Travels in Black and White

I stayed home today to watch our new President take the oath of office. The company where I currently work as a temp assistant won't be putting time aside for that experience, and I really (like most of us) didn't want to miss it. The past few weeks leading up to this awesome event have brought up so many memories. In my blog entry, A Week in November, I wrote about my first time voting. And I wrote about my father weeping when Arthur Goldberg and Abraham Ribicoff became members of JFK's cabinet. It was a huge thing for Jews to be part of the cabinet. And here we are today, 48 years later (where did all that time go?) welcoming Barack Obama to lead our country. I think my dad would have surely been impressed with the remarkable turn of events. But chances are he'd have said something about not yet seeing a Jewish president. Well, he'd have to say that.

You know that mine is a trans-racial family. A friend asked me recently how/why did this happen? I probably shrugged and came out with a smart-ass remark -- I don't remember. But it did send me thinking back. From the time I was a teenager I had decided to adopt a baby. Even if I had biological children, I knew I would adopt. When my first son was around two years old I researched the Pearl Buck Foundation. Adopting an Asian child through this organization was not financially possible for us. When my second son was around one year old, I looked into adopting a Native American child ( the profile of available/needy children continually changed). The adoption agency encouraged us to give our boys their childhood. When we had moved into Beverly Massachusetts, into our wonderful Corning Street house; when we had come home, the time seemed right. So I made some calls and learned that the children who needed homes at that time were mixed race babies. It never occurred to me to adopt a Caucasian child; I wanted to adopt a baby who might otherwise not have a home. I worked with Friends for Inter-racial adoption. We were sent to Jewish Home Services in Lynn. These good folks had never assisted with an inter-racial adoption. They had many reservations: we didn't have any money; we were already a mixed religion family. The woman, Alice, who was in charge of our "case" asked me "In what race will you raise the child?" I remember clearly saying, "How about the human race? I think that will work." My only stipulation was a baby girl under the age of two. It was December of 1969. Don and I met with her together, then we met with her separately. In January, she came to our home. She approved us, but cautioned that it could take years for the appropriate child to appear. (My husband, by the way, went along with all of this because it was so important to me. But I know he thought it was a fine madness.)

On Friday, February 6th, I received a phone call from Alice. She had a baby. The baby was mixed-race, and had a Jewish mother who wanted the child to be with a Jewish mother. We qualified! The little girl had been waiting six months. Don left work in Boston, I left Beverly and we met at the office in Lynn.
Alice had photos of the baby, but very little information about her background. The adoption fee was very low in order to permit us to afford it. The baby was coming from Jewish Family Services in Boston; we couldn't pick her up on the weekend and Monday was a Jewish holiday, so Tuesday became the day we'd come for our new baby. Alice said something stupid like "Sold!" I was sure then and convinced since that this baby had been waiting for us.

We spent the weekend putting our new baby's room together; the crib, etc. I didn't know how big the baby was but I went shopping for clothes for her anyway. My mother (who wasn't crazy about the idea) had wired me $50 for a layette for her. I had a short list of names -- Zoe, Keira, Sabra, and at least six more. But on Sunday evening I finished reading the last book of the Alexandria Quartet. The book is called Clea. And with Don's blessing, I decided to call the baby Clea Coburn Beaman. We fetched our Clea on Tuesday, February 10th, 1970.

I had always been oddly color blind when it came to race. I say oddly because being raised in the '40's and '50's, racism seemed a way of life. So was antisemitism. There were too many "antis" in those days. But not until you are in the trenches do you really understand the pain this causes. We were instantly in the trenches. We had integrated Beverly, and for
years Clea was the only child of color in her classrooms. We fought the Metco fight, the "let's destroy the Beaman's yard" fight, the screaming and throwing rocks at the Beaman children on the streets, and so forth. I hope that Clea knew during all those years that she wasn't alone but had a family-army with her.

This of course doesn't really answer how/why. Recently I remembered having several books when I was little; books that today would not be politically correct. One was about a little girl called "Pinky Marie" whose hair was in tiny braids with colorful ribbons that get stolen by the birds while she sleeps in the garden. The birds make a glorious nest with her ribbons. The other book was about a little black baby girl who is abandoned on the steps of a hospital. And Nurse Moore who is a single, white lady decides to adopt her and calls her Baby Jane. (The book doesn't say "black baby;" it says "colored baby." Such were the times.) I loved the book; I loved Nurse Moore who took this adorable baby home. And truly, as a little girl, I didn't see color -- I saw a baby who needed a home and a lady who gave her one. I think this was probably where it all began.

The rest of Clea's story is a book waiting to be written. I'll try to do that really soon. But today my daughter is watching the first black President take office. And her three children will know that this is possible. Perhaps it will be a better world for us all. We can hope. President Obama is all about hope.


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