wanda i lived in that time. but I was isolated in a small town in northeastern Washington State. oh we had racism but it was directed at native Americans. I was not confronted with discrimination until I joined the Air Force in 1950. we changed trains in north Texas and that was the first time i saw segregated rest rooms and drinking fountains. Quite a shocker but just the beginning of my education. Steve S.

As a Chicago born and bred Yankee child, i had an awakening of a lifetime the year we spent in Tenn when i was 11 yrs old....the year was 1958. Never forgot it...it was UGLY.

Wanda, this is not food fight stuff anymore thank goodness. Thank you for this timely reminder...it is also a reminder that bigotry stll exists and a lot more has to be done before Dr. King's Dream is a reality.

I think the Holocaust survivors have done an excellent job in sending their message "never again". And don't forget about us that lived thru the Nazi occupation, and said never again.
You go USA, every time there is even a hint of a hate crime or discrimination fight back.

Having been born in the 50's and a teen in the 60's I remember the fight for equality. I am happy my son and daughter are accepting of all people; hopefully I and their Dad taught them that. My son lives in San Diego and my daughter in Tampa; and I think they have been more exposed to a more integrated lifestyle then they would have had here. Our area experienced two very hateful crimes over the New Year, I just don't understand the prejudice and hate that people carry in their hearts.

I remember the separate drinking fountains, the back of the
bus, separate schools and motels. They also had a separate
door into the theater and they sat in the balcony.

My parents never said anything derogatory about people of
color ever. They were always respectful of everyone and
they expected their children to be the same. It's
appalling to think that people could be treated poorly
because of the color of their skin.

I had a plaque made to put at my front door a long time ago.
It said (Welcome to our home, whatever your race, color or
religion, as long as your heart is filled with peace and
love.) That just about covers it.

When I was teaching school in Oklahoma I taught in a school that was predominantly black. I went into the teacher's lounge one day and one of the teachers was sitting at a table with a map drawing a route that his family was going to take on their vacation. I asked him what he was doing and he was planning out which roads to take in order that he could stop at service stations that would serve blacks. I asked how he knew which ones to go to and he said that lists were available of gas stations all over the country that would do this. 1964

we never had segregation in schools here. I remember there was a big tree in the middle of the grade school playground. Everyone knew that you would get "cooties" if you touched the back of the tree because a little "colored" girl had hid back there to avoid going to school years past. I did not think much of this because you also got "cooties" if you touched a boy. There was an article about my kids School district back in the teens. The town was getting its first wave of blacks (I find it difficult to switch to the pc African Ameircan bacause of going from a one sylable word to 7 sylables, call me lazy). Some one approached the school board about having a sparate school for the black students. Hired one black teacher, had it that way for one year and that was it. The school integrated. However, neighborhoods were redlined for years. Now, the prejudice is against the Hispanic, mostly guatamalan immigrants. But folks sure do love the Mexican restaurants.

I grew up in Detroit in a neighborhood with a diverse population. I remember classmates and neighbors of different races, religions, and nationalities. In my class at school we had Black kids, Jewish kids, Catholics, Protestants, and kids whose families had recently moved there from southern states, and from Italy and India. Our neighbors three doors down were Mexican. They had no children but I used to visit them often. I was fascinated by how their home was decorated and with the different foods they ate. Up until a few years ago I still had a little doll from Mexico that the woman gave me when I was about ten years old. I feel very lucky to have grown up in such an environment. Even though some kids and families were different in some ways, it just seemed normal and no big deal because we all belonged to the same neighborhood.

I grew up in Southern California in the '50s and didn't see blatant discrimination such as separate restrooms or restaurants.

However, there was discrimination in hiring and other areas that a child might not realize, and de-facto segregation in housing against Asians, Hispanics and African-Americans.

Anglo people purchasing a home in many areas had to sign a document promising never to sell it to anyone who was not an Anglo. That kept those areas segregated. Some schools here were segregated too, but not the ones I attended.

The African-American civil rights movement made changes that improved life for all the so-called minorities.

Coretta Scott-King came to visit our church about a year before she passed away. It was a privilege to see her. Reverend James Lawson, another driving force for desegregation, now lives in this area and I went to an interesting seminar he gave.

