Merritt D. Long - My View From the Back of the Bus

Praise For My View From the Back of the Bus

Merritt Longs tale belongs to all of us. This is not just personal memoir. This is a history of a country. It gripped me from the first word to the last. Engrossing. Poignant. And ultimately triumphant. When you wonder how people triumphed over adverse circumstances, look no further than Merritt Longs story. This book will educate, but it will also inspire. I hope everyone who is lucky enough to get their hands on a copy will read it.

Dolen Perkins-Valdez, author of Balm and The New York Times bestseller Wench

My View from the Back of the Bus is an inspiring and eloquent chronicle of a courageous journey through discrimination and inequality to the pinnacle of power and influence in Washington State government. Merritt successfully navigated through biases, political adversity, and outright hostility to break barriers for successive generations of people of color. Mesmerizing and powerfully written, My View was hard to put down!

Gary Locke, former Washington State Governor, former U.S. Secretary of Commerce, and former U.S. Ambassador to China

There is no higher calling than public service. Merritts journey from humble beginnings in the deep South during segregation and overt racism to leadership in Washington State government inspires us to do more, to do better. I am honored to recommend this book!

Chris Gregoire, former Washington State Governor, and former Washington State Attorney General

My View from the Back of the Bus tells one of the most significant stories of the last half century: how many African Americans successfully rose into the professional middle class (and beyond), overcoming many obstacles and challenges. It is a must read!

Congressman Denny Heck, Washington State 10 th Congressional District, author of Challenges and Opportunities (education), The Enemy You Know (fiction), and Lucky Bounce (biographical)

Longs book captures icons from the mid-20th centuryMartin Luther King, Jr., Muhammed Ali, Rosa Parks, Julian Bondwho not only shaped American history but a young man from Alabama. His education at HBCU (Historically Black Colleges and Universities) Morehouse College set the rock-solid foundation for the rest of his life.

Michael Lomax, Morehouse College classmate, President/CEO of the United Negro College Fund, and former President of Dillard University

Merritt, my Morehouse College classmate, Omega Psi Phi brother and good friend, has captured so vividly the powerful influences and motivations in his life which have propelled his outstanding and successful career. Chief among these influences were his days spent at Morehouse College during the turbulent 1960s, where he was imbued with the spirit and mystique of the Morehouse Man, and made to believe the words of our late Morehouse College President Benjamin E. Mays, who implored us: Whatever you do, strive to do it so well that no man living and no man dead and no man yet to be born could do it any better. Merritts life work clearly met Dr. Mays challenge, and his book shall serve as an inspiration to us all.

Thomas Sampson, Morehouse College classmate, Managing Partner of Thomas Kennedy Sampson & Tompkins LLP, the oldest minority-owned law firm in Georgia

First Edition

Copyright 2020 by Merritt D. Long and Marsha Tadano Long

All rights reserved

including the right of reproduction

in whole or in part in any form.

The description of events in this book is based on the authors recollections.

Certain names may have been changed.

Library of Congress Control Number: 2020923274

Paperback Edition ISBN: 978-1-7358711-0-3

Ebook ISBN: 978-1-7358711-1-0

Front and back cover photos by Nate Naismith

Author page photo by Cortney Kelley Photography

All photographs appear courtesy of the author and his family.

Photo restoration and retouching by Nate Naismith

Publisher: Merritt D. Long

120 State Avenue NE #1422

Olympia, WA 98501

Printed in the United States of America

By Gorham Printing, Centralia, WA

For my parents, Katie and Mack Long

I am who I am today because of their love and guidance.

For Marsha Tadano Long,

my best friend, girlfriend, and wife.

Always by my side, behind me, and in front of me, when needed.

Contents

PROLOGUE

Im the One

Im the one you called nigger with relish and glee.

Im the one you forced to use the Colored restroom in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Im the one who was so special that I had my own Colored water fountain.

Im the one who sat in the back of the bus even when there were vacant seats available...but those seats, which were so close, were so far away, and were off limits to me and anyone who looked like me.

Im the one you looked at with disdain and disgust for simply asking you why the White person, who just entered the store and came to the front of the line for service, automatically received immediate service, and the visible Black people in the store became invisible.

Im the one you and two of your buddies pulled guns on when ten of us were swimming and playing in a lake in the woods that nobody owned, forcing us to leave in a hurry. We had no swimming poolthe city- owned swimming pools were for Whites, and Whites onlyalthough we paid our fair share of local taxes.

Im the one who occasionally watched you with much curiosity as you baked in the Alabama sun, trying, ironically, to look more like me and my beautiful God-given tan. Then, in five minutes, fifty minutes, or five days, with your skin almost as dark as mine, you labeled me or someone who looked like me a lazy, Black-ass nigger.

Im the one who mowed your lawn to make some money, and you paid me as little as possible, because you could.

Im the one who would duck and dive to avoid being hit by bottles of urine filled by you and your homeboys as you hurriedly drove through our neighborhood, hurling these bottles as if it was some kind of a game of how many niggers you could piss on in one evening.

Im the one who was invisible, who didnt count. You thought I would never amount to anything.

Im Merritt Douglas Long

preface

From zero to sixty in a matter of seconds. After it happens, the burst of temper, anger, and outrage surprises even me some of the time. Why? My livid response is usually disproportionate to the slight or perceived insult. When did this first begin? Can I pinpoint the moment, the person, or the situation that started this seemingly never-ending conveyor belt feeling of slights and insults.

Maybe its totally beyond my control. Is this historical baggage, just an inevitability born of the brutal captive, torture, rape, humiliation, shackling, castration, and other inhumane treatment of my African ancestors? Is it part of my DNA that, over time from living and working in this racist world, causes me to snap?

The eventual crescendo of emotions may begin with an activity as simple as checking into a downtown hotel. I arrive with a reservation confirmation in hand. After a quick scan of the hotel guest list by a front desk clerk, he looks up, face expressionless, and says almost like a recording, We dont have a reservation for you and our hotel is completely booked. Theres a convention in town for the next couple of days and rooms are difficult to come by.

Apparently, my previously issued hotel confirmation possesses no meaning. The hotel clerk makes no effort to explain why I have a confirmation receipt and no room. The idea of him checking with some other local hotel is beyond his thinking.