(Publisher’s Note: In honor of Black History Month, this article is the first in a two-part series about Edward Smith and his life full of navigating his way to his best opportunities as a black man here in Wheeling, New York City, and western Ohio.)
Edward Smith is a 73-year-old black man who has three legal birth certificates.
The first one was a clerical error following his birth in Alabama, and the second one is the corrected version. The third birth certificate, however, was created thanks to his father’s signature so Smith could enlist in the United States Army. That recount, though, is just one tale the man can tell.
Smith lives these days on Wheeling Island after traveling many miles between his hometown in Alabama to Wheeling, then to New York City, and then to the Dayton area in Ohio. During his childhood years, he doesn’t recall being discriminated against, and that’s because his parents and grandfather told him that’s just how it was for black people during those days.
“Everyone told me to never look a white person face to face, eye to eye,” he recalled. “So, I just didn’t ever do it, and I didn’t care either. I was barely around white people back then because we had, I think, 17 or acres of land, and we grew and farmed everything we needed to survive.
“We had some cattle and some pigs and chickens, and I don’t know what we didn’t grow,” Smith said with a smile. “I just planted everything my older brother did because that always seemed to work out just fine. But right around when I was 10, we left there because the law was after my father.”
It’s true. His dad was arrested, and his crime was hitting a chicken that a farmer had let get free on a road. Not only did he kill it with one of his tires, but Ed’s father stopped, picked it up, and took it home for dinner.
“And I remember that it was a really good dinner,” Smith recalled. “But when the police came, they saw the father in the yard where my mom was cleaning the chicken and getting it ready for dinner. But they arrested him and put him under a $2,000 bond knowing we didn’t have anything close to that money.
“But they gave him the chance to work the bail off, and he took it. They let him out so he could do that,” he explained. “But real soon after that, we packed all our stuff up and moved to West Virginia because my mother had family here in Wheeling. They sent men up from Alabama to come and get my father and take him back, but he was at work at the time they came to the door. And then they just left and went back without him, and that was a good thing.”
Pushing Back
Ed was 10 years old when his family moved to a house on Lind Street, and he recalled when he and his older brother, LeRoy, were walking to Clay School. Ed was going to report to the first grade before LeRoy told him the others would make fun of him for being so old and just starting school.
Ed reported to third grade instead.
“I didn’t know much that the other kids did, but I caught on quick and made do. And I got the grades to keep moving up, but it was in sixth grade when I went to seventh instead so I could do sheet metal work at Lincoln School, and I liked that. I always tried to take a shop class so I could get my grades up for sports.
“But when I was forced to go to Wheeling High, I wasn’t ready for that because that’s when I started to realize the favoritism and that I was second or even third-string in sports when I knew I was better than the white guys who were playing instead of me,” Smith recounted. “But that’s when I wasn’t afraid to push back. I would look white people right in the face because here that wasn’t a rule like it was in Alabama, so push back I did.”
Ed was a bigger man those days. The student-athlete stood 5-foot-9 but weighed closed to 200 pounds with 23-inch thighs and 18-inch biceps.
“I ran the steps to and from Lincoln Homes with (9-pound) weights around my ankles,” he explained. “Lincoln Homes was just below Grandview Manor above East Wheeling, and there are the steps we took up and down. I’d run with those weights to strengthen my legs for football, but also to be in the best shape possible because of what was going on in Wheeling back in those days.
“There were always a lot of fights back then, and most of the time the guy starting the fight didn’t need a reason. He just wanted to fight, so I wanted to make them think twice about that when they looked at me,” Smith said. “It worked most of the time, but I was still in some fights. Never worked out for the other guy, but I wasn’t the guy starting it. I just finished it.”
Before advancing to his senior year at Wheeling High, Ed traveled to New York City to visit with his father, who had moved there after he and his wife divorced. While he was there, Ed picked up a week’s worth of work for $135, better pay than anything possible in Wheeling at the time. Then he picked up another two weeks, and a full-time job followed for the next 12 years.
“Until they found out I was involved with some organizations that were pushing back against the discrimination, I was finally realizing what I was up against,” Smith said. “I was a good employee, and I always went to work and did my job. But when they found out I was learning things about defending myself, they worked me right out of there.
“But that’s when I saw a sign in Brooklyn about joining the Army, so that’s what I did. I signed up, and I went to the Army, and I ended up in Vietnam for 12 months as a member of 11Bravo. And yeah, I came home with some problems because of it,” he admitted. “I think we all did and it’s just hard for others to understand because you had to be there. And I’m glad you weren’t.”
(Part Two of this series will publish tomorrow evening.)
What year did you graduate Wheeling High School.????
Edward did not graduate. As it says in the story, he left Wheeling for New York after his junior year and then joined the Army from there. – Steve