Jeff Howard
Washington DC
It took me 50 years and working in depth on civil rights movement history to suddenly realize that an incident in my early childhood revolved entirely around race. My family’s Black nanny, born and raised in Culpeper VA was so intent on seeing West Side Story when it hit the local theater, that Rosa escorted me, a little 7 year old boy to the early matinee. She instinctively entered the theater and took me up to the balcony to watch. In all innocence I thought she knew where the best seat was, since I had never sat up there. Only so many years later did I realize that she was acting on pure instinct that even this theater in DC in 1960/61… the “APEX” would insist she obey the color line. I simply had no idea at the time and never had thought about it…. and then this recent, jarring realization made me shudder… I had experienced Jim Crow, and yet my nanny, Rosa turned it into a “surprise” because she was escorting me to a better seat only she knew about…. upstairs, in the back! Like I say, shudder the thought.
