On Segregation

For a time during my early elementary school years, I lived in Greenville, South Carolina. The Deep South had not yet been integrated. Jim Crow and segregation were alive and well in South Carolina when my family moved there from Illinois.

I once saw an African-American chain gang, dressed in horizontally-striped pajamas, their ankles yoked together by chains with a huge iron ball between every two men, laying the road in front of Summit Drive School, where I was attending third grade. Knowing what we know now, it's doubtful that all of them were actually guilty of a crime. I will never forget this abominable sight. I had never seen anything like it and hope not to ever again.

My sister and I got around Greenville by city bus. The ubiquitous "Colored to the Rear" signs were posted near the driver on every bus. This small child's eyes watched black people follow the ugly Jim Crow commandment and walk past our seats to sit in the far back of the bus. A child like me had more right to a seat than an elderly black person did. In the bus station, there were separate waiting rooms, one designated "White Only." It was brighter and, of course, cleaner. There were separate drinking fountains. The old porcelain fountains that dribbled warm water and looked like no one ever washed them were designated for those with darker skin. The new refrigerated kind just then coming into vogue specified, "White Only."

In movie theaters, I saw separate entrances. Same with restaurants. Same with department stores. At home, we were never ever allowed to use the word "colored" or, God forbid, anything even more pejorative. I continue to bless my parents for raising us to notice and decry such things. At that time, in my family, the only allowable term was "Negro" or "Negroes." To this day I still worry about giving offense through a one-word description of an entire race.

We left Greenville and moved back to the Chicago area while segregation was still in full effect. Now, I know racism existed in the North. But never did I see the shame of it the way I saw it in South Carolina. I'm grateful for our few years there. I might not have become the civil rights activist I became without that immersion.

I took my children to the Smithsonian (American History Hall) so that they could see the same despicable signs I saw as a child. I told them my stories. I wanted them to know there was such a time -- and that perhaps none of us is very far removed from it. Especially if we don't raise our children with the awareness that the USA is not always just, is not always equal, is not always "American."

We must be a hyper-vigilant society, a go-out-of-your-way respectful society, a society that seeks to imbue its newest generations with an appreciation for the wide diversity that makes us the unique country of immigrants we are. Alarmingly, what I see instead is many signs of us heading in the opposite direction.