I spent a portion of my life living in the South, but I don't remember ever seeing segregated bathrooms or theaters or restaurants. I've seen pictures and movies that depicted that. I do remember knowing that when I was growing up you weren't supposed to have "negro" friends because "they" said so - that it wasn't the right thing to do. (Blacks were called "Negro's" when I was growing up). I don't ever remember my parents saying I couldn't have a negro friend. It was just society at that time. I never, ever remember my parents speaking disparagingly about blacks. In fact, I don't remember any of my relatives who were born and raised in the South saying something hurtful or calling anyone the "N" word. For that I've always been grateful. My parents did not raise me to have any type of racial thoughts. If I had ever used the "N" word, I feel quite certain I would have been severely punished in some way or another. I do remember that it was very rare that I ever had a negro child in any of my school classes, until I got older. At that time there were segregated schools so there was not much interaction that took place. I remember that the first time I had a negro child in my class was when I lived in Japan and then it was attending a military school with a cross-section of various ethnic origins of children.
On May 4, 1961, an event called the first Freedom Ride took place when seven blacks and six whites left Washington, D.C., on two public buses bound for the Deep South. They intended to test the Supreme Court's ruling in Boynton v. Virginia (1960), which declared segregation in interstate bus and rail stations unconstitutional.
In the first few days, the riders encountered only minor hostility, but in the second week the riders were severely beaten. Outside Anniston, Alabama, one of their buses was burned, and in Birmingham several dozen whites attacked the riders only two blocks from the sheriff's office. With the intervention of the U.S. Justice Department, most of the Freedom Riders were evacuated from Birmingham, Alabama to New Orleans.
The organizers decided that letting violence end the trip would send the wrong signal to the country. They reinforced the pair of remaining riders with volunteers, and the trip continued. The group traveled from Birmingham to Montgomery without incident, but on their arrival in Montgomery they were savagely attacked by a mob of more than 1000 whites. The extreme violence and the indifference of local police prompted a national outcry of support for the riders, putting pressure on President Kennedy to end the violence.
The riders continued to Mississippi, where they endured further brutality and jail terms but generated more publicity and inspired dozens more Freedom Rides. By the end of the summer, the protests had spread to train stations and airports across the South, and in November, the Interstate Commerce Commission issued rules prohibiting segregated transportation facilities.
My first real brush with black/white issues came when my dad was transferred to Moody AFB near Valdosta, Georgia. We had moved there in the summer and I would begin my senior year of high school in the city school. It was the first year of integration and the first day of school made me reflect upon scenes I'd seen on television and in the news about the mob atmosphere when the two races came in contact with one another. Never in my life had I ever been around such pure hate and distaste which was eminated between people. I just couldn't understand why people should be hated or discriminated against solely based upon the color of their skin. I'm quite sure this is not what our Heavenly Father had in mind when we were all created. I'm quite sure He wanted us to all live together in peace. In 1970, the year I graduated, white students made up 64 percent of the Valdosta City School System population, with blacks making up 46 percent. Desegregation in the Valdosta City and Lowndes County schools began in 1968, 14 years after segregated schools had been found unconstitutional in 1954 in Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka.
Both schools grappled with desegregation for years after the complaint in 1968 by black parents that the schools were unequal. The federal government said in 1968 that the schools had to be integrated or lose federal monies. It was quoted that "white folks didn’t want to send their kids to black schools, etc.” The school systems did wind up losing more than $340,000 in federal funds before agreeing to end segregation.
Even after my school year began, there were student walkouts and other protests, but most conversation and work on the issue was docile when compared to events in the rest of the country. Some kids refused to share the same dressing rooms. I remember a few weeks after school had begun, there was a walkout of over 300 black students at VHS when a white homecoming queen was named, culminating several weeks of racial tension over a variety of issues, including the playing of "Dixie" by the school band. All the student protestors were suspended from school for three days.
One of the things I did learn in my 21 years in the child care field was this...I watched babies and small children play together all the time and they didn't care what color skin the other child had. If parents would just keep their opinions and biases to themselves, those same small children would grow up and still play together as adults without exhibiting any type of prejudice. This is what I tried to teach my own child and hope that I succeeded in doing.
