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 caring for our gorgeous, vivid, fragile baby girl.
Disabled, black, native American, another minority
Gary Norris Graybl,
El Ceritto, CA
p>Being disabled and black was a project..being a part of a culture within a culture, that did not want you…not knowing your native American until the first year of college,,,was it America first, disabled first or native American first…in the era of the 1960’s-1970’s
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 ban on blacks holding Mormon priesthood to be ridiculous and insidious — a reason to leave the faith. We held on and held out faith that things would change, slowly perhaps, but they would change. We are part of a prominent family in the church. We have alternately rejoiced (that hardly covers our euphoria) and then felt terrible shame. How could we properly show ourselves as sincere penitents without taking on a tone of supercilious idiots. Last summer our brother-in-law had his DNA mapped. The map showed markers common to Black Africans. In checking his genealogy he found a woman who had in one census had a name and connection to a black family in the south. The state’s birth certificate listed her as “mulatto” . After she joined the church in the late 19th century, her name has changed and her race is “white” The brother-in-law remembers his generous father describing her life and personality something like this: My grandmother was a kind and very loving woman whose life story is “shrouded in mystery.” For months now, we have sincerely envied his heritage; he and his children and we are actually thrilled. And we older members of the family know of the consequences of his father’s characterization of his grandmother’s past. I cannot adequately tell you how many times we have turned and examined this woman’s decision to literally alter her “race card” and her grandson’s decision to leave it alone, to let it be mysterious. We who found life partners in the Mormon church in the 1960s understand how his life would have been entirely different. Stunning really.
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, though, there’s a little more going on. I grew up here. I saw my first African American person at the grocery store at the age of four-ish and loudly complimented his “really good tan,” much to my poor mother’s embarrassment. There wasn’t much in the way of cultural diversity (save a family here or there) until the late 80s, when Hmong refugees were relocated to, among other places, Central Wisconsin. Since then, our Hispanic population has also increased (some of the population is migrant, some year-round), and more African-American families and individuals have moved to the area. While the White population sits at around 85% or so, things look different than they did just 25 years ago… and some people aren’t reacting well.
I teach English as a Second Language, and work closely with many of these students who, a quarter of a century ago, would have looked incredibly out of place in our schools or on our streets. On the surface, things are OK… and then you start hearing things. We’ve gotten past the “Hmong people will eat your dogs!” fever of the early 1990s, but I’ve had (college-educated) friends make some comments that could have come straight out of the mouths of 1960s-style segregationists.
“I’m glad I don’t live in that neighborhood anymore. You know, the Hmongs.”
“They all used to live in the John’s Drive housing area. Why are they moving other places? It’s better to keep all those kids at one school.”
“They live, like, 12 people to a house. This isn’t the third world. We don’t live with four generations and an aunt and an uncle under one roof here.”
“I’m glad my kids are in private school so we don’t have to deal with all that.”
These are things I hear from people who I would otherwise have considered to be friends. College-educated, mostly. The half-truths and twisted truths and complete fabrications boggle the mind. The historical hypocrisy of it never ceases to amaze. Yes, many second-generation citizens are still speaking a language other than English at home. You know what? My grandmother, whose grandfather immigrated to the U.S. from Poland before her father was born, failed kindergarten because she couldn’t speak English. So, you know… pot, meet kettle. Know your own cultural history before you shoot your mouth off about someone’s assimilation, or lack thereof. Last I checked, we still eat ponczkis before Lent starts and dance the Polka at weddings, and most Polish-Americans in Portage County are, what, fourth (Fifth? More-th?) generation at this point.
I love you, dear hometown, but you’ve got some work to do.
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. I didn’t understand that Jim Crow only ended in 1964, and they feared being killed because of me.
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 the Civil Rights movement. Our beloved LGBTQIA community worked hard to earn the respect of our black leaders & mentors and after years of struggle we were accepted and included. And that deeply enriched our PRIDE. I’ve lived with a sense of struggle and connection my entire life.
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 to be part of. We could sure use that passion and commitment today. In spite of King, would anything have happened without blood? Is that what it will take today?
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 years back now that in conversation with my mother-in-law in a less-than-intellectual blue collar town her speaking of how racism towards white people was apparent in the area. She noted she wasn’t racist because she had a black friend. On another occasion, years before this, I can still hear my grandpa’s words echo as he learned I was dating someone for the first time.. “as long as he is the right color.” I knew exactly what he meant even though I wanted to ask, “What is the right color?” I was taken aback in these instances, but also realized how different the world was through these generations in terms of how race was viewed and how our own perceptions are shaped by the world around us. With these comments I saw an ingrained sense of separation in my grandfather coming from growing up in the 40’s and 50’s to my mother-in-law’s work to appear not to be racist coming from growing up in the 60’s and 70’s to me- a product of the 80’s and 90’s who is surprised by these comments, yet still aware and always becoming more aware of my own internal biases and observations about how often we flock to those that seem “the same.” Why is this? Does outward appearance make us the same? Or does the culture that we have grown up in make us the same? Or something else? What is the “right” color or “wrong” color? Where do we find commonalities and where does a certain level of comfort come in regardless of differences-outward and inward? What does it mean to have a black friend? A white friend? A Hispanic friend? An Indian friend?
