Gene Mingo’s stories in his words

“I’ll never forget my wife, Erma, and I had my little son, I was drafted away from the Oakland Raiders to the Miami Dolphins, and we went Paducah, Texas. I spent a week, two weeks or whatever down there with her mother and father, and I worked out, I went to Akron, Ohio.

“Then I took the eastern, southern route down to Miami. I had just purchased a brand-new Cadillac Coupe deVille — blood-red interior, all-white on the outside, two door. We’re going down, and we’re driving, driving, driving, and I needed to fill up. So we pull into this one gas station, and this old white guy comes out with his bib overalls, and he said, ‘What can I do for you?’ And I said, ‘I’d like to fill up, sir, if I may?’ And he said, ‘Regular, or high octane?’ I said, ‘Just regular.’ And he pumped the gas in, he was kind enough to wash the windows and check my oil. That’s what they did back in those days.

“He came over to get the money, and before I handed him the money I said, ‘Do you know where I can get something for my wife and son?’ And he said, ‘Yeah, if you go down the road here, there’s a little restaurant. If they haven’t closed, you can get something to eat there.’ And so I took the money out of my wallet and into my right hand, and I was handing it to him. The only thing that made him change his mind and not look at the color of my skin was the ring I had on. I’m a 32nd-degree Mason. And he looked at that and said, ‘Oh, you travel?’ And I gave him the right words. And he said, ‘What do you want to eat?’ And I said, ‘Well, just anything. Hamburger, cheeseburger, French fries, pop, or whatever.’ He says, ‘Pull around the back … No! Don’t pull around the back. Just wait here in the car, and I’ll go and get you something to eat.’ He came out, and those were the best hamburgers and French fries I think I’ve ever had.

“After giving me the bags, he put his hands on the side of the door, and he said, ‘Now I’m going to tell you something. When you go down this road, make sure you do the speed limit. Because there is a sheriff down there that would love to arrest you. There are some other people down there that might be upset because you have this nice car and this [lighter-skinned] lady. Do me a favor: Just drive slow.’

“Now that meant a lot to me, for this southern white man to tell me to be careful that there were other whites down the road that didn’t accept me the way he did. He accepted that I was a Mason, and that helped.”