John Butterworth
Boston, MA
My mother has just graduated from nursing school in Boston and moved to Maryland in the mid ’50’s with my dad, who was in the Army at the time. Mom found a job at a nearby city hospital in the maternity ward. Mom placed a beautiful newborn in the front row of the viewing window. The newborn viewing area was actually designated as whites -only and the baby front and center was an African American among the white newborns. Mom was completely caught off guard and never fully accepted either the reaction or the explanation provided as part of the subsequent request to move the baby, and told us the story more than once as a cautionary life lesson about right, wrong, equality, and the reality of the day. Imagine that this was the way lives began….
