The third child in a brood of four, Ambrose Bennett was born in Memphis, Tennessee and was named after an author of majority of the readings in the Southern Baptist School.
“I was stamped with the teaching and writing at birth and I didn’t know it,” Bennett tells Variety.
The ’50s through the ’60s were interesting years for the African-Americans in their fight for equality and dissolution of racial discrimination.
In the year when Bennett was born, the African-Americans were gradually making strides for recognition of their civil rights.
In 1950, the Supreme Court rules that a public institution of higher learning could not provide different treatment to a student solely because of race in the case McLaurin vs. Oklahoma State Regents.
On this same day on June 5, the highest court also rules that a separate-but-equal Texas law school was actually unequal, partly in that it deprived black students from the collegiality of future white lawyers.
In Henderson v. United States the Supreme Court abolishes segregation in railroad dining cars.
Bennett, who grew up in a religious community, says the Church had been his second home and it offered refuge to them at the time when racism was very prevalent.
He says, “I can remember as an adolescent being ashamed of being black and wanted to be anything but black so I could be somebody.”
For the many others like Bennett, there’s nothing like living in those times and frustration just brimmeth over.
It’s only the Church that tided them over in this period of despair.
James Brown, who was better known for his “I Feel Good” song, among other tunes, helped shore up the confidence of Bennett and the African-American community. “I owe James Brown for inspiring me to say it loud that ‘I’m Black and I’m Proud.’”
And nothing could be more inspirational for him to have a dream than Martin Luther King “who truly inspired me on a path that I am still traveling today because he helped me to fully realize and believe that I was somebody and I could achieve great things in life.”
“When we marched with Dr. King we recited a pledge every day to make a difference for a better society for all people,” says Bennett recalling that the words “if not me, then whom and if not now then when” continue to resonate to this day.
As for his family, Bennett says he’s the only boy among four children, with two older sisters and one younger sister.
His older sister was a teacher then later a principal. The other older sister served as executive secretary to the mayor of Detroit while her youngest sister is a jazz, pop, and spiritual singer.
“I was raised by very religious parents,” says Bennett.
His father was a deacon while his mother was president of Missionary Society for the Church.
In order to raise the Bennett family, his parents worked hard to provide for them, he says.
The Bennett patriarch, despite not knowing how to read nor write, ran his own cleaning business and his mother worked as a mortician.
He also tells Variety his mother went to a sewing school in Mexico and Mississippi and eventually opened up her own tailoring business that had rich white people as her customers.
Bennett also recalls a dress his mother made — a Southern Bell dress — that won the Memphis Cotton Carnival Southern Bell contest. “I remember the lady coming to tell my mother and giving her a real big tip,” he says.
Despite his shortcoming, his father, Bennett says, tried to make up for it by memorizing all his customers and matching them with their clothes with all the tickets bearing just one name — Bennett — the one name his father knew how to write.
School in pre-1964 America
Prior to 1964, Bennett says he attended all-black schools and didn’t really know how bad it was for African-Americans.
“I had seen racism and discrimination in society but when I found out that once we went to Jr. High and High School that we could no longer look forward to new books, new sports uniforms, I really woke up and realized the system (government) was messed up,” Bennett says.
Prior to the Civil Rights Act, Bennett says anything that could be handed down form a White school was handed given to the Black schools.
“The Black schools had to even adopt the colors of White schools so we could get their old uniforms and we would put patches new name labels on them,” says Bennett.
Bennett says he was fortunate to attend the same school where Elvis Presley attended at the time when segregation had been declared illegal by the Civil rights act.
“Blacks and Whites were forced to attend the same schools,” Bennett says.
It was an interesting time as the school system built a new school where the blacks and whites were made to go together.
For Bennett, “Believe it or not, there were no serious racial problems. In fact, I was on the football team, basketball team, and ran track with white students and we all got along just fine.”
He says he had a great time in high school and had made a name for himself by making accomplishments on track. [Years later, his daughters would replicate those accomplishments with Yvonne recognized as the fastest woman in Micronesia.]
As difficult those years were for the young Bennett, he says it became even more challenging not only for him but for the entire family when they lost their father to heart attack. His mother filled in two big shoes for the family — caregiver and provider — and she kept the family together. She passed away at the age of 93.
Years later, Bennett would find himself traveling to a small island in the Pacific where he continues to live his dream.
[to be continued]
