decrepit and run-down the venue is today. And why? I say again, a slightly different way this time.
We’re just as scared of them as they are of us.