"Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it"
Proverbs 3:27 (The words of Solomon)

"I was very lucky," Mathis will tell you about his career. He knows that he is one of many talented individuals in the entertainment business. He is well aware of the advantages that he and other Blacks in show business have had. And he knows that he did not get where he is without help. White people have played a big role in this success. Mathis has had white friends all his life. Even Mathis' late father, Clem L. Mathis, has reportedly said, "Johnny has always gotten help from white people."

It's one of those things he'd just as soon not talk about, and it's this sort of noncommittal stance that seems to rankle a lot of people. But it's not as if he's not aware. He's had a "man in a bubble" existence for a lot of years, but he knows well what's been going on. For a while, he was part of it.

In any civil war such as that between the races during the 60's, one which some say continues even to this day, you have your generals, and you have your infantry, those who would die for the cause, and you have those who finance these military operations. Johnny Mathis chose to be in the latter group, for as he used to say, "I don't think anybody'd pay a dime to watch me fight dogs and hoses, but they'll pay to hear me sing." So as they paid to hear him sing, he rechannelled a lot of those funds to the major civil rights causes of that time period, like SNCC, NAACP, and others.

But you won't hear about such things either from Mathis or from the people who represent him. But this may be just as well. As far as his publicists are concerned, I would think that they are ultimately ill-equipped to discuss such things, after all they don't live in this particular world. I believe such accounts best come from the lips of Mathis himself. After all, money doesn't shield anyone from the Black experience, and Mathis is no exception.

In an article dated November 1963 of the TV Radio Mirror, twenty-eight-year-old Johnny Mathis answers the question, "How It Really Feels To Be Colored". The article gets two points of view actually; one from Mathis, and one from comedian and activist Dick Gregory. Writer Kathleen Post gets Mathis' point-of-view, revealing some of his own black-and-white perspectives during a time in our country when the winds of change were blowing strong and hard. It was, after all, 1963...there was the March on Washington in August; the nation lost its president in November, the month this article was published; and the month after that, on the next-to-last day of the year, Johnny Mathis lost his beloved mother to cancer. This article represents an ever-important crack in the window, a view of the inside, lost among the ruins of a long-defunct publication. So now, just sit back and listen to the young Teacher do his work:

"I escaped some of the hardships my people usually face...No Negro goes entirely unhurt in our time. But I did get lots of encouragement and help from lots of people on both sides of the tracks."

"..A lot of people are anti-Negro. anti-Jewish, anti-something-or-other, but they don't come out with it. They show it in sly, sneaky ways. I would rather know just where I stand with people--and that goes for white or black, friend or foe."

"I've had my share of slurs and heckling...I simply don't go looking for trouble, now or ever. But I know darn well the evil of prejudice exists and is always lurking near at hand. I've come across plenty of white people in hotels and other places who sneer--or thow the word "nigger" or some other profanity--at me. I've had the uncomfortable experience of being with people who, I know, are being civil only because they have to. But I try never to jump at conclusions or let my disgust and anger get out of control."

"Look at your bigots. Most of them are either stupid or ignorant...or else very insecure people, frightened of losing their jobs or their little niche in the world. I've often wondered--if everyone were economically secure, whether there'd be much prejudice left...Sometimes I almost get to feeling a little sorry for such fanatics! It's so foolish to draw a circle around yourself and not let any stranger cross over. That goes for colored people or white. When I think of all the good friends I'd have missed by limiting myself only to my own people...or when I turn this around and think of all the good friends among colored people that some white people are missing by their exclusiveness...well, I am sorry for them. After all, every race and creed has something to offer the over-all culture of a nation."

"By winning respect for himself as a top star, and by his behavior when fame and money came his way, Nat Cole has accomplished so much for our people. For one thing, he has taken the steam out of the old slander about colored people not knowing how to come up in the world without losing their heads and throwing money around. Then some years ago, when Nat refused to play Las Vegas because the manager of the hotel asked him to come and leave by the back door, he started a revolt that has gained a lot of momentum ever since. In those days, Negroes were hired only as domestics or musicians--and, even as entertainers, they weren't allowed to stay at the hotels where they were the acknowledged stars! Nat's refusal to play Vegas under such conditions created a crisis for the hotels. The owners had to do some hard thinking. They didn't want to lose the popular entertainers who were Negro, just because of this question of discrimination. In the end, many changes came about--for Orientals, as well as Negroes. My hat's off to Nat 'King' Cole and others like Pearl Bailey and Sammy Davis, Jr...who fought the good fight in show business when the going was roughest."

"Nat 'King' Cole is proud of being a Negro and of his personal accomplishments...but most of all, he's proud of having lived as a good American citizen should, no matter what his extraction. I remember what he said when someone asked him if he prayed for all Negroes. Nat's answer was: 'When I go to church--the house of God, the Father of all of us--I don't pray for Negroes. I pray for all the people all over the world...for everybody.' And knowing Nat, I guess he'd include even the bigots in his prayers. 'Love the unlovable' is Nat's philosophy. Why not? They need it most. If all of us, white or colored, lived by Nat's intelligent and generous creed of love, what a wonderful place this world would be--both of them! This, I believe with all my soul."

You see? He is more than aware. As writer Kathleen Post wrote, when Mathis is forced to choose, he knows which side he's on.