1950 Archives - The Race Card Project

Seattle, only white girl in class.

February 8, 2022February 8, 2022 1950, Collected from The Race Card Project, lonely, Madrona Elementary, Olympia, On Location: Seattle Community Colleges, only, WA, White girl, Yaela Ettlinger

Yaela Ettlinger,
Olympia, WA.
Collected from The Race Card Project, On Location: Seattle Community Colleges

Born 1950. Attended Madrona Elemetary on 34th street and Union, Seattle from 1955 – 1962. We could all play together until 3rd grade. Then the other African-American girls began to follow me and my best friend Joan around the playground calling, “What are you doing with that white girl, Joan?”. So Joan could no longer be with me during school hours. Lonely times for me!

Acknowledge the human race’s African origin

June 27, 2021 1950, African, grndpa, Human race, next door, NY, origin, Rhinebeck, Ted Fink

Ted Fink,
Rhinebeck, NY

As a kid growing up in the 1950’s, my Grandpa wouldn’t let me play with the black kid who lived next door because he was…black. But in school, I was taught to love my neighbors as myself and the lessons helped me to see his command as wrong at a very early age. My travels to six continents and meeting people of every color have only confirmed how wrong he was.

“Privileged” kid meets Black men …golfing

September 18, 2019September 18, 2020 1950, 1960, Chandler Park Golf Course, Detroit Free Press, fried chicken, golf school, Grosse Pointe, Jim Scherrer, MI, Northport, notoriety, white privilege

Jim Scherrer
Northport, MI

I grew up in Grosse Pointe Woods …. All Caucasian community born in 1950. Around 1960, give or take, I attended the Detroit Free Press sponsored golf school. When you completed the classes, you received a card that allowed one to play at any of Detroit’s city courses for 25 cents! My dad would take a bunch of us from the suburbs and drop us off at Chandler Park Golf Course and we would golf for the day and he or other parent would pick us up later. So here’s the Race part. As a kid, we’d play with 2nd shift or retired African American auto workers. So my first experience with Black people… Was playing golf and these guys couldn’t possibly have been more patient and accommodating of us kids golfing with them. In our time of watching Tiger Woods coming up with some notoriety of his success in a “white man’s sport”, my experience was much the opposite. Certainly, race has not left the golf discussion with recent “fried chicken” remarks. I love this project by the way.

‘There Goes the Neighborhood: 1950-2050’

April 12, 2015 1950, 2050, demographics, housing, MargaretDenney.com, neighborhood, segregation, there goes the neighborhood

Margaret Denney,
Snata Fe, NM.

These images are details from my piece ‘There Goes the Neighborhood: 1950-2050’, addressing segregation in housing as well as changing demographics- a look at the past and a glimpse of the future. More at MargaretDenney.com

S-h-h-h-h! They will bite your ears off!

July 22, 2014 1950, Austin, bite your ears, Diana Vicars, gas station, TX, water fountain, White girl, white only

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.

Love has no color, hate does

August 19, 2013 1950, Carol Carrow Bodofsky, civil rights, Color, Edison, hate, love, NJ

Carol Carrow Bodofsky
Edison, NJ

Born in 1950, I have lived through changes that were long overdue. In the sixties, as much as my friends and I worked to eliminate prejudice and discrimination, we had no idea how bad it actually was in our country. Only looking back through photo and video journalism of the Civil Rights movement have I felt the heartbreak and not just the anger. We can finally see the truth, we just need to do something about it!

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