Muck City by Bryan Mealer Read Free Book Online

and his brother Lawrence used their mother’s resolve to stage their own little insurgency into the heart of the white institution. They tried out for the football team.
    “I wanted to play sports so bad I wasn’t going to let the local blacks who called me Uncle Tom stop me from my little dream,” he said. “Nor was I going to let the whites who hated me keep me from participating.”
    His first season, Anthony remembered, coaches referred to him and his brother only as “niggras.” One afternoon in practice, a coach kicked Lawrence so hard in the backside it sent him to the hospital. Johnnie Ruth, when urged by black leaders in Belle Glade to press charges, took the high road and asked only that the coach be dismissed.
    By season’s end, Williams had earned a spot in the starting lineup and a little compassion from the coaches, who were at least calling him by hisname. It helped that he’d become pals with the team quarterback, a tall, skinny kid named Mark Newman, who’d eased his entry into white circles.
    The two had established a quick rapport on the football field, mainly because Williams could catch just about anything Mark threw at him. Later, an invitation to Newman’s birthday party acted as a blessing. “When he started talking to me, it opened the doors for others to talk to me,” Williams said. Before long, Newman was just like one of the family, sitting down in Johnnie Ruth’s tiny kitchen and putting away three plates of chicken.
    As the boys prepared to enter Belle Glade High, determined to make the varsity cuts, they began meeting each afternoon for drills and conditioning. With Williams acting as receiver, a tight chemistry developed. Weeks later, when the starting quarterback of the Rams came down with mononucleosis, Newman was called to take his spot. Not long afterward, the starting tight end broke his ribs and coaches pulled up Williams.
    The coach of the Rams was a Mississippian named Eulas “Red” Jenkins. In his second year at Belle Glade High, Jenkins was a quiet and deeply religious man, probably most content floating across Lake Okeechobee in a johnboat fishing for bass and perch.
    Jenkins didn’t seem to have a problem with having a few black players on his team. Williams even remembered the coach reminding the squad one afternoon that God had created everyone equally, and on the Rams, the only difference came down to each boy’s assignment on the field.
    “There were still some problems with some of the white kids,” Williams said. “But by addressing it directly early on, Jenkins really made our lives easier. I felt like we could finally play football.”
    The Rams were coming off a dreadful season and ranked last in the area standings. Whatever animosity existed seemed to fade away once Newman and Williams began connecting for touchdowns. To the surprise of many, the team went 10–1 in the regular season. After beating Pahokee in the season finale, Williams looked up into the stands and saw whites hugging one another. Even after the team lost in the playoff game to Leesburg,strangers still cheered his name. When Williams went for his checkup at the team doctor’s office, he was shown the door for white patrons and assured it would never be a problem.
    “After that season, the town just seemed to love us. They seemed to understand we were just young men who loved to play football,” he said. “But then integration happened, and all that came tumbling down.”
    In 1970, court-ordered desegregation came to Palm Beach County. Chaos and violence ripped through the coastal schools that were forced to comply. Bombs were discovered at Twin Lakes and Suncoast High Schools. Bus boycotts, riots, and mass arrests plagued the system throughout September. As Lake Shore and Belle Glade High merged into one, black students staged walkouts in protest of beloved teachers and administrators being relocated or replaced. Fights between blacks and whites took place in the school’s parking