The Power of a Good Name One summer day my father sent me to buy some wire and fencing to put aroun
The Power of a Good NameOne summer day my father sent me to buy some wire and fencing to put around our barn to pen up the bull. At 16, I liked nothing better than getting behind the wheel of our truck and driving into town on the old mill road. Water from the mill's wheel sprayed in the sunshine making a rainbow over the canal and I often stopped there on my way to bathe and cool off for a spell—natural air conditioning. The sun was so hot, I did not need a towel as I was dry by the time I climbed the clay banks and crossed the road ditch to the truck. Just before town, the road shot along the sea where I would collect seashells or gather seaweed beneath the giant crane unloading the ships. This trip was different, though. My father had told me I'd have to ask for credit at the store.
It was 1976, and the ugly shadow of racism was still a fact of life. I'd seen my friends ask for credit and then stand, head down, while a storeowner enquired into whether they were "good for it". Many store clerks watched black youths with the assumption that they were thieves every time they even went into a grocery.
My family was honest. We paid our debts. But just before harvest, all the money flowed out. There were no new deposits at the bank. Cash was short. At Davis Brothers' General Store, Buck Davis stood behind the register, talking to a middle-aged farmer. Buck was a tall, weathered man in a red hunting shirt and I nodded as I passed him on my way to the hardware section to get a container of nails, a coil of binding wire and fencing. I pulled my purchases up to the counter and placed the nails in the tray of the scale, saying carefully, "I need to put this on credit." My brow was moist with nervous sweat and I wiped it away with the back of my arm.
The farmer gave me an amused, cynical look, but Buck's face didn't change. "Sure," he said easily, reaching for his booklet where he kept records for credit. I gave a sigh of relief. "Your daddy is always good for it." He turned to the farmer. "This here is one of James Williams' sons. They broke the mold when they made that man."
The farmer nodded in a neighborly way. I was filled with pride. "James Williams' son." Those three words had opened a door to an adult's respect and trust.
As I heaved the heavy freight into the bed of the truck, I did so with ease, feeling like a stronger man than the one that left the farm that morning. I had discovered that a good name could furnish a capital of good will of great value. Everyone knew what to expect from a Williams: a decent person who kept his word and respected himself too much to do wrong. My great grandfather may have been sold as a slave at auction, but this was not an excuse to do wrong to others. Instead my father believed the only way to honor him was through hard work and respect for all men.
We children—eight brothers and two sisters--could enjoy our good name, unearned, unless and until we did something to lose it. We had an interest in how one another behaved and our own actions as well, lest we destroy the name my father had created. Our good name was and still is the glue that holds our family tight together.
The desire to honor my father's good name spurred me to become the first in our family to go to university. I worked my way through college as a porter at a four-star hotel. Eventually, that good name provided the initiative to start my own successful public relations firm in Washington, D.C．America needs to restore a sense of shame in its neighborhoods. Doing drugs, spending all your money at the liquor store, stealing, or getting a young woman pregnant with no intent to marry her should induce a deep sense of embarrassment. But it doesn't. Nearly one out of three births in America is to a single mother. Many of these children will grow up without the security and guidance they need to become honorable members of society.
Once the social ties and mutual obligations of the family melt away, communities fall apart. While the population has increased only 40 percent since 1960, violent crime in America has increased a staggering 550 percent —and we've become exceedingly used to it. Teen drug use has also risen. In one North Carolina County, police arrested 73 students from 12 secondary schools for dealing drugs, some of them right in the classroom.
Meanwhile, the small signs of civility and respect that hold up civilization are vanishing from schools, stores and streets. Phrases like "yes, ma'am", "no, sir", "thank you" and "please" get a yawn from kids today who are encouraged instead by cursing on television and in music. They simply shrug off the rewards of a good name.
The good name passed on by my father and maintained to this day by my brothers and sisters and me is worth as much now as ever. Even today, when I stop into Buck Davis' shop or my hometown barbershop for a haircut, I am still greeted as James Williams' son. My family's good name did pave the way for me.
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