Small Ohio Town: Color Didn’t Matter
Debbie Spragg Brisentine Plain City, OH I was born in 1954, lived in Mt. Pleasant Ohio, pop. approx. 500. Attended school from 1959-1972. Had both...
The nun made me mark “white.”
Jackie Loya-Torres Kansas City, MO As a small child in the 1970s, I remember having to take some sort of standardized test in school. You...
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...
Acceptable, only after identified as Hawaiian
Nedra De Lima, White Plains, MD. Experienced “minority status” when we moved stateside from Hawaii in the 70s. I was most often identified as Hispanic/Mexican....
You’re not Dale Evans-Roy Rogers.
Judy Jessick Fresno, CA In the early 70s, agencies turned us down unless we wanted to adopt a son w/mental or physical disability or a...
He put pickles in my pancakes.
Jeannette Chavez Albuquerque, NM It was the early 70′s in the Texas panhandle. On a road trip we stopped at a diner to eat. He...
Listen, I am not a minority!
Skywalker Payne, Homer, AK In the 1970’s I worked at the University of Texas in Austin, where I first heard the oxymoron “minority-majority.” I wrote...
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...
Is Puerto Rican a separate race?
Diana Gonzalez, Franklin Square, NY. I am an adopted person. I’ve been searching for my past all my life. I’m 60 now. One of my...
Black clients funded our white flight.
Jane Meacham, Washington, DC. My dad is a lawyer in Kansas City, MO, who always had mostly black, working-class clients. When the city school district...
Ignorance of history, convenient or willful?
Emily Green-Cain, Nashville, TN. I grew up in the city where James Lawson led teach-ins for non-violence that led to sit-ins throughout the Southeast. No...
Born of Haight Street 70s fusion.
Shannon Luders-Manuel, Los Angeles, CA. Awesome project, and glad I found it! I’m black & white and write about race issues.
It’s time to expect the unexpected.
Desiree, Chesapeake, VA. When I was growing up in the 70’s and 80’s I use to hear about black people are the most uneducated race,...
Wash your hands. Brown is dirty.
Michelle C-H Dorchester , MA When I was a little kid, in the 70’s, My family was the only black folks most of the people...
“These People want too many rights”
Robert Kruk, Bloomingdale, NJ When I was a boy (13 or so) my father & I were watching the news, and an African-American demonstration was...
Son, let me explain ‘busing’.
Joe Stainback IV, New Tazewell, TN. A quote from my mother … My positive spin on ‘race’ interactions gleaned from mandated busing in the early...
Lifetime in slipstream of white flight
Richard Bacon Chicago, IL Mid 1970s living in perfectly nice middle class neighborhood in NE Dallas Texas. The desecration, by busing, of the neighborhood school...
I didn’t get to know her.
Sarah Hildreth Ingersoll, Middlebury, VT Growing up in Baltimore in the 70’s and 80’s, I attended an all-girls’ school, starting in fifth grade. In the...
