Mary Burritt: Groundbreaking leader Harold Bass 'always liked being different'

You may be surprised to learn that Harold Bass, the second black county commissioner to serve Rockingham County, is no longer a member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

“I just didn’t believe that color was the criteria by which I wanted to express myself,” Bass says.

Referring to the NAACP, Mr. Bass said, “A lot of blacks and whites support the concept, and I support too, but I don’t believe that’s the only way I can demonstrate leadership.”

Bass has lived his life straddling the color line, living in black neighborhoods, picking crops and attending black schools while worshiping in churches, working in a corporation and serving on civic boards that were predominantly white. He suffered hatred and bigotry from white people but met others who went out of their way to help.

“I never grew up with any dislike of anybody because of their color,” he says.

Race, though, is a big part of his story. There had been only one other black Rockingham County commissioner, Clarence Tucker, when Bass was first elected in 2004. Bass was re-elected to a second four-year term. Bass envisioned the Rockingham County Citizens’ Academy, founded in 2012, a 10-week course acquainting citizens with the workings of county government. (Applications for the seventh class are due July 5.) From president of the Reidsville Rotary to a trustee for the county library, Bass has been a respected civic servant who exemplifies the power of listening, the wisdom of even temperament, and the respect that integrity commands.

At 81, Bass recalls well the Jim Crow South.

In 1939, when Bass was 5, his family moved from Morgan County, Ga., to the black side of Pitts Street in Alexandria, Va.

The white neighborhood began on the other side of Pitts Street.

“I grew up on the edge with the white people, and I saw conditions I knew my mother wouldn’t tolerate,” Bass says, “trashy” and “congested” living conditions. “So I was very comfortable with who I was and not ashamed of myself.”

Bass explored the white neighborhood beyond its trashy fringe, which spread into homes lovely enough for Bass to sketch them. He was wary when some white ladies in the neighborhood approached him.

“They asked me why I was sketching these houses, and when I said, ‘This is what I’m going to build one day,’ they (the white ladies) encouraged me,” he says.

A white priest whose church was near Bass’ neighborhood played basketball and sang doo-wop with Bass and his friends. St. Joseph’s Catholic Church had an auditorium in the basement, where “it was like a mix-over of black and white, the entire community,” Bass remembers.

The integrated youth group at St. Joseph’s was a surprising contrast to his segregated education.

“We (the black children) could participate in the choir, and we could do plays,” Bass recalls. The Rev. Francis O’Shea “was a tremendous individual. I guess, too, because of his race, (the integration of the kids) was that much more impressive. The whites didn’t reach out to the blacks back then.”

At 11, Bass attended churches of four denominations: Catholic, Baptist, Methodist and Episcopalian. The Catholic and Episcopalian churches were predominantly white; the Baptist and Methodist churches were black.

Bass made his choice and converted to Catholicism by age 12.

“I’ve always liked being different,” he says.

Bass’ parents, neither of whom finished high school, taught him to navigate the conflicting currents of bigotry and acceptance, cruelty and kindness.

Manners, good behavior and prudence were taught mostly by his mother, who once washed out Bass’ mouth with Octagon soap for saying “hell” and “damn.”

Bass’ father, Douglas, taught him customer service.

He instructed Bass and his three siblings to listen and learn as he talked white farmers into letting the family pick the cotton and peaches.

When Bass delivered newspapers, his father would remind him daily, “Put that paper where they want it.”

After he started his trucking company, Douglas Bass taught his sons to be extra careful when handling furniture.

He also showed them how to defuse racist behavior.

Bass once saw his father deflect the veiled insults of a former boss who was jealous of Douglas Bass’ flourishing trucking business.

Douglas Bass was a smart, disciplined, ambitious man. He learned to repair and maintain trucks, saved his money, and when World War II ended in 1945, he bought surplus military trucks.

He had impressed Alexandria’s white mayor, who recommended Bass for contracts with retailers such as Sears and Montgomery Ward, who were introducing the concept of home delivery. Bass bought more trucks and hired more workers.

One of his former foremen — who was white — stopped by the garage to tell Bass he was expanding too fast, implying he was more successful than a black man deserved to be.

“My father said, ‘I appreciate your advice, but this is my business, and I know what I need to do. Now please leave,’ ” Bass recalls.

Years later, as a territory manager for Kraft Foods, Bass would emulate his father’s unflappable demeanor while dealing with a Mississippi distributor who repeatedly called Bass racial epithets to his face.

Bass was there to collect delinquent payments. The man told Bass, “You’re a pretty intelligent nigger, aren’t you?”

Bass said he replied, “‘No, I don’t think so’ — meaning, no, I wasn’t a nigger. He said, ‘But you don’t talk like the niggers around here talk,’ and I said, ‘I’m sorry I disappointed you.’ ”

Bass, refusing to be baited, explained calmly that the company money the man had been using to buy new cars was intended to reduce inventory cost and generate more volume.

“I saw he wasn’t going to reach the level I was trying to bring him to,” Bass says, “but I did get him to pay his bill.”

Bass left the distributor, riding in his Kraft company car, driven by a white man. A few miles down the road, the driver pulled over and slid a shotgun out from under the driver’s seat. He lifted the shotgun, turned to Bass and said, “Mr. Bass, as long as you’re with me, nobody’s going to hurt you.”

Such experiences make Bass feel like “the Jackie Robinson of Kraft,” and as the first black territory manager in the corporation, he arguably is.

He started with Kraft delivering the company’s Sealtest dairy products. He and Lula, his wife of nearly 59 years, whom he met at Virginia State, had just moved to Washington. Bass’ route through D.C.’s Georgetown neighborhood included the homes of U.S. Sens. Barry Goldwater and Hubert Humphrey.

Bass still marvels at the kindness of a white couple on his route.

The woman “would insist I come in and have a sandwich, and I enjoyed it, but it would delay me,” Bass recalls, smiling. “I think she was in the window watching for me.”

After the first of his many promotions, Bass told her he was buying a house in Maryland, a house very much like the one he had sketched as a child.

“Do you have your plans?” the woman asked. “Bring them by and let me look at them.”

A week later, her husband, a real-estate lawyer, introduced himself and suggested a few changes, including one that prevented him from paying any closing costs.

The experience “truly enhanced my belief in people,” Bass says.

From Brandywine, Md., Bass commuted first to Washington, then to Kraft’s Baltimore office. After 10 years, the chief executive officer of Southern Operations asked Bass to move further south as an area manager.

“It was a tremendous opportunity,” Bass says. “We didn’t have any blacks representing us in North Carolina.”

Kraft’s southern headquarters was in Winston-Salem, and Bass recognized the chance to advance his career and move his wife back to her family in Ruffin.

In 1979, the Basses moved to the home where they still live today.

During the ensuing years, Bass marveled at the gestures this CEO, a white man from Savannah, Ga., made on his behalf.

Bass continued to face racism from customers, co-workers, subordinates, even their spouses. But the man who hired him had his back.

“It just made me feel good about what I believed and what I wanted to see happen,” Bass says. “I want to see us humans be successful, despite our differences.”

Bass has long since retired from Kraft and, more recently, from public service.

Some community leaders hint that they wish he would again run for office, but he says “my first priority is caretaking” for his ailing wife, Lula.

In the meantime, Bass continues to deliver his message at meetings and presentations.

The sticker on the front of his ever-present folder reads: “Erase hate.”