Priscilla

CHAPTER 1 Teaching, a Noble Profession August 14, 1978 Tallahassee, Florida “Folks,” said the captain over the PA system, “we’re circling over Leon County and will be landing in Tallahassee in a few minutes.” As Priscilla J. Austin felt the huge airliner descend for landing, the captain continued: “Just ahead of us is the capitol. Those of you on the left side of the cabin can see the new twin State Legislative Towers—next to that shiny gold dome, the original Florida Statehouse.” Priscilla peered out her window aboard her Eastern Airlines flight and thought: You have got to be kidding me. This is the state’s capital? And this is all there is? Just two state office towers and the original capitol and a patchwork of drab-colored buildings scattered about? And that’s odd … the city is laid out in the shape of a T. Surely the city’s growth wasn’t arranged to spell out its initial from the air.” The captain went on: “Historically, Leon County has had the largest concentration of plantations in the South. Look, you can see quite a few of them. Tallahassee itself is home to the Apalachee Indian tribe, and two nationally recognized college football teams. Any Seminoles and Rattlers onboard?” His message was followed by cheers and clapping. Priscilla was unimpressed by the enthusiasm of the sports fans because she had expected to see a big city like Buffalo, Cleveland, Columbus, maybe even a little like New York. Where were the clusters of bridges and buildings in all shapes and sizes, roadways radiating from the city center, backed-up traffic? And skyscrapers? Where are the skyscrapers? Instead she saw sprawling groves of tall pines, pockets of lakes, small oval-shaped fish ponds, church steeples here and there, and a smattering of neighborhoods and gashes of red clay littered with heavy construction equipment. She stared at the red dirt. It’s everywhere, Lots and lots of red dirt. And all those pine trees. This is like flying into the islands. Everything’s so open and flat. As she peered out her window, she remembered that, nearly a decade ago, her father had accompanied her on her first flight ever as she commenced her undergraduate studies at the church-sponsored Livingstone College in Salisbury, North Carolina. They had flown to the Charlotte Douglas International Airport on Allegheny Airlines, rented a red Corvette and driven to the nearby college campus. Along the way they had driven past rows upon rows of pine trees, so Priscilla had asked, “Daddy, why’re you dumping me off in the backwoods of this state?” But for this trip, her father had driven her nearly ninety miles north of their hometown of Prendergast, New York to the Buffalo Niagara International Airport where he had bid her farewell and where she alone had boarded the Eastern Airlines flight. Priscilla was a daughter who had been raised like a son, and she had been raised to do that which had pleased her parents. Strongly bound to her father, she was about to commence a career as a college professor, something that she knew pleased him. “Fasten your seatbelts, folks.” In its final descent, Priscilla felt the airliner swoop down amid a cluster of pines. In a few seconds, she saw the pines sweep by her as the plane braked with a roar, bounced twice on the tarmac and then rolled to a deafening stop. Priscilla moved into the aisle along with the other passengers. Carrying her shoulder bag and the new, buttery-leather attaché case—which had been a going-away gift from her parents—she stepped out of the cool airliner, down the steps and onto the tarmac, emerging into a sunset as hot as an August noon against her face. Almost immediately, the humidity hit her. She felt sweat drops on her forehead. Just ahead of her, a small child wailed in misery on a father’s shoulder. A pair of older women, about her mother’s age but darker-complexioned, church ladies by the looks of their flowered dresses and hats—Hats!—took tiny paper funeral home fans out of their purses and began flicking them across their faces. Inside the terminal, she was met with high-pitched screeching voices. “Hi, y’all! Welcome to Tall-a-hass-ee!” It was in that moment that Priscilla got a glimmering of what it might mean to follow her father’s dream of how to live her life. OK, with eyes open wide she was joining what he always called “the noble profession of teaching,” and at the university level, as an assistant professor at Florida A&M University (FAMU), one of the most prestigious, public, historic black institutions of higher learning in the country. She had mostly finished her doctorate and had thought she was on board with carving out a respectable station in life here in Florida’s capital city. But her Daddy had compared Tallahassee to the life she had enjoyed growing up in the relatively small but sophisticated upstate New York town of Prendergast. As it so happened, Priscilla’s father—the Reverend James Nelson Austin, was acutely aware that, although his daughter was a self-assured, strong-willed and enterprising young woman, she had yet to develop a sophisticated outlook on life. That—as she approached her twenty-fifth birthday—Priscilla, more than any of her other siblings, had yet to come into her own; she was still living and doing things that pleased her parents, rather than herself. So, while Priscilla compared the obvious similarities between Salisbury and Tallahassee—not with Prendergast, for in her mind, no other place compared with her beloved Prendergast—the good reverend had determined that it was time for her to experience life of a higher order, one in which he might not be there for her, one in which she would have to fend for herself. Besides, he himself was experiencing something that had caused him to act more deliberately than once anticipated. He so wanted for Priscilla to come into her own. Poor Priscilla, she had no idea that she was not only still being groomed by her father, but that she was also commencing a journey that would lead to a sea of change in her life. Why, even the good reverend could not have predicted what would happen. Priscilla squared her shoulders and straightened the fitted jacket of her classic, pale blue linen suit. Maybe Tallahassee was too hot and humid, and from the air it had not looked like much. But no one knew her here. She would create a new life for herself, and she would be happy. Two thoughts cheered her: She was her father’s daughter. And as a modern, educated black woman, she was equal to whatever would come her way in Florida’s capital