Fort Wayne – Hana Stith has a story to tell.

Decades ago, when ice trucks and milkmen roamed the city and President Roosevelt was pledging a new deal for Americans, Stith’s mother and brother entered a bus and sat down.

Granted, there is nothing surprising about this part of the story. In the early half of the last century, riding the bus or streetcar was something most people did every day. What makes this story different is what happened next.

Stith’s mother, whose pale skin and silky hair were the result of having a white father, was told that the boy next to her – the one with brown skin – could not sit with her. This was Georgia, the man said. This kind of thing wasn’t tolerated.

With a steady gaze, Stith’s mother gave the bus driver her response.

“He is my son,” she said. “And either he sits by me or you can give me my money back and we’ll leave.”

“My mother battled for her kids,” Stith says. “She was always there, standing strong behind us. When I think of who I am and the person I became, I think of her first.”

Stith, 82, curator and founder of the African/African-American Historical Museum, inherited many traits from her mother. Determination. Strength. The willingness, confidence and wisdom it takes to stand firm and become the civic rabble-rouser every society needs.

But all this may come as a surprise when you meet Stith in person. Measuring just under 5 feet tall, she peppers her speech with grins and funny, everyday observations. (“The heat this summer? Well, it’s entirely unnecessary,” she says.)

On your first meeting with her, you may even consider her “cute.” But when she effortlessly slides into a discourse on a topic such as differential adaptations to social inequality, you realize cute does not come close to covering it.

Stith was born in 1928, at the family home on Catalpa Street in Fort Wayne’s Westfield neighborhood. Three years later, at the beginning of the Great Depression, her father died, forcing her mother to scrape together a living working as a maid.

It was a happy, if poor, childhood, Stith says. Her mother made sure the family always had a home and the children never went hungry.

“My mother would cook and wouldn’t eat her dinner until we ate,” Stith says. “If we were greedy children, licking all the pans, she wouldn’t eat at all. She loved her children, and she worked hard to take care of them.”

Stith grew up smart – a self-described teacher’s pet – but was often unaware of the racial discrimination so prevalent during her childhood. At Booker T. Washington Park, right across the street from her house, Stith played with neighborhood children of all races.

“There was a mix of people in Westfield, and we all played together,” she says. “Race wasn’t an issue. I knew we went to separate churches. We didn’t all go to the movies together. But we played. I had good relationships with white people.”

It wasn’t until her cousin was shot and killed by a white police officer for drinking a bottle of beer inside a white-owned tavern and running from the ensuing fight that her eyes were opened. She saw her cousin crumpled on the street near his home, covered in blood. She was 8 years old.

“It was a terrible thing to see,” she says. “And no one was ever held responsible.”

Soon after the shooting, Stith began reading black-owned newspapers such as the Chicago Defender, poring over stories about the violence and discrimination against black people that was happening across the country.

“It made me want to fight for justice,” she says. “I decided that when I grew up, I would be a famous lawyer and solve all of these problems, because we really needed them to be solved at the time.”

Instead, Stith embarked on a career that included both teaching in inner-city schools for 36 years and taking on civic positions with the Fort Wayne Redevelopment Commission, the Metropolitan Human Relations Commission, the Fort Wayne Board of Public Safety and the NAACP.

Again, Stith credits her mother for her dedication to the community.

“Because of her, I had confidence,” she says. “My mother had a high moral standard. She believed in being a good citizen. I’ve tried to pass that on to young people. I encourage them to look at the sacrifices that were made to provide them with opportunity.”

Stith began thinking about starting a black history museum in 1976, the year the country celebrated its bicentennial. At the time, there was no history of black people and no place to find it, Stith says.

“The local museum had only four pictures of black people, and I knew who they were already,” she says. “So I started working and reading and interviewing people. I realized, if you want to learn about your history, you have to do it yourself. No one is going to do it for you.”

Years later, in 2000, Stith founded the African/African-American Historical Museum. Located inside a house on Douglas Avenue, the museum houses African artifacts; exhibits focusing on slavery, the civil rights movement and local history; and a resource center containing more than 2,000 books about African and African-American history and culture.

Today, the museum has dozens of community supporters – volunteers, board members and community advisors dedicated to carrying on Stith’s work.

But Stith is a part of local black history herself. She was one of the first black teachers hired by Fort Wayne Community Schools and the first to teach at the now-defunct McCulloch Elementary School.

Each year, the museum educates hundreds of young people about black history – both the history of the past and history being made now. In the foyer of the museum, there is a cardboard cut-out of President Obama; a black president of the United States illustrates that education and opportunity are here, as long as you’re looking for them, Stith says.

“This is the land of opportunity, the land of milk and honey,” she says. “I look at African-American kids who don’t realize that. And opportunity can – and does – pass you by.”

Watching the city’s young people tour the museum is often bittersweet for Stith. While some students relish the opportunity to learn, others pass through without much interest.

“There is less appreciation for black history now,” she says. “Young people don’t understand the struggle. It was not easy for us. But it’s come easy for them.”

Stith believes education is a lifelong pursuit – even for her. Recently, she toured a series of key locations in the civil rights movement, including Meridian, Miss., site of the 1964 lynching of three civil rights workers. For Stith, who was not on the front lines of the movement, the trip was a balm for the lost opportunity, she says.

“It was nice to participate in history,” Stith says. “To see the places and think about the sacrifices our ancestors made. I wasn’t on the battlefield with them. I’d see all the violence and was glad I wasn’t involved. I was teaching; my husband was doing fine. So I’ve always felt a little guilty.”

Harold, owner of Harold Stith Plumbing & Heating Co. and Hana’s husband of 61 years, died last year. She misses her “best buddy,” she says. She misses talking to him across the dinner table, misses cooking for him. His clothes still hang in the bedroom closet and, at times, it seems he hasn’t left. But then the air conditioning breaks and Harold isn’t there to fix it anymore.

“There are times when it seems there is no one to talk to,” she says. “Some days, I’ll think, ‘I can’t wait to tell Harold about that.’ His presence is still so strong.”

But Stith – who is an avid scrapbooker and volunteer (particularly for the NAACP) – is not alone. Her daughter and granddaughter live in Columbus, Ohio, and Fort Wayne is filled with Stith’s students, many of whom still keep in touch and continue the legacy of the lessons Stith learned from her mother.

“In spite of everything, my mother produced strong children,” Stith says. “I see her values coming back to me when I see good work being done. In so many ways, my mother shaped both my life and the life of the people I’ve known.”

edowns@jg.net