12 minute read
Doing the Right Thing
When I first met Brigadier General and Brother Enoch O’Dell Woodhouse II, 32° , he had just emerged from his car in his dress uniform. He donned his peaked cap replete with intricately embroidered “clouds and darts” reserved for general officers and smoothed the front of his jacket. When he seemed satisfied with his appearance, I offered my hand. “It’s an honor to meet you, General Woodhouse,” I said. He took my hand and pulled me in.
“We're friends, Brother PJ. Give me a hug.” At that moment, I knew that I was in the presence of a special man and Brother. Woody, as his friends call him, is one of the most pleasant men I have ever met–a gentleman and a scholar. More than that, he is one of the last surviving members of the Tuskegee Airmen–an all-Black Army Air Corps squadron, founded by Colonel Benjamin O. Davis, which trained in Tuskegee, Alabama.
At 96 ½ years old, Woody shows no signs of stopping. (He jokingly reminded me that when you are under ten and over 90, it is acceptable to count the half-years.) A retired attorney, he travels the country as a speaker telling his story to college students, assemblies, and most recently to the national convention of the NAACP held in Boston. Woody’s story is one of perseverance, hope in the face of adversity, and as he often reminded me, doing the right thing.
THE FORMATIVE YEARS
The adversity Woody faced from the outset didn’t make doing the right thing very easy. He was raised in Roxbury, Boston’s all-Black neighborhood. “It was a good neighborhood,” he recalled. “We knew everyone, and everyone knew us. We weren't concerned with the person's color, because most of the people we saw were the same.”
Woody’s story is one of perseverance, hope in the face of adversity, and as he often reminded me, doing the right thing.
Both his father and grandfather were ministers; his grandfather was a circuit rider who would travel hamlet to hamlet to preach, and his father was an Anglican Episcopal minister. “You might say religion was a family business,” he laughed. “So I was fortunate to start out in a wholesome family environment with values. We did the right thing.”
Woody was an exemplary, hardworking student. He had access to religious texts at an early age and understood both Latin and Greek by the time he was in middle school. His parents helped him work ahead of the class–filling in the parts of the curriculum that weren’t being taught in his school–a function of the quality of the teachers sent to Roxbury. He had set his sights on Boston Latin School, but he would quickly learn that wasn’t in the cards.
After hearing others had received news of acceptance, Woody became concerned and expressed that concern to his parents. His father visited the headmaster only to be told that their neighborhood was ineligible for admission to Boston Latin School. His dad did not tell him of the exchange but Woody kept pressing. “We've all experienced this, that when you ask a question to your parents, and Mom looks at Dad and Dad looks at Mom, you know, something’s going down.
“So my mother broke the word. She said, ‘You know, son, Dad and I have been thinking, Boston English High School would be better for you than Boston Latin School, because it's closer,' which it wasn't. That was a lie, as I found out. 'But we will fix for you your nice sandwiches that you like.’ So I was happy.”
To no one’s surprise, Woody excelled at Boston English. He realized it was not as prestigious as Boston Latin, but that simple fact inspired him to work even harder. As one of only a handful of Black students, he was often singled out negatively by faculty, but he was not deterred. “So graduating from Boston English, that was my first lesson in persevering,” he said. Through that perseverance, he became the first Black man to be accepted to and graduate from Yale.
When he received the news that he was accepted to Yale, his family was ecstatic. His grandfather, however, strongly cautioned him of the racism he would undoubtedly face.
Before he could attend Yale, though, his mother had another request of him. It was 1944, and the country was still fighting on two fronts. “My mother said, ‘Boys, we're at war. I want you boys to serve your country.’
Can you imagine a Black woman saying that to all she had in the world - her two boys? She'd want us to give up our lives for that, for America.
THE ARMY
“So we went in to enlist to save America. People would say, ‘Well, gee, why would a Black man want to do that?’” To Woody, the answer was simple: you fought for your country in the hopes that a better America would emerge on the other side, that "we would get not great acclamation, but just get a fair shake.”
“I had like eight to ten dollars in my pocket, in the train station, alone, in uniform, in America– that I’m going to defend.”
The fair shake he was hoping for did not come on his train trip to report for duty in Texas. The trip from Boston to St. Louis was uneventful. He and the other soldiers on their way to Texas were excited. Many of the young men were enjoying their first beers in the dining cars, happy to be on their way to save America.
Things changed in St. Louis though, when Woody was escorted off the train without explanation. He watched as the other soldiers, all white, pulled out of the station. He was left standing on the platform, confused and sad.
“I had like eight to ten dollars in my pocket, in the train station, alone, in uniform, in America–that I’m going to defend,” he recalled.
“So this Black porter comes up to me and says, ‘Son, what are you doing here?’ I said, ‘Well, I just got off the train. I’m going to Texas.’
“He said, ‘Well, have you been south before?’ I said, ‘Yeah, I've been to New York.’ He said, ‘No, I don't mean that. Have you been in the real South?’ I said, ‘No.’ He said, ‘Well, you know, we don't ride that train. That train’s not for us.’” The porter then explained that the train for Black passengers and coal would be along in a few hours.
Woody finally arrived in Texas, his uniform covered in coal soot, to a less than welcoming reception.
In spite of all that he faced, Woody continued to do the right thing. He was admitted to Army Air Force officer training in 1946, and found himself as a Lieutenant at the age of 19. As a Black officer, the only place for him to go was to Davis’s 99th Pursuit Squadron–the Tuskegee Airmen.
