My first conscious exposure to racism happened when I was in the 4th grade. I was telling a friend about a book my teacher was reading — one chapter every day. The storyline was about a little boy who was given a young slave as a gift; the book kept emphasizing how happy the two little boys were, even though the black child was required to call his white owner “master” and the white child, in turn, called the black child the N-word.
So, when I told my friend about the book, I used the N-word, and my mother overheard. That night, my father and mother explained the history of that word and told me and my brothers that it was a word used by some people to hurt other people for no other reason than the color of their skin. After an appearance by my parents before the local school board, I was transferred to another class and the book was removed from the curriculum.
Within a few years of this event, my parents became active in the civil rights movement. In the city where we lived, restaurants, theaters, and bars were segregated. Over the course of a few months, dozens of white and black couples, my parents included, ended much of the segregation in the city’s restaurants. A white couple would make a reservation for four people at a restaurant; when they arrived at the restaurant, they would be seated. A few minutes later, a black couple would come in and would be told “we don’t have any tables available.” The couple would respond, “that’s okay, we’re joining that party over there,” and they would take their seats with the white couple.
It was during this period of time that my brothers and I were not permitted to answer the phone. We were told that Dad had a lot of business calls coming in, but we discovered years later that more often than not, it was because we were getting calls full of obscenities and death threats.
In 1965, we moved to Atlanta. Public restrooms, water fountains, etc. were labeled “white only” or “colored.” Nearby Stone Mountain was the headquarters of the KKK chosen in large part for the homage it’s Mt. Rushmore-like carvings paid to the Confederacy. Black children were often bused miles away from their neighborhood school in order to keep the schools segregated. The song “Dixie” was played at every school pep rally and many of my fellow students would stand when they heard the opening bars.
But Atlanta was also a diverse and growing city, and it was the home to Dr. Martin Luther King and headquarters of his civil rights organization — the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
Dr. King often reached out to other churches, believing that in the face of great injustice, religious leaders and congregations could not and would not be silent. Dr. King was a powerful, eloquent, and passionate advocate for social justice and a kind, charismatic man. His vision and the clarity of his message resonated with many of the people in my church, including my family. My parents continued their work with the civil rights movement. On the weekends, I volunteered at Dr. King’s church, Ebenezer Baptist, reading to children from the inner city and participating in a multiracial teenage youth group.
Then, in 1968 Martin Luther King was assassinated and millions of people were stunned and angry and despairing.
I wore a black armband to school to show my sadness and solidarity with all of those who mourned his loss. I was elbowed and slammed up against the walls; someone wrote “N… Lover” on my locker. The principal called me to his office, said I was disrupting classes and I needed to remove the armband or be suspended. With my parents’ support, I chose the suspension. Again, I volunteered at Dr. King’s church, but this time it was to help with the arrangements for his funeral march — answering the phone, providing people coming in from out of town with information about places they could stay and details about the march.
Over 50 years later, political pundits, elected officials, and well-meaning white people repeat again and again that “the U.S. is a post-racial society, that racism is dead” like it’s some kind of reassuring mantra.
It isn’t — racism is not just ugly words and actions or men wearing white sheets. It’s also about continued school segregation, the wage gap, income inequality, ignoring or whitewashing our history, unequal access to health care and educational opportunities, and the imbalance in rates of incarceration. And it’s about black and brown children being told that college is not a realistic option for them; it’s about people of color being followed by a cashier in a store; it’s about not jogging in a white neighborhood; it’s about people thinking you’re “up to no good;” it’s about crossing the street or holding onto your pocketbook tighter when you see a person of color approaching; it’s about calling the police because a black man who was birdwatching asks you to leash your dog.
We’re also told that we’ve made a lot of progress in the last 50 years. That may be true, but I doubt that the parents of Breonna Taylor or the families of those who were killed by Dylann Roof in South Carolina have found much comfort in that progress.
There are millions of people in this country who recognize that racism is immoral and cruel, but racism thrives on complacency. We need to examine our own attitudes and behaviors and be aware of our own biases, to be advocates for justice and equality in our workplaces and homes and communities, to show up and speak up, and to reach out to people and listen with respect.
If we can do that, we honor both the memory of Dr. King and his dream.
