Bob Booker worked so everyone could have a seat at the table | Opinion

Sam Venable
·2 min read

It seems fitting that Bob Booker’s 88-year journey ended during Black History Month. For three generations of East Tennesseans, his life was a walking, talking history book about, and a testament to, the civil rights movement in this region.

I had the rare privilege of knowing Bob as both a friend and fellow News Sentinel columnist. In any setting, he was always calm of voice, gentle in demeanor.

But be not fooled. Whether helping dismantle the Jim Crow era’s unjust and inhumane restrictions, or serving three terms as state representative in the Tennessee General Assembly, Bob was resolute in his convictions about human dignity.

In the front row from left are Knoxville College students Warren Brown, Bob Booker, Olin Franklin, Lucille Thompson, Aaron Allen, John Dean and Georgia Walker participating in a civil rights demonstration in March 1960. Booker died Feb. 22 at 88.
In the front row from left are Knoxville College students Warren Brown, Bob Booker, Olin Franklin, Lucille Thompson, Aaron Allen, John Dean and Georgia Walker participating in a civil rights demonstration in March 1960. Booker died Feb. 22 at 88.

He knew everybody — emphasis on “every” — deserved a place at the table. And he devoted his life to showing, by example, how to make it happen.

As a student at Knoxville College, Bob helped organize and lead peaceful sit-in demonstrations to integrate local eating establishments and movie theaters. He and his fellow students were taunted and arrested. Repeatedly. Irate customers — and no small number of local politicians — couldn’t believe “those people” had the audacity to expect the same rights everyone else (aka white-skinned people) took for granted.

“We were not mean spirited; we didn’t hate anybody,” he once wrote. “We were young Americans who just wanted to buy a hamburger, Coke and a slice of apple pie.”

Such a simple, earnest request — yet thwarted at every turn by laws that spawned a two-tiered system and proved the mockery of a ridiculous notion called “separate but equal.”

Bob often came up to the News Sentinel’s editorial department when he swung by the front desk to drop off new columns. I enjoyed those visits immensely, particularly when discussing the segregated history of Knoxville. One day I asked how he was able to cope with all those years of rejection until the conscience of society, not to mention the wheels of justice, finally turned.

“I know myself and my psyche,” I remember telling him. “If I’d grown up being treated like a second-class citizen, I’d be the meanest, most spiteful person in America. I’d spend the rest of my life carrying a grudge. How in the world did you get by it?”

Bob smiled warmly and spoke to me like a big brother talking to his kid sibling.

“Sam, you have to let it go,” he said. “Hate only hurts the hater. It’ll eat you alive from the inside if you let it.”

Sure, I know that. At least from the intellectual standpoint. It’s the universal mantra of parents, preachers and psychologists. It’s the “right” thing to do.

But emotionally and realistically? Whew. What a steep mountain to climb.Yet here was a guy who climbed that mountain over and over, one foot proudly in front of the other. For that, we’re indebted to Bob Booker.All of us.

News Sentinel columnist Sam Venable may be reached at sam.venable@outlook.com.

This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Opinion: Bob Booker worked so everyone could have a seat at the table