Teresa Lynn Rutledge
Lilburn, GA
Growing up in the South, I saw racism that was accepted because “that was just the way it was.” But at the age of 7, I got my first up close and personal lesson about its meanness. A teenage boy encouraged me to call our maid the N word because I had done something I wasn’t supposed to (don’t remember what), and she made me go outside. When I pranced into the house after calling her that, she stopped me and asked me how I would feel if someone called me an ugly name. I was ashamed and heartbroken because I really loved her. That lesson has stayed with me for 51 years, and I have never repeated that horrible act of cruelty, and I still cringe whenever I hear that word used.
