08/27/2023
When his boss found out his secret, he thought he would be fired. He sobbed thinking he would not only lose his job, but also a friend and father figure. But, his Boss didn’t fire him.
~~~~~
You may not remember him by his college yearbook photograph.
But, you may remember him in another iconic photograph (which you can google), sitting in the yard of a neighbor. It was a hot summer day, and his friend had invited him to join him, in front of a wading pool, and soak their feet together.
His name is Francois Clemmons, but you may remember him in the role he had in the Neighborhood, as “Officer Clemmons.” His friend and neighbor was Fred - Fred Rogers, or as he was lovingly referred to as “Mister Rogers.”
This is an excerpt and revisit to a popular Peace Page story, on this the 7th anniversary of the Peace Page. The story of Officer Clemmons was originally published on the Peace Page in 2019. The post tells the story of how Francois Clemmons became “Officer Clemmons”.
In 1969, riots were erupting in Black neighborhoods across the nation. Racial segregation had ended as far as public drinking fountains, public transportation, and public schools, but there was a new battleground - public pools. Many public pools were off limits to Blacks. Police were routinely called whenever a Black person supposedly trespassed into a pool. Still fresh in the memories of both Black and white protestors was the infamous incident in the summer of 1964 in which a hotel manager dumped acid into a pool of Black and white bathers.
“It was a definite call to social action on Fred’s part,” Clemmons recalls. “That was his way of speaking about race relations in America.”
~~~~~
The image of Officer Clemmons, a Black man, and Mister Rogers, a white man, is still circulating these days, showing a divided country that we can get along, that kindness - sometimes missing in the world - can be shared, with one another, with your neighbors, with the world, and that the peace we seek can still be obtained.
What you may not know of that story is that the real person in the role of Officer Clemmons was gay, but Fred Rogers, his Boss, his friend, his “surrogate father [as he described Rogers] , accepted him as who he was (although in those days they needed to work together to protect one another).
When Clemmons thought he was being fired or that their friendship had ended, he started crying uncontrollably. Rogers, according to Clemmons, held him, cradling him, saying, "Now wait just a minute, young man. Who says that our relationship has to come to an end?"
Clemmons said he would be able to talk to Rogers about being gay, which helped him.
Years later, in 1993, Francois Clemmons would make his last appearance on Mister Rogers' Neighborhood, after playing Officer Clemmons for 25 years. In a touching moment, Mister Rogers would again invite Officer Clemmons, again joining Rogers at a wading pool in the front yard. This time, two grown men, one Black, the other white [and as described in People Magazine as "one gay and single, one straight, married, and a father to two children; one introvert, one extrovert] soaked their feet together, discussed and sang a song about the different ways people say “I love you.”
Clemmons remembered that the scene touched him in a way he hadn't expected.
He recalls when Fred told him his customary line, “I love you just the way you are.”
“One day I said, ‘Fred, were you talking to me?’ He said, ‘Yes, I’ve been talking to you for years and you finally heard me today.’"
Clemmons remembers Rogers, saying, “your heart will open when Fred explains the positive influence that you can have for young children. “They’ll know that love does exist and that there’s much more that all of us can do when we choose to do it together.”
“He is with me more than ever. Fred doesn’t speak, but he lets me know.”
~ jsr
