Ernest Young grew up in East Texas during the segregation era, and even as a young boy, the 62-year-old Holualoa resident said he knew something wasn’t right.
Ernest Young grew up in East Texas during the segregation era, and even as a young boy, the 62-year-old Holualoa resident said he knew something wasn’t right.
Trying to understand the differences between the races and the reasons behind the relations, Young often asked his father, “Why?” and “What’s wrong with us?” He was confused by the unfair treatment, the social order and the invisible line drawn to separate blacks from whites. He came from a mixed family. His maternal grandfather was Irish and Cherokee while his paternal grandfather was Caddo and African.
Young recalled his first lesson of segregation at age 10. When his family arrived early at the movie theatre for their typical Saturday outing, his father suggested they go to a nearby restaurant and grab a bite to eat. The restaurant’s menu had hot dogs and the family decide to go inside. When Young excitedly grabbed the knob and began to pull the front door open, his father instantly grabbed his wrist and sternly explained that they had to go to the back. The experience of going to another entrance, walking down a hallway and sitting in a separate dining area made Young feel terrible.
Another turning point happened three years later, when Young was a paper boy for a weekly newspaper. Besides delivering the publication on foot, he was tasked with selling it. He recalled the day a lady went “berserk” when answering her front door and finding him there. She yelled repeatedly at him, wanting to why he was there. He tried to explain, but she was angry. Then finally, she blurted out that he couldn’t be at her front door and needed to “go to the back as the other blacks do.” Young walked away.
For most of his childhood, Young said he wanted to move, believing there had to be a place better than East Texas. Like many in the nation, he was “shocked” at age 13 when the assassination of President John F. Kennedy was announced during his music class at Central High School. He believed Kennedy was “a good president who was working to wrong the rights,” and felt the then-outlook for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. seemed dangerous.
Talk around Young’s house sometimes centered on the dreams and hopes of integration. His father shared his worries for King, the Baptist minister from Alabama and the driving force behind ridding the nation of racial segregation and discrimination. Using love, God and nonviolence were the cornerstones of King’s messages.
King’s assassination in 1968 was a blow for Young, but he said “all hope was not lost.” Young, then 18, pledged to do his best as a human being. What Young admired most about King was his unbounded courage and how things could be accomplished without bloodshed and violence. Young said King gave him the courage to always do what was right.
Young is part of the approximately 12-member, all-volunteer Martin Luther King Jr. Birthday Committee. For 32 years, West Hawaii residents have organized a free annual community celebration, aimed at helping the public understand who King was, why he’s important, and to not take the civil rights movement for granted. Young stressed that there are still people today struggling, and the public must still try to live out King’s message of working for the freedoms we are promised as Americans, including all men are created equal.
The first gathering of about 15 people was organized by the late Kona resident Frank Bramlett, two years before Reagan signed the bill making King’s birthday a national holiday. He felt it was of utmost importance that Big Island residents and visitors had an event to reflect on King ‘s legacy of hope and inspiration that continues today. The event has grown throughout the years, particularly through the help of Mami Bramlett, Virginia Halliday and Kathy Simmons.
King is best remembered for the Montgomery bus boycott in 1955; the 1957 Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which organized marches for blacks’ right to vote, desegregation and labor laws; and the Great March on Washington in 1963 where he gave his “I Have a Dream” speech. King was also committed to ending poverty and speaking out against the Vietnam War.
President Ronald Reagan sanctioned Martin Luther King Jr. Day as a federal holiday in 1983. King’s birthday is Jan. 15, but the federal holiday bearing his name is always observed on the third Monday in January, also when many schools nationwide are closed for classes.
This year’s celebration begins at noon Sunday, Jan. 20, at Old Kona Airport Park’s Makaeo Events Pavilion. There will be live entertainment, personal reflections, songs, dance performances, art display, prayer and poetry. Young, a retired National Park Service interpretive ranger, is the keynote speaker, and he will deliver King’s “Give us the Ballot” speech. A potluck will happen afterwards, and those interested in participating should bring a dish to share.
For more information about this event, call Simmons at 325-5252 or Halliday at 325-1112.