Author Shirley Gordon Jackson Shares Memories

Elkhart , Ind., native Shirley Gordon Jackson visited her hometown in April 2009 to promote her book “A Place to Be Someone: Growing Up with Charles Gordone,” a memoir of growing up in Elkhart during the racially divided 1930s and 40s.

Jackson’s book, published by Texas Tech University Press, tells the story of Shirley, her brother Charles Gordon, and their three siblings growing up on the “White” side of Elkhart and being among only a handful of black students at Elkhart High School.

While Charles and Shirley were lauded for their academic, athletic, and musical achievements, away from the school they still felt like outsiders among their white peers. This exclusion would later propel Charles Gordone to pen “No Place to Be Somebody,” winner of the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for drama. Gordone was acclaimed as the first African American playwright to receive the coveted award.

During talks at Central and Memorial high schools, Jackson described childhood incidents that would later drive her brother to write drama and poetry as a way to display the ignorance of bigotry and promote the "human race." 

Gordone died in Texas in 1995 at the age of 70 after having an influential role in the Cowboy Renaissance of the 1990s.

In addition to talking to Elkhart students, Jackson, a 1947 graduate of Elkhart High School, made a presentation to the Elkhart NAACP. That presentation was attended by several of Jackson’s and Gordone’s classmates.

Jackson also presided over the public dedication of a state historical marker erected at the Elkhart Public Library honoring Elkhart as Gordone’s birthplace. the Elkhart County Historical Society led the effort to obtain the state designation.

Jackson told Elkhart students she wrote “No Place to Be Someone” to dispel all the misinformation printed about her brother. "Biographers don't always check their facts," she stated. "I wanted to leave an accurate record of his life." 

Jackson was an accomplished student and musician at Elkhart High School herself, but like her brother, felt lonely outside of the classroom. Her fellow students would ask her to play the piano for their vocal performances, yet no one wanted to walk down the aisle with her at graduation. 

“A Place to Be Someone,” which was nominated for the North Texas Book Festival Award, is a candid, sobering look at the racial divide in Elkhart in the 1940s. Jackson’s heart-wrenching stories leave the reader appalled at the bigotry of the past and inspired that it could lead Gordone to a successful future as an actor, playwright, and college professor and led Jackson to publish her first book at age 79.

“Every time I share the stories of my childhood, I relive those occurrences, but at the end I feel humbled that both Gordone and I transcended those experiences,” Jackson said. “In an exaltation of spirit I can relate them to others, most particularly to students, yet emerge from the telling with the same relieved sense of having conquered those bitter forces. 

“Should our words inspire other young people to aim high and do their very best, it is worth the pain of my remembrances,” Jackson said, adding a lot of her personal angst was lessened and removed during the writing of "A Place to be Somebody: Growing Up With Charles Gordone.” 

She said the privilege of sharing her work, and thoughts about the writing process, was a tremendous honor. “The sensing of an opportunity that I am able to help young people put their thoughts and feelings down on paper was cathartic for me,” Jackson said of her visit to Elkhart’s high schools.  “This can serve the same purpose for young writers of today, whatever genre they choose to write in: fiction or non-fiction.  It is the message that is important, not just to yourself, but also to the world.  Once you get it down on paper you then can go wherever your inner spirit wishes!”