Simeon’s Story by Simeon Wright

“Simeon’s Story” by Simeon Wright (with Herb Boyd)
c.2010, Lawrence Hill Books
$19.95 / $21.95 Canada
144 pages, includes index

Reviewed by Terri Schlichenmeyer

You’ve been doing it since you were a teenager, maybe before.

A certain look sideways, eyes lowered. Unconscious flex of muscles beneath a flashy t-shirt. A smile, a glance, a wiggle of hips or lips or brows.
Where would you be without a little flirting? Married? Hooked up? Maybe not. But attracting the opposite sex is how our species perpetuates.

Flirting is fun.

You would never in a million years think it could get you killed.

But in the new book, “Simeon’s Story” by Simeon Wright (with Herb Boyd), you’ll read about a wolf whistle heard ‘round the country.

Growing up in Mississippi in the Jim Crow era, Simeon Wright knew that there were certain things a black person never did; specifically, he was never remotely disrespectful to anyone who was white. Sassing “Mr. Charlie” was a good way to get in trouble.

Wright learned from his father that some white people could be trusted, though. Mose Wright was a sharecropper. He knew who was fair and who wasn’t, and he wouldn’t work with dishonest landowners.
Simeon Wright indicates that he had a good childhood, despite Jim Crow laws. His parents loved him and he had a big, extended family. In fact, when cousins were scheduled to visit Mississippi from Chicago, Wright “was so excited that I didn’t know what to do.”

One of those cousins was fourteen-year-old Emmett Till, a big-for-his-age boy, almost the size of a grown man. Everybody called him Bobo and he was fun-loving, but Wright remembers that “he just didn’t know the rules.”
On the afternoon of Wednesday, August 24, 1955, Bobo’s lack of knowledge sparked a movement.

After a long day of work, Wright, Bobo, and three other boys went to a nearby store for some refreshments. For about a minute, Bobo was alone in the building with a white woman and as she stormed out, he brashly whistled at her. Days later, as Wright slept next to his cousin, two white men entered the family’s house and snatched Emmett “Bobo” Till.
In his foreword, Wright’s co-author Herb Boyd explains that this story almost didn’t see publication. Simeon Wright was tired of people taking artistic license with the story of his cousin’s murder. There were things that Wright didn’t care to remember, but he eventually agreed to lay some nasty myths to rest.

And with crystal clarity and blistering prose, Wright does just that.
Recalling a somewhat carefree childhood, Wright tells of youth interrupted by something so horrific that it hurts to read about it. He speaks of his father’s dignity and bravery, and of deep disappointment that was eventually soothed.

About those myths perpetuated by journalists, Wright has a few choice words. With anger apparent, he advises that “anyone planning on working in the communications field… go to the primary sources. They know what really happened.”

Surprisingly, you’ll probably find this book in the YA section of your library
or bookstore, but don’t let that deter you from this powerful, important memoir. “Simeon’s Story” is a story you must read.

That Bird Has My Wings by Jarvis Masters

That Bird Has My Wings: The Autobiography of an Innocent Man on Death Row by Jarvis Jay Masters
HarperOne 2009
$24.99 / $32.99 Canada 281 pages

Reviewed by Terri Schlichenmeyer

By no stretch of the imagination would anyone say that the man in the orange jumpsuit could be called “nice”.

The metal around his waist and wrists attest to his badness, and the look on his face further cements it: this is a man that few people would mess with. But once upon a time, he wasn’t bad at all. Awhile back, that man in the orange jumpsuit was a little boy in blue overalls. He’s a menace now, but he was someone’s baby then.

So where did things go wrong for him? Read the new book “That Bird Has My Wings” by Jarvis Jay Masters and you’ll see…

Until he was seven or eight years old, Jarvis Masters lived in a drug house with his sisters. The children knew they were loved because their mother, a heroin addict, came home now and then. But there was rarely anything to eat, cockroaches were playthings, and strangers constantly wandered in to shoot up in the bathroom.

Then someone called Social Services.

The children were split up and Jarvis was placed with an older couple who longed for a child of their own. Mamie and Dennis treated Jarvis like a son, buying him toys, giving him guidance and nurturing his dreams.
When Mamie fell sick, Jarvis was placed in another foster home where he was physically and emotionally abused. He ran away and was eventually sent to CYA (California Youth Authority), an environment in which he wanted to stay. But case workers needed to find him a permanent home, so they sent him to a military discipline camp for boys. Nobody realized that Jarvis had already become accustomed to institutionalization.

For most of his teens, Jarvis bounced from relatives’ homes to state facilities and back, becoming enmeshed in drugs and crime along the way. He tried to get an education and a career, but family “business” was too strong a pull. Once involved with guns and robbery, he knew it was only a matter of time before he’d be caught.

When I got this book, I was expecting a 281-page howl of innocence, but author Jarvis Jay Masters only briefly touches on that argument in this powerful autobiography. Yes, he decries his harshest sentence but he doesn’t dwell on it. It’s almost as if the charge of conspiracy to commit murder (the reason he’s on death row) is a minor point in this book. It barely takes up a page-and-a-half.

The bigger story – the one that comes blasting through “That Bird Has My Wings” – is one of an eager, smart little boy who was hungry for guidance and structure but gets shuttled aside instead. It’s a tale of regret, remorse, quiet acceptance, gratitude, and strength that lays the blame squarely and surprisingly on its writer as well as on the adults who hurt him.

If you’re in search of something that doesn’t glorify crime or make it seem like anything less than wrong, you can’t do wrong by getting this book.

“That Bird Has My Wings” absolutely soars.