Sitting at the Counter at Woolworth's in the 1950s

In the years while I was growing up in our tiny town, one would never see anything but Caucasians on the street, except perhaps for an occasional Choctaw Indian. Most of us in the area have some American Indian blood in our background. I only discovered mine a few years ago when I saw a picture of my dad's grandparents, and realized his grandmother must have been at least half Indian. This later was proven to be the case.

Some things haven't changed that much in our town, where we still live, except that now over half the population speaks Spanish. I have a number of close friends among the Hispanics, some who speak English and some who don't. I speak just enough Spanish to get myself into trouble. But I digress.

The only black person I remember seeing in our town back then was one train porter who, when he found himself with a bit of down time on a Sunday in our little town, would take himself up into the balcony of our all-white church for the Sunday morning service. He was always welcome, but never made any attempt to mix and mingle.

When I was in my teens, I once rode the bus with my older sisters to Fort Smith, Arkansas, where we went shopping, as much as that can be done with no money. I remember sitting at a counter in Woolworth's, drinking a Coke, and not really thinking much about it. There were black people on the street and I wondered why I never saw one sitting in such a place as we were, drinking a Coke or eating a sandwich. To say I was naive would be an understatement.

For the last couple of days I've been seeing on the news that this year marks the 50th anniversary of the sit-in by blacks at a Woolworth's. So that happened the same year I got married. Not that long ago, really.

That day long ago I also noticed on the city buses that all the "coloreds" sat in the back of the bus, and there were separate restrooms in the bus station for whites and "coloreds." To me that was just crazy, and I didn't understand it at all.

When we got home that night and I mentioned the situation to my parents, I was surprised to learn that not only were they not surprised, they didn't feel about it as I did. I would come to realize that I lived in a prejudiced town with a prejudiced family. Not that there weren't exceptions in both cases, but the majority were very prejudiced.

I thought the situation was grossly unfair, and in my usual diplomatic way, told everyone what I thought about it. I can remember some pretty heated arguments on the subject with my mother. But of course it never changed anything either at home or elsewhere.

A few years later we met a black veteranarian in a neighboring town, when we had an injured cat and he was the only vet anywhere around. He was a wonderful, Godly man, who was well-educated and in later years served on the Board of Regents for a college in a neighboring county, was well thought of in all circles, and received many honors and recognitions in his lifetime.

A few years later, I had a cake decorating business and Doc's wife often ordered cakes from me. I remember one day when Doris and her mother and daughter drove down to pick up a cake. Doris came to the door, and later I carried the cake to her car, to discover her mother and daughter were waiting in the car. I couldn't understand the frightened look in their eyes as they surveyed the neighborhood. I didn't know if it was because they had heard horror stories of racial prejudice in our town in past years, or what they were afraid of. Later it occurred to me that they lived in a nicer neighborhood than I did, and maybe they were afraid of whatever happens in bad neighborhoods.

Doc and his family became good friends and remained so as long as they lived in the area. His kids grew up and moved away, his wife died, and eventually he moved closer to his kids. I still miss him. He was a fine man.

I think Doc and the singer Charlie Pride did much to erase the prejudice long held by some members of my family. My dad always said he would love to meet Charlie. A few years after my dad's death, my husband and I, along with my younger brother and our son and his wife, got to meet Charlie in person, and our daughter-in-law had the pleasure of welcoming him to the audience at that performance and serving as MC that night.

About twenty years ago, with our town almost dead, a chicken processing plant opened in our town and people of all races started pouring in. As i said before, most of them are Hispanic, but some are black and other races.

Up until that time, I can't remember any blacks living in our town until a black man became warden at a minimum security prison in the area. He lived in our town and his kids became quite popular in the local school. I was pleased to see that the kids these days don't seem to have or at least to show prejudice as they did when I was growing up. My grandchildren have had black friends all their lives and think nothing of it.

Things have changed so much in the last fifty years, and I'm glad they have. I hope to see the day when no one feels it necessary to mention a person's race when speaking of him/her to others. When one is neither mistreated nor given special treatment because of the color of his skin. When the color of one's skin doesn't matter at all.

Such things always bring to mind an incident a young mother told me about a number of years ago. Her kindergartener daughter kept talking about her best friend Susie, but the mother didn't know the little girl. She asked her daughter what Susie looked like, and she said, "She has curly hair."

A few days later when the mother went to pick her daughter up from school, she saw her coming out in the company of a cute little black girl. When she got in the car, her daughter said, "Mommy, did you see Susie? That was her I was with coming out the door."

I hope I live to see the day when we're all so color blind.