They are sometimes referred to, tongue in cheek, as “The Harrolds of North County”. There are a lot of them, and many are very successful in their chosen fields. In parts of North County, if you mention knowing one of the Harrolds the person you are talking with is almost guaranteed to say “Oh yeah, I know..” and then name a cousin or uncle or aunt.
The patriarch of the family, Frank Harrold, born in the 1920s, was one of sixteen children. Many of Frank’s children then had families with more than ten kids – as I said, there are a lot of them. Frank was part of a transitional generation of African Americans. When he was young there were still African Americans alive that had been enslaved. But industrialism was changing our world and bringing new hope of a better life. Millions of African Americans joined the Great Migration, moving from the rural South to the industrial north. They believed a better life was possible and they were intent on making it happen for themselves and their children.
Frank served as a police officer in Kinloch and then went on to help found the Memorial Lancers Drum and Bugle Corps. Thousands of African American kids passed through the Lancers, learning not just music and discipline but more importantly self confidence and pride. If you know any of the Harrolds you get the feeling that all of their children were expected to not just live life, but to make something happen with their lives. The Harrold I know started the robotics club at the school where he taught and also created a mentoring program for young men.
One of the Harrolds of North County, Keyon Harrold Jr., became a famous jazz trumpeter. He left St. Louis to attend The New School, a famous New York music school. He very quickly became part of the scene and started building a career for himself. If you saw the movie “Miles Ahead” about jazz icon Miles Davis, Keyon was the person actually playing the trumpet on the soundtrack.
Keyon was in the news in the last couple of weeks. Working on a new album, he was staying at an expensive New York hotel. His son was with him in the lobby when a woman aggressively began accusing his son of stealing her cell phone. When the Harrolds started to leave the woman tackled Keyon’s son, trying to go through his pockets. According to news report her phone was eventually found in an Uber, where she had left it.
Who knows what was going through the woman’s mind. She didn’t see Harrold’s son take the cellphone – it was missing and so, for whatever reason, she concluded that the Black teenager in the lobby must have taken it. Would she have leapt to the same conclusion if the teenager had been white? Would she have tried to tackle him? You really can’t know why a person does what they do, and I don’t have it in me to always assume the worst of people. But it’s hard not to think that somewhere inside a racial assumption played into her actions. And with it, maybe a societal assumption, that of course she had the right to search the son, the law would be on her side.
This is the wariness that my African American friends carry with them. For all of the progress, old societal habits die hard. Even success doesn’t automatically bring with it protections against being randomly accosted and accused of stealing something, or worse.
Thankfully, we live in a changing and better world. Keyon Harrold didn’t hesitate to report to the police what the woman had done. The New York Police had the woman arrested in her home state, as she deserved to be. Surely the “Broken Windows” theory also applies to racism – if we ignore the tiny racisms, we encourage further racisms.
It makes me a little sad every time I read a story like this, but also hopeful. This is how permanent change happens – African Americans not hesitating to demand the same protections under the law that other Americans have. Keyon Harrold Jr., of the North County Harrolds, did his family and our community proud.