It would be a miscarriage of justice and a downright act of historical negligence to let this month of Black History pass without paying tribute to perhaps one of our greatest Civil Rights activists.
I first got to know Mr. Rudy Lytch, as we called him back then, as an insurance agent with whom my mother had an insurance policy (when I was in elementary school). I well remember him coming to our house each month to collect the premium.
Mr. Rudy, in our eyes, was a man who was well versed and informed on the issues of life. He was well known as one who many people in Newtown would seek out for advice and counsel. Back then, many of the grown-ups in our community were illiterate and could not read. When they would have to transact business or sign documents, they would enlist the assistance of Mr. Rudy Lytch.
A few months before he passed away back in August of 1990, I had the distinct privilege of having a conversation with him that I now know was an interview for posterity and this column that you are reading today.
Too often, we have allowed the legacy and history of people like Mr. Rudy to either fade in our memory or lie in obscurity because there was nobody around to tell their stories. History is replete with stories and examples like this one you are presently reading of African -Americans who did astounding and heroic things that were never recorded or duly recognized or revered for their achievements and sacrifices.
Before I render my closing comments and compliments on Mr. Rudy, I want to insert a piece from the obituary section of The Dillon Herald that was printed back in August of 1990. Although it does not contain the full scope of Mr. Rudy Lytch’s life and the historic contribution, services, and sacrifices he made as arguably our first and greatest Civil Rights activist, the biographical information is correct:
Mr. Lytch was born in Dillon County, a son of the late Thad and Mary Eliza McEachern Lytch. He attended the public schools in Dillon County and continued his education at Georgia State College and Allen University. At an early age, he joined Miller’s Chapel AME Church and when he moved to Dillon, he joined St. Stephens United Methodist Church.
In the early 1970’s, he transferred his membership to Bowling Green United Methodist Church where he was the administrative board chairman, trustee, senior choir member, Sunday School Teacher, and steward. He was a former president of the Dillon County Chapter of the National Association of the Advancement of Colored People. For his work with the Boy Scouts, Mr. Lytch was awarded the Scoutmaster’s Key and the Silver Beaver award.
When I had my conversation with Mr. Rudy Lytch back in 1990, he shared some amazing stories with me about the days of Jim Crow and how things were for African-Americans back then. Those were the heydays of the Ku Klux Klan in America, especially the South. Our locale was not exempted from the presence and influence of this hate group of White supremists, who often employed intimidation and fear tactics to keep Black, Native Americans, and even Jews under the sway of their bigotry.
Mr. Rudy Lytch said that being the head of the local branch of the NAACP made him perhaps the number one target of their tactics.
He shared with me the time when the Klan organized a demonstration of fear that literally paraded many cars through the streets of Newtown. Their intent and strategy was to send a message of intimidation and fear to the people of Newtown, especially the outspoken leader of the NAACP. They cruised through the dirt roads of Newtown with their KKK signs and Confederate flags on their cars.
I vaguely remember this event transpiring, but I recall being told by my parents, as were other children, to stay inside our houses with our doors closed and locked. Their tactic had worked on most who did not want to defy nor incur the wrath of these bigots, who were parading through our community in a demonstration of white supremacy and racism. However, there were a few exceptions, a handful of defiant and fearless ones who were not afraid of their parade of intimidation and fear.
Mr. Rudy Lytch was in this number and when the caravan of cars made its last leg down the street where he lived, the very one that the demonstration was organize to frighten, there he stood on his front porch in open defiance with his eyes wide open watching each car as it passed.
The irony of this story was that he recognized some of the men who were a part of this parade of bigotry even though they were adorned in their robes and Klan attire.
Mr. Rudy Lytch, along with Gloria Blackwell, his Civil Rights comrade at the time, were cited for registering more African-Americans to vote than anyone in the Pee Dee region.
Mr. Rudy’s life and stand against racism and Jim Crow was the stuff from which legends spring. According to his daughter, Velma, he once attended a Klan meeting right by himself without being invited. When he entered their open meeting unannounced, he recognized many of the men who had gathered for the meeting. He assured the Klansmen that he had notified the F.B.I. that he would be attending the meeting. When his oldest son was a toddler, a threat was made by the racist group that they were going to bomb his house. In order to assure the safety of his child and wife, he took the threat seriously and vacated the house for a few nights.
Perhaps one of the most courageous things he did was to spend the night in his car with his pistol by his side in order to protect his pastor at the parsonage of St. Stephen’s United Methodist Church, who had been threatened by bigots because of his outcry against racism, as president of the local chapter of the NAACP. His story and what he endured to help advance us through the period of Jim Crow need to be told and retold.
Our children need to know that we had a few people, both men and women, who were not afraid to make a stand against racism and bigotry.
Like Mr. Rudy Lytch, they were ahead of their time. They were our heroes whose boldness and outspokenness scared many timid blacks and signaled to the status quo that a change was coming.
Without people like Mr. Rudy Lytch, we would still be in bondage, living in fear of the bogymen of bigotry, tight-lipped, and emasculated of the courage to speak out against injustices and other thieves that rob us of our constitutional rights.
