My senior year at Scituate High School was a great year for me. I was the assistant drum major for our marching band and after 3 years we finally placed in the top 3 in our last marching band competition. We came in second and Jeanie and I placed 2 among the drum majors. I made District in chorus and just missed All-States by 2 points. I struggled with sight-reading. And I got to sing one of the most challenging songs I have ever sung with my classmate Sarah. It was from the first ever black opera “Porgy and Bess” which featured some of the greatest actors like Sidney Poitier, Dorothy Dandridge, Sammy Davis Jr., Pearl Bailey, Harry Belafonte, and Lena Horne. Without the sacrifice of these great actors, there would be no Denzel Washington, Morgan Freeman, Viola Davis, or Halle Berry. The song we sang was “Bess You is My Woman Now.” If you want to know what a challenge that song was, look it up on YouTube. We got two standing ovations. That year Sarah won the top music award, and I won the most improved singer award. It was a great night because my family was there.
We were a graduating class of over 400 students. I was a “C” student at best. But the value of the education I got from going to Scituate was more than the lessons I learned in the classroom. It was about a young inner-city kid who went to a rural school with all the biases he carried with him, and he was excepted for who he was. The people of Scituate during the hard times of race relationships in the seventies opened their hearts and their homes to me, and I didn’t understand the impact of that until I was older. I am not saying there weren’t challenges or that I didn’t experience racism because I did. I remember once a parent told me, “Charles, I like you. You are not like all the rest. I just have one rule, and it is no dating outside your race. Black stays with Black and White stays with White.” Before you get upset please know that I heard the same thing from Black people (Not my mother).
I could fixate on the few incidents when I write these dignity messages, but that would be a disingenuous recollection of my time in Scituate. When my mother made that decision so that we could avoid the turmoil that was happening in Boston with force bussing. She gave her three sons the opportunity to travel on a road to success. It took me a long time to recognize that because I was more focused on the harm than on the overwhelming love I received.
This is my last post on my time in Scituate. If I had the opportunity to speak to all my friends and teachers from grades six to twelve I would say thank you for the love and the opportunity to be the best version of me I could be and to say that as I look back today on my past you truly had the gift of honoring dignity and you worked hard to help me honor mine.
I lift you up today and always by continuing to do what you taught me, and my mother taught me like the tide I want to uplift all boats.
Forever a Scituate Sailor and forever the son to Phyllis and Wayne King.
Charles Redd
Dignity Freedom Fighter
Dignity Freedom Fighter 