“I’ve had a good life, a very good life. Born poor. Born Black. Born in 1942. Born the 24th day of April. Born on a Wednesday. All this means a lot to me. As a matter of fact, born right here about 100 feet from where I’m sitting now. There’s a little building there called The House. That’s where I was born. And as if by magic, I’m pastoring a house that belongs to God where I’ve spent 54 years. It’s amazing to me how close I’ve stayed in the same place. And somehow God, I feel, has used me.

“I’m at the same church I went to as a Sunday school boy. Ideas have changed. People have changed. Most of the people who helped to raise me at the church are in the cemetery now. But I’m still here thinking about some of the things they said to me many years ago: ‘If you keep your hand in God’s hands, son, he’ll lead you. If it hurts you, don’t say it because it’s going to hurt somebody else. If you see somebody else hurting, try to do something to ease the pain, not to elevate it.’ That’s what my life has been all about since I was a child.”

— Sherman Gray Jr.

Sherman is the long-time pastor at Antioch Missionary Baptist Church of McNair.

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“I have an African American son, and my wife worries about us when we go out to bike ride. She worries about me when I go out to jog. That is painful. And it is a very tough time right now. But I’ve learned something about people. I’ve learned something about life. I feel it’s all about perception. If I continue to believe that things will never change, that they will never be different, then from my point of view, they never will.

“I’m not naive enough to think that I can change the world. But if I can change the corner of the world that God has placed me in, then I will have done my part. That means changing perception — the way that people see you, the way that you see people. I feel like as long as there is a quest and a thirst for knowledge, then the ability to bring change is there.

“I am hopeful for the future. Because when we lose hope, I think we lose our sense of humanity. I have to be hopeful for my children. I have to continue to prove to them that things can get better.

“I have five kids, four girls and a boy. My oldest are now in public school. When they were younger, they went to a church school, and they were the only Black kids there. But they never once knew or were made to feel like they were the only Black kids there. My daughter in first grade has been friends with another little girl since they were 4 years old at this school. They think they’re sisters. They think they look alike. They think their hair is the same. Because they both like Elsa, they think they’re twins. When they see each other on the playground, they run and hug.

“I think that is how the world should be. So I have to remain hopeful.”

— Sherman Gray III

The Grays welcomed their fifth child on June 20. “She almost made Father’s Day. It was 11:59 and 17 seconds when she was born.”

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When then-San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick decided to take a knee during the playing of the National Anthem in August 2016, he said it was because of his views on the country’s treatment of racial minorities.

About a month after that action began stirring up lots of discussion on both sides of the issue, I ran into this young man at Bicentennial Park in Baytown. He told me of his service in the Army National Guard and shared his thoughts on the topic.

“I don’t take offense to that because he was practicing his freedom of speech. As a soldier, one of the things you protect is the right to protest. For someone to tell somebody else a better way to protest is just unnecessary.

The post Kaepernick was ‘practicing his freedom of speech’ appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“I started getting tattoos when I was 18. Luckily I had friends who knew how to do them, so I just let them experiment on me. I think the last time I got one was 2013. I have a lot of them. The only thing I’ve got left to do probably is my back.”

Which tattoos are most meaningful to you?
“My left leg has this Japanese theme. It really represents my Asian heritage. When my dad was in the Army, he met my mom while serving in Korea. I was born there, but I came to the states when I was about 1. My parents got divorced, and my dad got custody of me.

“The last time I saw or talked to my mom, I think I was 5. But I’m still interested in that part of my heritage. I read a lot about it, like history books, and I try to learn words every now and then. It’s still important to me. It’s part of who I am.

“My dad is African-American. My mom is Korean. That’s like two different cultures, and I’m part of both. I think that’s pretty cool.”

— Devon Terrell

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The post Asian heritage tattoos most meaningful appeared first on The Baytown Project.

“I was born in the South, in Kentucky. Dixieland all the way. My mother was white. My father was black. I can remember being at a grocery store with my mother and hearing other white ladies say, ‘What’s she doing with that little colored boy?’ Or I could be somewhere with my dad, and other black men would say that he must have a white woman because my skin was so light.

“I didn’t really think that much about it until I got into junior high and began playing basketball. My parents never went to the games together.

“I also remember my older sisters taking us to the walk-in movie theater. We would purchase tickets at the booth outside, but we couldn’t walk through the front door. Blacks had to walk down the alley and go in the side and up the steps.

“When I was in high school, there were only three black males and two black females in my class. How do you go to prom when you can’t take a white girl?

“So I had to ask myself, if it’s that hard for me at 16, 17, 18 years old, what did my parents go through 20 years earlier? Before they passed, I asked them about it several times. They just said, ‘We made it the best way we knew how.’ To me, that wasn’t answer enough. There had to be more to it than that.

“All I know is that when I look at someone, I don’t see color. That’s because of how my parents raised me. That’s something I tried to pass along to my kids.”

— William Lewis

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