Things were good as an officer there. That all changed when Colonel Davis sent Woodhouse to finance school in Wichita. On arrival, he headed across the base to the officer’s club, where he waited more than an hour to be seated. He grew frustrated as he watched other officers come and go, while he just stood there. The only accommodation the maître d’ would offer was to allow Woody to eat behind a folding shoji screen, out of the view of the other officers. He ordered a steak, but when it came he wanted nothing to do with it.
“What kept me steady was knowing who I am and knowing the other people.”
“So I left. Didn't have a glass of water, couldn't touch anything on the table. So I got up and left and went back to my barracks.” He had three weeks of this ahead of him. He wouldn’t eat at the officer’s club. He wasn’t permitted to dine in the enlisted mess hall. His only option was the snack bar. So for three weeks, he took all of his meals there.
Brother Woodhouse understands that there is a God-given piece of our nature that fortifies us against injustice–a spiritual backbone, he calls it. That spiritual backbone enabled him to complete the training and return to Tuskegee, where he became the paymaster for the entire squadron–a position he held until the end of his active duty.
YALE
Following his discharge, Woody returned north and began his studies at Yale. He quickly found out that his grandfather was correct about what he would face as a Black student at Yale. Not surprisingly, he had difficulty finding a roommate. The headmaster was sympathetic to his situation and put him in a vacant private suite usually reserved for the Yale elite. He was across the hall from the Gimbel twins (of department store fame) and down the hall from a Mellon. In spite of the fancy room, he regularly received unwelcoming notes slipped under his door.
He again stiffened his spiritual backbone. “What kept me steady was knowing who I am and knowing the other people. And when I go out and speak, I have to say this: All of us have our own different lives and own different experiences. And all of us have to realize not everyone loves us.
HIS MESSAGE
Brother Woodhouse’s story is one of perseverance to be certain, but it is also a story of hope. After all of the injustices he suffered along the way, it would have been easy to be jaded, cynical, and angry. But not Woody. Instead, he is affable, upbeat, and filled with hope. It shines through in his smile. You can hear it in his voice, and you can see it in his eyes. His values and his belief in a better world drive him. The talk he often delivers on the speaker circuit, entitled Looking Forward, is one of positivity and optimism.
“Freemasonry was not new to me, because I've lived that all my life.”
Brother Woodhouse is careful not to glorify himself in his story. He tells it not for honor or accolade, but rather to show where we were and how far we have come. He believes in the importance of that message and shows no signs of slowing down. He credits his longevity in part to being non-confrontational – a trait that served him well all his life. “I can’t believe it,” he smiled. “I wake up in the morning, meditate and thank our Creator that I'm here, and I've met so many good people by doing the right thing.”
Woody joined the fraternity a little over a year ago, but feels it has been part of him for much longer. “Freemasonry was not new to me, because I've lived that all my life. It was the formality of being inducted. It's like you’d be married for the second time, or even better, to have your marriage ceremony repeated every day of your life. I'm just not a Mason during meeting time. This is the way I live.” And that’s true. He is the embodiment of the Scottish Rite Core Values of Integrity, Justice, Service to Humanity, Love of Country, Devotion to God, and Tolerance.
At the conclusion of our time together, Woody told me, “I’ll wind up as I started: just do the right thing. I'm delighted and I'm proud to be in [the Masons] among good people, good people with good values. They have never let me down, I will never let them down. Count on it. I just have to say, just do the right thing.”
At the conclusion of our interview, Commander Samiec presented Brother Woodhouse with the Daniel D. Tompkins Award for Distinguished Service. “General Woodhouse, meeting you and being able to present you with the Tompkins Medal was truly one of the highlights of my term as Commander,” he said.
“It’s just as big of an honor for me to meet you, and I thank you for all that you do as Commander of the Scottish Rite,” Woodhouse replied.
In His Own Words
Brother Woody is a consummate storyteller. Here’s one more story about his visit to the Vatican in 2018 in his own words:
I joined the Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company. The oldest public military installation in the Western Hemisphere, third in the world, after the Swiss Guards in the Knights of Malta. So we go to Rome, and of course, whenever we go to any city in the world, we meet with the ambassador and the muckety-mucks.
Well, of course, in Rome, we have a lot of Catholics in the organization, and we had an audience with the Pope–the Holy Father, Pope Francis. So we all lined up, you know, and you go into the audience room where the Pope gives his audiences.
It's just a very impressive honor that you never forget, but the room you go into is the most simple, austere room in the whole Vatican. Not a picture, not a statue, just a plain white room. So we were lining up to take communion. So all of my good friends, they were all Roman Catholics, you know, they knew where they were. So I stood up. I stood in line. And the guys were nudging me, “Woody, you’re not a Catholic.” And I said, “No I’m not a Catholic, I’m an Anglican–same thing.” So we have communion and of course, the Pope makes the sign of the cross on your head and gives you the wine. So when the Pope came to me, I said, “Thank you, Holy Father, praise Jesus.”
And he smiled and laughed . . . and the Pope embraced me, but he didn't embrace a lot of the other guys. So they said, “Woody, why did he embrace you?” That's because I greeted him in Polish!
So, that is humanity at its best. He did not know I was not Catholic. Of course, I was religious, you know, but the way he embraced me, I will cherish that, because no one else in the company even got an embrace.
