Diana Vicars
Austin, TX
These were the words my mother said to me in 1950 when I read out loud the sign over a water fountain at a gas station during a car trip from Texas to Florida. I was six and a begining reader. Dehydrated from car sickness, I lived for the few and far between gas stations where I could get a drink of water. I saw the words ‘WHITES ONLY’ on sign above the drinking fountain and read them out loud. The full understanding of racism washed over me. If the world wasn’t safe or kind to a little black girl something was terrably wrong a wasn’t really safe for little white girls like me.