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 family that had the NERVE to move into town while I was a pre-teen. It was a surreal time and place.
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 I wasn’t college material. I’m not sure what they really meant since I graduated with straight A’s from high school.
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 was raised in. My mother had Alzheimer’s, and in the last few years of her life, she reverted to some of the attitudes and behaviors she had learned while growing up in rural Virginia in the 1930s and 1940s. I saw her use language and do things that were not tolerated in our home in the early 1960s. I am grateful that she changed and didn’t burden me with what she struggled to cast off.
“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 and acts all around the city, but I can’t say I understood anything about it until my younger sister and I were transferred to a different school because mom couldn’t afford the tuition at the Catholic school we were attending. The elementary school we were moved to was an all African-American school and we were the only “white” kids there, we took a lot of abuse and faced the fact that our skin color wouldn’t allow us to fit in or be accepted. We were the target of a lot of being beat on, racial slurs, isolation, and being chased home daily but eventually we did make a few close friends and things settled down. I can’t say we ever fit in but we survived and built a few relationships. It was one of the best things that could have happened to me from an understanding point of view as I saw and felt from the other side what being defined by a color or race felt like, it didn’t matter who I was inside. My family reflects that lesson we learned, my seven children’s mother had a white mother and African-American father, my children are mixed and they are proud of it, and have spouses and boyfriends and girlfriends from other races and it’s a beautiful community. My sister married a Mexican man and had three boys. Through the experience I learned that true beauty, goodness, and humanity comes from the inside, and shines through the outside regardless of what color or race that outside is and we taught the kids to see all people in the same way, individually from the inside out.” CBU HIS 311
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. In the mid-fifties, she lived with my aunt and uncle and their boys in Rome, Georgia. On one rare occasion, she was home alone when Carrie May, the housekeeper came to clean. Grandmother fixed lunch for the both of them; when it was ready, she sat down in the kitchen and Carrie went out on the back porch to eat. It was a cold, rainy day; grandmother said “Carrie, come into the kitchen and eat; you shouldn’t be out there.” Carrie didn’t want to, but grandmother assured her that no one else would know. She came into the kitchen, and the two women ate together.
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. Really tired of hearing people who have never had any contact with police saying how racist they are. Pretty sure responses to this will bear out my feelings. Black Community needs to understand this is a 2-way street, not a one-way conversation. Until they start listening, another moderate person is turning off. This isn’t the 1960s. Violence will hurt your cause, not help it. Stealing expensive TVs, 300 dollar shoes..that’s all I see…
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 lived outside of the US until I was nine. I don’t have memories of and was not exposed to the racial turmoil of the 1960’s. One of the strongest experiences that gave me insight into what it meant to be black happened a couple years after moving back to the States. The community I lived in had no public pools. The only pool available for the civilian community was part of a social club. The club was for the most part segregated. At that time there was no explicit discriminatory racial policy but it seemed implied. Membership dues kept most people from joining.
My father coached and played sports. One year at the end of the baseball season he had a pool party for the baseball all-stars on the military base where he worked. The social club pool was not available in part, I believe, because there would be black boys attending the party. One black boy, a very athletic and talented ball player, who was also very polite and well liked, decided he would dive off the board on the deep end of the pool. He did this once or twice. We didn’t notice that as he jumped his momentum carried him to the shallow end where he could touch bottom. He couldn’t swim but we didn’t notice. A little later he dove again. This time he took too steep an angle and didn’t make it to the shallow end. He started flailing in the water. Several adults, including my father, jumped in to save him. In the aftermath I learned why he couldn’t swim. The reason was segregation and discrimination concerning public pools. We almost lost a great kid because there was no place for him to learn how to swim. I was introduced to racial discrimination in deeply personal and scary way. A peer almost drowned because of it. I also learned there are many of all races that found ways to get around the ingrained racial culture of the community.
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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 question the social conventions that supported segregation, From that, it was a short jump to questioning foreign policies that justified invading 3rd world countries. College seemed irrelevant and I left it in 1967 to join the anti-war movement as a pacifist, inspired by MLK, Gandhi, and Dorothy Day. I worked with the farmworkers from Delano when they came to NYC for the first grape boycott. I resisted the draft and spent 2 years in prison. Afterward, I joined with 1199 to organize workers at the hospital I worked in. Eventually, I returned to school, became a physician, and was elected to the Board of Education in SF, where I have lived for more than 30 years. None of this would have occurred without the inspiring leadership of King, Bond, Liuzzo, Schwerner, Goodman, Chaney and so many others. Brotherhood is possible and individuals CAN change the world.
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 the request (I never knew how), she was angry–at the school, and confusing to me, at me. From that moment on, there was only anger. I was naive and woefully unaware of racial issues. When Martin Luther King was assasinated, I didn’t even understand how much that mattered….to her or to the world. I carry that burden with me now, 45 years later.
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 so much that I looked like my classmates. My greatest compliment back then (the 1960s) was that I might be white on the outside, but I was black on the inside. We all want to fit in.
