As part of Groundwork’s ongoing series of equity writings—today honoring Martin Luther King, Jr., National Day of Service—we invited Isiah Smith to reflect on James Baldwin’s phrase: “For this is your home, my friend, do not be driven from it,” published in Baldwin’s book The Fire Next Time, 1963. 

Isiah Smith was born in 1948 in Georgia but left after high school and moved to Miami, Florida, to attend college. Eventually, Isiah studied law and psychology and served as a government attorney in Washington, D.C., for 25 years. He retired to Traverse City 10 years ago, and one thing he does to keep busy is write an essay column titled Ray of Light that appears on Substack and runs in the Northern Express. I strongly suggest you check it out; it is an outstanding read.—Jeff Smith

Isiah Smith: Well, actually, James Baldwin was driven from his home for quite a while. I believe about 40 years, because he found the corrosive effects of racism and discrimination to be so debilitating, so much so that he found he could not write. And his best books were written somewhere else.

He wrote a marvelous essay called “The Stranger in the Village.” He wound up in 1955 in a little Swiss village. In the first paragraph, he writes that from all available evidence, no black man had ever set foot in this tiny village before he came. He says, “I was told, before arriving, that I would probably be a sight in the village. I took this to mean that people of my complexion were rarely seen in Switzerland and that city people are always something of a sight outside the city. It did not occur to me, possibly, because I am an American, that there could be people anywhere who had not seen a black man.”

This passage took on added meaning for me about 10 years ago when I found myself living in Traverse City. While on a bike ride on Old Mission Peninsula, I encountered a white man. He told me, “This is a white man’s town.” I thought, OK, oh my gosh. I must have taken a wrong turn. I thought I was in America. And I told him, “All of America is for all Americans.” I love Traverse City, everything about it. And Traverse City is as much mine as it is his.

I had spent most of my life in big cities—over 20 years in Miami and 30 years in the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area. But I think you should be able to find a home wherever your heart is; my heart is with my wife, and she is here.

So all that is to say that no one will drive me from Traverse City. I’d be a weak person if I allowed someone to determine where I am going to live. And I think people who talk about leaving the United States now because of the Trump election don’t know much about our history. All the world is not America, and all of America is not Washington, D.C.

My wife and I were just three weeks in D.C. and New York City, and nobody mentioned Trump. And if they did, it was only in passing. This, too, shall pass.

The pendulum has swung far in one direction. The force of gravity will bring it back. This will not be the end of the American story. This country is in its infancy. My grandson is Swedish. They have buildings in Sweden older than this country.

I spent the first 18 years of my life in Jim Crow, Georgia. A lot of young black people tell me that today, things are worse than ever. I have to laugh. No way are things worse than ever. You know, the law enforcement people and a mob of white men once threatened to lynch my father. They could have done it with impunity.

I picked cotton until I was 17. Later, I supervised a staff of lawyers in D.C. When I told them I used to pick cotton, they swore that couldn’t be. They thought picking cotton was something in history, but I picked cotton until I was 17. There was a time when I had to confront the white guy who owned the farm because he was cheating me. I was called arrogant because I was assertive.

Here’s how that all came to be. Growing up in Georgia, we used to get mail-order magazines from Sears and Roebuck that they’d send to the country homes. I saw a double-breasted sweater in the magazine that I fell in love with, and I knew the girls would love me at school when I wore it. I had to have that sweater, and I calculated how much I had to make in cotton dollars. I had to earn 15 dollars for one week. I worked my bones off for a week, sunup to sundown in the blazing hot Georgia sun. Each day, I calculated how much I picked and would be owed and came to the exact amount I needed, a little more actually, to be paid by Woodrow King, the owner of the cotton field.

The time came to get paid, and he said, “You did a good job; you made 13 dollars and 50 cents. That’s false because I calculated everything, but what will I say? We don’t speak back to these people, you know, but, man, I wanted that sweater so bad.

I said, “Excuse me, Mr. King. But I think you made a mistake. I kept meticulous records, a little over $15.”

He said, “You are a smart boy, aren’t you? You are right.” Then he paid me. He had a record book there; he could have checked it, but he didn’t, which shows he knew what he was doing.

I was a kid weighing about 124 pounds; a stiff wind could have blown me away. I looked even younger than my actual age. Maybe there was some humanity in him that left him ashamed that he was ripping off a little kid, but it occurred to me how many of these semi-literate people out here with me every day are getting ripped off. Some could not calculate, and the rest were afraid to speak up. It taught me that if you speak up for yourself, you can get somewhere.

Common sense led me from Georgia. It was a tough place to grow up. I hated every minute of it. I couldn’t wait to leave it. I moved to South Florida.

And a little later on, when people asked me where I was from, I said, “Miami,” because that’s where my life began. That’s where I met my wife at the University of Miami. That’s where I got educated. That’s where my daughter was born.

When people ask me where I’m from now, I say Traverse City. A home is where you invest your heart. Dirt doesn’t define me.