White wife sixties Chicago eyes opened
Gail Howard, Redding, CT My memoir, White Wife/Blue Baby, examines how I at least partially unlearned racism marrying across the 1968 Chicago color line and...
Their Mormon ancestor’s genealogy was “mysterious.”
Judith McConkie, Salt Lake City, UT. The sentence describes our family’s conflicted past. As liberal Democrats in the 1970s my husband and I considered the...
Nice small town has race issues.
Sara Przybylski Stevens Point, WI People think this is a great place to live, work, and raise kids… and it is. Just under the surface,...
They practically jumped off the sidewalk.
Nancy Bachana, Katonah, NY As a white girl in the 70s and 80s South, older Black men stepped out of my way on downtown sidewalks....
1961 White Gay Progressive Born Activist
Mark Cleveland, Costa Mesa, CA Growing up a gay child in the 1960’s I knew instinctively and immediately that my future was deeply connected to...
I was there, so were friends.
Daniel Cohen Stroudsburg, PA I am so grateful that you have this exhibit. The sixties and the political movements of that time were so exciting...
But I have a black friend.
MK, Baltimore, MD. A few moments in my “coming into adulthood” stand out as I am navigating the world of race. I remember probably 10...
1960’s Dearborn will haunt me forever
Bonnie, Empire, MI Grew up in Dearborn under the very watchful eye of Mayor Hubbard. Watched in horror at the treatment of the ONE black...
Don’t waste your time on college
Patricia L. Gadsden, Central, PA. As an African American female in the 1960’s, I was discouraged from attending college. It was explained to me that...
Mother gave me a different world.
Mary Horton Richmond, VA I didn’t realize until shortly before her death how different the world my mother gave me was from the one she...
“Beauty Inside Shines through the Outside”
Matthew Powers, Riverside, CA. “Growing up Irish and being raised by a single mom in the 50’s and 60’s in Omaha I saw racial tension...
Grandmother ate in kitchen with housekeeper
Alice J Walker Gay, GA This concerns a story told to me about my grandmother, who died in 1960 when I was five years old....
I’m cutting off ties with Black People
Elmer R Hemingway, Pearland, TX Tired of the black community’s victim mentality, entitlement (reparations), massive racism based on skin color…. a glorified level of bullying....
He can’t swim, Dad saves him.
Jim Michonski, Virginia Beach, VA. I grew up in a military family. The March on Washington happened when I was two years old. We mostly...
I became an activist and prisoner
Dan Kelly San Francisco, CA I was in a Brooklyn HS in the early 60s and the images coming from the south inspired me to...
1968. Black freshman roommate. Different planets.
Anne Lincoln, MA I was asked by Admissions if I would agree to having a black roommate. I said yes, but when she learned of...
Blond hair – can’t use Afro Sheen
Diane Smith, Anchorage, AK. I was the only white girl in my 6th grade class at Windsor Hills Elementary School in Los Angeles. I wished...
No eye contact because I’m white.
Cynthia Flynn Bryn Mawr, PA This was mostly not true where I grew up in inner city Seattle, but when I went to the South...
