‘Salt and pepper’ crowd a preview of heaven

Cody sossamon

LEDGER PUBLISHER

As I sat in New Emanuel Chapel Baptist Church on Sunday afternoon surrounded by a couple hundred of Tommy ‘Butch’ Henderson’s friends and family, there was a strong sense of togetherness.

We were gathered for Butch’s funeral — to mourn his passing.

There was something about this funeral, however, that was special.

Probably because Butch was a special person.

There was something about him that endeared him to others.

I felt honored to be asked by his family to say a few words at the funeral.

“I never heard anyone say anything but nice things about Butch. I’ve met a lot of people during my life, but never a better person than he. He always had a big smile on his face that brightened the spirits of those around him,” I said in part.

The Rev. James Mason felt the specialness of this funeral as well.

During his remarks he alluded to the racial makeup and the seating arrangements of the mourners.

“This is what it will be like in heaven. There won’t be a black section over here and a white section over there. It will be salt and pepper everywhere!”

You see, Butch was black.

Of the couple of hundred at his funeral, there were 30 or 40 whites. Maybe more.

Butch wasn’t some celebrity or sports star whom you might expect would have a mixed circle of friends.

No, he was just a hard-working, decent man from a small, rural Southern town.

He wasn’t just a co-worker to those of us here at The Ledger and at Wal-Mart.

He was a friend. Black or white, it didn’t matter.

There was something else I felt during the funeral.

A sense of hope — hope that someday all of us, black and white, will be able to live and work together in peace and harmony.

Despite the current cries of racism now taking place in city hall over the renaming of a street and correcting drainage problems at a church, I still have that hope for racial harmony in our community and around the world.

It’s not going to happen overnight.

There is a lot of history behind much of the animosity that exists today. Mistrust, skepticism, and suspicion — call it what you want — are largely responsible for impeding racial harmony.

Learned behavior might be an even bigger factor.

Little by little, though, relations between the races are improving.

People like Butch are a major reason why.

That was evident at his ‘salt and pepper’ funeral.

There was something about his soft-spoken gentleness and big, wide smile that transcended the boundaries of color.

During my brief remarks about Butch at his funeral, I mentioned the glorious singing I had just heard.

I returned to my seat next to an elderly black gentleman.

After the next song, which was even more rousing than the first, he nudged me in the ribs and whispered in my ear, “How’d you like that singing?”

Very much, I told him. Very much.

After the Rev. Mason completed his animated ‘Words of Consolation,’ I felt another nudge in the ribs.

I leaned over and heard these words: “How’d you like that preaching?”

I smiled at him and shook my head in the affirmative.

Both the singing and the preaching were a little different (to say the least) than what I usually hear, but I came out of that service feeling uplifted like never before after attending a funeral.

And l learned a lot about black culture, which is another step toward racial harmony — learning about each other’s customs and beliefs.

During his time here on earth, Butch probably had no idea he was touching so many lives in such a positive way. He, I’m sure, never thought his death would bring so many people from so many different walks of life together.

Commenting on the overflow crowd at the church, his sister Queen said, “Butch always did draw a crowd.”

The crowd will miss him, but we won’t forget him.

And hopefully, that seed of racial harmony he unknowingly planted in all of us will grow and multiply.

(Cody Sossamon is publisher of The Gaffney Ledger. You can contact him via e-mail at cody@gaffneyledger.com)