I grew up in a small town in Texas & started school in 1958;
my school was an old red brick building, & we first-graders got the "new" annex, a special building with 3 classrooms & our own bathrooms, built to accomodate the flood of boomers.

(We got "new" books when the more affluent schools got brand-new books & we got their old ones!)

I went to school with kids from the state home, a vast institution where children were housed when their families couldn't take care of them (such as when mom's boyfriend assaulted the kiddies, dad was in prison for bank robbery, etc).

Some of the kids were there because their families simply couldn't feed all those hungry mouths.

Our school was the one where the "Spanish" kids went, "Spanish" being considered the polite description in 1958, & we never had a black schoolmate until we were in the 7th grade, when our school district was faced with the decision to integrate or lose federal funding.

The school board decided to integrate the 7th graders rather than the 1st graders for some reason (my cynical adult self thinks it might be that they felt that 7th graders' attitudes were already jelled; we were less likely to accept black children into our groups & maybe, horrors, date a black boyfriend, than kids who by 7th grade would have been in the same classrooms for 7 years).

In elementary school, Spanish kids hung out with Spanish kids, state home kids hung out with state home kids, rural kids who rode the bus hung out with rural kids...etc.

Junior high was different.

It was 1964;
change was in the air, (& we were 7th graders for heaven's sake; adolescent rebelliion loomed large), & those of us who weren't in the elite group saw ourselves, I guess, as social pioneers.

We, black & white, were the first ones to do so many things;
first to have classmates of the "other kind"
first to hang out in the lunchroom & compare notes & be kids together
first to (heatherns that we were) have gym together & spy in the showers to see how those very "other" girls looked;

We were the first to see each other, in that little town, as individuals & not stereotypes.

Example:

The "main" high school was heavy into college prep, since it was the "white" one, attended by affluent college-bound kids as well as every other white kid in town, & the other high school, the "black" one, was heavy into teaching hairdressing & other trades.

If you were a white kid & you weren't academically inclined & you wanted to learn a trade, you were out of luck.

If you were an academically inclined black kid & you wanted to be an accountant or a lawyer, you were out of luck.

(I threw a fit one summer & told my mother I wanted to go to Jackson High so I could learn to fix hair.

She forbade it.

To this day I don't know how to fix hair.)

Until the mid-sixties, there were separate fountains in the courthouse & in some but not all of the stores.

The main divisive factors, I think, were schools & housing-in the past, family & societal conditioning would have been main factors, but with Civil Rights being a hot issue & us being boomers & all...)

Until my generation, black kids went to school on the East Side, white kids on the West Side, & black folks lived on the East Side, white folks on the West Side.

People didn't interact with each other, didn't *know* each other.

When people rub shoulders every day, they see each other as peers & treat each other as peers.

I grew up in Norway during WW11 and I was totally isolated from the world beoynd my family and neighborhood. Everyone I knew looked pretty much like our family, blond and blue eyed.
After the war ended I was at the Oslo Fjord pier one day, and watched a huge ship being tied up. The fellow casting the ropes had black skin and I thought he had fallen into the coal bin.

I went home and told my grandfather what I'd seen and he explained that there were people all over the earth that looked different than us and that it did not make any difference what we looked like, and that everyone was the same inside. My grandfather is my hero, he brought me to accept the differences, yet the same.

We went to a Mardi Gras parade with my sister today.

As we were sitting waiting on the parade, Sis and I were talking about how when we were kids our family NEVER missed a parade.
Mom always packed sandwiches and jugs of Kool-Aid and water.

Another old memory flashed...'people of color' stood on one side of the street and 'whites' stood on the other.
I don't remember there being any discussion...it just was....

wandaredhead said:"I don't remember there being any discussion...it just was....".
In my neighborhood we have people from all over the world and there is no discussion about it. It is accepted.
Perhaps there should be some discussion somewhere.

west gardener,

There eventually was...thanks to the courage of people like Dr. King and Ms. Parks.

Oh yes, Dr. King and Ms. Parks started the movement and now we're having a discussion here at the party, thanks to them.
I'm trying to understand why we seem to get along here in the valley. I think perhaps it has something to do with what we have incommon.
We want a safe place to live and good schools. I've talked about this with my neighboors and they agree, so that's a reality.
I have to think about this some more.