city. Whether those two inspiring thoughts contained the seeds of conflict or not, she stepped smartly ahead into the new life that she was sure she would make into a success. Only a few days after her arrival, Dean Lionel Newsome seemed as welcoming as a favorite uncle. He had called her into his office, sat her down, and was far more solicitous than any academic officer she had previously encountered in her undergraduate years at Livingstone or in her graduate school at The Ohio State University. He liked the way she looked: handsome rather than pretty, conservative tailored clothes, dignified beyond her years, perhaps a little aloof—but in his opinion, that was a good thing especially in a young professor who had to exercise authority over students not much younger than she was. As to skin color, Priscilla was what people in his Mississippi hometown called “redbone.” But she was not “red,” rather fair-complexioned of mixed race—black American mixed with British on her father’s side and Irish on her mother’s. Moreover, she would be the first to boast of Choctaw on her father’s side and, as she had indicated in her application, Cherokee on her mother’s as well. Priscilla settled back into her chair in the dean’s private office and basked in his attention. She put the personal welcome to a junior faculty member down to what must be the family feeling of a historic Black university. Besides, she had always been her Daddy’s favorite. She was accustomed to preferred treatment by a male authority figure. But it felt good to be here in this job, which apart from a short interval back home in Prendergast as a systems analyst—computer programmer was more like it—was the first full-time employment she had acquired on her own and away from the direct influence of her father. Dean Newsome—well-groomed, in his late sixties and stoic in demeanor—had begun by noting how pleased his Department of Political Science was to have her teaching in her specialty, American Politics with a concentration in State Legislative Politics. Priscilla was aware how unusual it was at small universities for new and junior faculty to teach in their specialty, but FAMU was no small university. The university boasted a current enrollment of over three thousand students along with several highly acclaimed graduate-level programs. It was the largest of the historically black colleges and universities (HBCU). Moreover, Priscilla was aware how keenly those HBCUs competed for the best, brightest and most ambitious academics with doctorates—or, in Priscilla’s case, near-completed doctorates. The head of the recruiting team who had offered her this position had said how lucky they were, in particular, to get a woman with her demographics and credentials. “At FAMU,” the dean was telling her, “the path to tenure is simple. In your case Ms. Austin, complete your doctoral dissertation, produce a good measure of research and publish some of your work.” Welcome to academe, ole girl, she thought. But there were no surprises in his formula for success. That pathway was the same in colleges and universities all over the country. But what the dean said next was not what she had expected. His intention, Dean Newsome said, was not to pry or intrude, but to bond with this “newly hired young professor,” as he had put it. “Enough about your future, now,” he paused. Then, “I see you grew up in Upstate New York. But where are your folks from?” Priscilla smiled. Obviously now the dean was chit-chatting. In a moment the meeting would be over and she would get on with her new life. “Mississippi.” “Really?” The dean leaned forward. “Where ’bouts? I’m from Canton.” “You don’t say.” Priscilla frowned. She had not known they shared a Mississippi connection. Her father was from Canton, and the place was not big. Her whole family, on several summer vacations, had visited kinfolks there. It had always been quite the experience, there in the Deep South. Never had she been so grateful that she grew up in Prendergast, New York, as when she had experienced Mississippi. A thought flickered, but she quickly dismissed it. The dean could not know her father. I know I didn’t slip and say Daddy’s name. Nor did I say he was from Canton. Yet as the dean digressed with some story about his folks back there in Canton, Priscilla wondered if it were possible after all that her father, a Methodist minister who was—in his way, as political as any representative in any legislature, was a personal acquaintance of her dean. Had Daddy had anything to do with this faculty appointment? Nah, she thought, oh no. She was a double minority: black and female. Her academic credentials were outstanding. She was presently completing what would eventually be the first of two different dissertations. This one was a nationwide study of black state lawmakers. And although she did not know it at the time, she would later examine the political attitudes and behavior of black college students. The recruiter had said they were lucky to get her. Priscilla dismissed her suspicion. The dean was being friendly and welcoming. He had found a mutual connection and was honoring it. She would be gracious enough to accept that connection. And she herself was, just like her father, naturally astute when it came to politics, which were all about relationships. She had innately understood that it was one thing to make connections, but another to have them. Even in college Priscilla had begun to grasp how small the world was and that people really were connected; it made them seem very close, somehow. She listened as the dean acknowledged familiarity with some of the other families in the small rural town of Canton. So what if the dean had some distant acquaintance with her father. Priscilla relaxed, remembering the many gifts she had received from the father she had always admired. Back when she was only a teenager, she remembered his telling her: “Priscilla, you are blessed with many talents, among them being the ability to persuade others. Use your talents wisely.” At the time, she had not realized the significance of his instruction. Her father himself had always been politically active, especially as a minor but steadfast minister in the civil rights movement, and he had primed her to follow his footsteps. So it was that nobody had been surprised at her decision to study political science in college and eventually pursue a doctorate in that discipline. But aside from a legislative internship, Priscilla had never seemed eager to go into politics herself.