Charles Lemons: History Alive!
Meet Mr. Charles V.A. Lemons Jr., who at the young age of 87 has devoted most of his life to law-enforcement with the Galveston Police Department, where he was sergeant in charge of operations, and as a founding member of St. Vincent’s Episcopal House, which for 66 years has remained a beacon of light for the poor and underserved residents of Galveston.
Humans of Galveston: Tell us about your life, Mr. Lemons.
Lemons: I was born in 1934. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, we slept under the bed for two weeks. Everything was hard to come by. Wasn’t nothing in the stove or none of the stores and we had to practically live off the land. I had my own garden that I had to watch because everybody was trying to feed from the garden. I started kindergarten at Booker T. Washington school. There were 39 of us in the class. At the beginning of school when everybody introduced themselves, I had been schooled on giving out my full name. I said, ‘My name is Charles Vernon Alexander Lemons, Junior. And I can spell it.’ I could count to 100 at age 5 and a half years old. At Booker T. Washington through the sixth grade, we had the first state test given to see how much we had attained through the last six years. They passed us from the sixth grade to the eighth grade at Carver Elementary School. We were considered smart children. We were at Carver School when the Texas City Disaster hit in ’47. It blew us out of our seats twice before we left the school (for the day). The first one (blast) to hit, we thought it was the school furnace. Everybody laughed that one off. The second one that hit, everybody said that ain’t no furnace. We hit the door, and all of a sudden the air was sucked out the building. When we got outside somebody said, ‘Look out there.’ When we looked, we saw a big mushroom cloud going up. Our class assignment back then was the atomic bomb, and that’s what it looked like. All day and all night down Broadway, trucks, ambulances and anybody they could find were bringing the bodies in. Right there on 32nd Street, a truck hit a bump and one of bodies got left behind. A couple of the strong men pulled it (corpse) over to the side and flagged another vehicle down to carry it on. That was our introduction to a disaster.
I graduated from Central (High School) in 1951 and had a full scholarship to Southern University in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I got the academic/athletic scholarship on my ability to kick a football. I played guard, alternating tackle and fullback kicker. I was a four-year letterman at Southern University and was (team) captain during my senior year. My senior year I made All-American and All-SWAC (Southwestern Athletic Conference) and later on I was inducted into the Southern University Hall of Fame and received a Living Legend Award. I came to Galveston hoping I’d get a job at my old high school but it wasn’t no jobs to be had, so I helped start St. Vincent’s (Episcopal) House at 27th and H (Ball St.). From ’56 to ’62, I was out there taking care of young men and ladies that somehow were gonna get left behind. I tutored them and helped them get caught up in their subjects. After morning prayer we had breakfast every morning to send them to school with a full stomach. I got a couple of Ph.D.’s (graduates) out of that group, and one of them still communicates with me from California, Tyrone J. Small.
Humans of Galveston: What was discipline like in the early days, and how is it different today?
Lemons: Back then, we knew the family by name. We knew the children by name. And there was a mother and a father to answer to and those children found that out in a hurry. Now, it’s a single parent thing and it’s causing a whole lot of problems because the mother has to work. When she’s away from the house those kids can do anything that they want and anyplace they want to. They don’t have to come in before that streetlight comes on, like we did. They come home anytime they want to – 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning. It’s just no discipline about it and that’s given everybody a problem.
Humans of Galveston: How do you feel about what you’re seeing today? Do you ever feel like your life’s work and efforts have gone in vain?
Lemons: I saw a whole lot back then that I’m not seeing today. Even the policemen today shoot first and ask questions last. I knew that he (a suspect) could run, but I didn’t have to catch him. I knew where he had to go to sleep. I’d go and tell the mother or the father, ‘When he comes home, you tell him I want to see him down at the station.' I got that (technique) from (former GPD Detective) Buster Landrum. He’d get on the phone and make more arrests than the policemen in a patrol car. He could call and they’d be there. I knew one little boy who was selling candy for his church, and another little boy was going to take his candy from him and eat it. He would hold him off with one hand while he was eating his candy. I saw what was going on and took him (bully) home and told his mother about it. Just about that time the father came home and told him to go upstairs and get his piggy bank. He bought all of the rest of the candy and made him sit down at that table and eat it all. I don’t think he eats candy no more. (laughs)
Humans of Galveston: Paint a picture of Black Galveston in the ‘50s and ‘60s.
Lemons: As a whole, we’re less than we used to be. There were big black businesses – Gus Allen’s hotel and restaurant, T.D. Armstrong’s drug store and insurance company and you had all of the barbecue pits, nightclubs and pool halls. The black community today is lacking everything that used to be. All of our businesses are gone.
Humans of Galveston: What do you believe that your legacy will be for Galveston?
Lemons: Over the years, I’ve heard from various people who said, ‘You changed my life because I was on my way down the wrong path.’ They said that had it not been for me, 'my life would be totally different.’ I’d like to think that changed many people’s lives because I intervened so they didn’t go to the penitentiary and they had a better life.
Published by Bobby Stanton
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