I just watched a segment on television about an old theater in some place down south. Might have been Birmingham, Alabama. There are two important facts here. #1 is I am actually paying attention to the television and we are still having segregation problems and it is not just down south that it is happening.
They were showing the history of the theater and explaining how it had been used as a headquarters for Ku Klux Klan meetings. They gave the history to explain why the theater was the prime place for a museum to replace the KKK. I am old enough that I can remember back when "night riders" interacted with black people in such a way that occasionally the black person would not return home in the same condition they left in. This was acceptable behavior back when I was a kid growing up in Nickerson, Kansas. I expect that the city of Nickerson could build their own museum, but not thinking they are going to do that!
I have very vague memories of my mom and dad having hushed conversations, before he would leave the house for an unknown destination. When we got up the next morning for school he would still be asleep. Hindsight is such a much better vision then living in the present! We would hear hushed conversations in the school yard that abruptly ceased when we came near. Guess this was something only the older kids were privy to.
There were no Mexicans in our town. No blacks. There was a family that lived in the boxcar down on the curve that we suspected were maybe Indians. We learned later that the word was "Indeginous", but then they were Indians and they kept to themselves. There was a father, mother and 3 daughters. Once I went to their house out of curiosity. The house was very neat and the mother did not talk at all. The father just glared. I never did that again!
After they had been there for what seemed like a long time, Eveline was allowed to attend school. Granted, no one played with her, but by then we were out of the "playing" stage and into the "trying to learn something that would be meaningful in our future." Mostly, that involved cooking or baking, or cleaning house. Eveline did come to my home a time or two, but mother was quick to point out that she had "very long fingernails and God only knew where they had been" so we must never touch anything she had touched!
I am happy to report that later in her life my, mother actually acknowledged that there were people in this world who were not lily white like us. There were things like gay people, Mexicans, and black people! We further learned that they were human and as such deserved the same treatment as our white friends. Now in all fairness, I have not been a citizen of Nickerson for over 65 years, but you should know that when I last cruised the streets I did not see anything but white, anglo saxon, protestants. Sadly something else I did not see, was any new buildings or thriving businesses. There were a couple run down looking trailer parks and lots of abandoned buildings up on Main Street. Nickerson seemed to be a step back in time. What does that tell you?
As for my life, I think I have come a long way. I have had the pleasure of being grandmother and/or great grandmother to several mixed grand children both half black, half Indian, and a couple not sure of paternity. Does this make me anything different than I was when I was a snot nosed kid in Nickerson? I think not.
I wish the people who work so hard for a good life could have crossed my path way back when. There is a song I used to sing in camp and never really knew what it stood for. Let me just sing you a couple bars:
"Jesus loves the little children. All the children of the world! Red and yellow, black and white, All are precious in his sight! Jesus loves the children of the world!"
I hope I can remember that no matter where I wander and no matter where I roam, or who I meet in my life journeys that we are all children of God and as such are blessed by his goodness and help me to love my brother as myself. And with that , I wish you all peace!
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