Michael I. Posey
Ashville, NC
In the summer of 1973, I worked all of that June, July and August… as I did for four straight summers, with an all-African-American janitorial crew cleaning every square inch of a private school campus in Boca Raton, Florida. I was the only white person on the crew. That summer, there was one boy on the crew, the nephew of one of the gals who had worked there for years. The family invited me down to Deerfield Beach, the next town south, for a weekend stay at their house. I gladly accepted. They lived in the middle of the black neighborhood in Deerfield. I was perhaps the only white child within miles and I received some of the most inquisitive stares from their neighbors during my stay. I never thought twice about it… I had so much fun just hanging with my summer co-workers. When I tell this story, which occurred 40 years ago now at a time of some pretty significant racial strife, I say that I stayed in “colored town” because back then, that is what we always called the part of any city where the black families lived. Every time I think of that phrase, I feel so disgusted with myself. In one sense, I may have been the least prejudiced child in all of South Florida… while at that same time, referring to where they lived as “colored town”. I think of my innocence all those years ago and realize that one rarely recognizes one’s own prejudices without the considerable benefit of hindsight.
