A good Name

Armstrong Williams

One summer day my father sent me to buy wire and fencing for our farm. At 16, I liked nothing better than getting behind the wheel of our family pickup, but this time there was something on my mind. My father had told me I'd have to ask for credit at the store.

Sixteen is a proud age, when a young man wants respect, not charity. It was 1976, and the ugly shadow of racism was still a fact of life in some parts of the country. I'd seen my friends ask for credit and then be rudely asked whether they were "good for it."

My family was honest. We paid our debts. But before harvest, cash was short. Would the store owner trust us?

At Davis Brothers General Store, Buck Davis stood behind the register, talking to a farmer. Buck was a tall, weathered man in a red hunting shirt, and I nodded as I passed him on my way to the hardware counter. When I brought my purchases to the register, I said carefully, "I need to put this on credit."

The farmer gave me a cynical look. But Buck's face didn't change. "Sure," he said easily. "Your daddy is always good for it." He turned to the other man. "This boy is one of James Williams' sons."

The farmer nodded in a neighborly way. I was filled with pride. James Williams' son. Those three words had opened a door to an adult's respect and trust.

That day I discovered that a good name was of immense value. The good name my father and mother had earned brought our whole family the respect of our neighbors. Everyone knew what to expect from a Williams: a decent person who kept his word and respected himself too much to do wrong.

We children—eight brothers and two sisters—could enjoy that good name, unearned, unless and until we did something to lose it. Compromising it would hurt not only those we loved but also those who loved us. We had a stake in one another—and in ourselves.

A good name, and the responsibility that came with it, forced us children to be better than we otherwise might be. We wanted to be thought of as good people, and by acting like good people for long enough, we became good out of habit.

The desire to keep the respect of a good name propelled me to become the first in our family to go to college. Eventually, it gave me the motivation to start my own successful public-relations firm in Washington, D.C..

I thought about the power of a good name when I heard someone say that we need to restore a sense of shame in our neighborhoods. He's right. If pride in a good name keeps families and neighborhoods straight, a sense of shame is the reverse side of that coin.

Doing drugs, abusing alcohol, stealing, getting a young woman pregnant out of wedlock—today, none of these wrong things are the deep embarrassment they should be. Nearly one out of three births in America is attributed to an unwed mother. Many of these children will grow up without a caring father and mother committed to each other.

Cultural influences such as television and movies portray mostly a world in which respect that sustains civilization is vanishing from schools, families and streets. Phrases like "yes, ma'am," "no, sir," "thank you" and "please" show self-respect and respect for others. Yet, encouraged by the profanity on television and in music, kids don't think twice about bad language.

Many of today's kids have failed because their sense of shame has failed. They were born into families with poor reputations, not caring about keeping a good name.

Today, when I'm back home, I receive respect because of the good name passed on as my father's legacy and upheld to this day by me and my siblings. People like Buck Davis came to know of my success in the world. But it was my family's good name that paved the way.