60 years ago on the front page of the Hutchinson News Hearld

 Not sure it was 60 years, but there are 2 incidents that are clear in my mind.  One entailed a rape and murder of a 17 year old girl.  It happened on the Arkansas River just off  highway 96.  There were 2 boys involved.  There was no question as to whether they were guilty or not, just what the punishment should be.  You see, they were young and their life was just beginning. 

They were the victims here also.  The girl had gotten in the car with them willingly.  They were drinking and she knew that.  She should have known better.  They had sex with her and then she said she was going to "tell on them".  They were both slated to go off to college in a few weeks and one or both had scholarships which meant they were respectable and the girl should have known better than to get in a car with two young men who had obviously been drinking!  What did she think would happen?  She must accept her share of the responsibility here!  These were boys from very respected families and she was from the "other side of the tracks."

So they used her and then "somehow" she died and they panicked.  They tossed her body on the ground under some trees and threw some dirt and leaves over her.  They went home and went to bed.  When the cold hard light of day dawned on the deed and the boys were confronted, they immediately blamed it on the girl.  I do not recall exactly what kind of punishment was meted out, but it just reinforced my belief that "money talks and bullshit walks."  And it was a further lesson about remaining chaste and not getting in a car with boys.

There was also about that time a teenager whose last name was Steele.  He  lived in the South end of Hutchinson.  Now you need to know that at that time North and South were divided by Sherman Street.  South of Sherman were letter streets and North were number streets.  The further south you went the lower the value of the homes.  The further north of Sherman, the higher the value of the property.  

Now the teenager in this story lived on Bigger which was past F Street, which was "ghetto".  It seems his stepfather was a heavy drinker and his mother was blind.  As I recall his stepfather was beating his mother again and this time he grabbed the shotgun and shot him.  Of course he was immediately arrested and since they had no money he was left in jail to await trial.  

The newspaper ran a story about both of these "incidents".  The first favored the boys since the girl was not there to defend herself and she may or may not have been drinking, but the boys agreed it was her fault.  As I recall they were given very light sentences so they could go on to become fine upstanding citizens.

I recall the one about the Steel boy showed him in his jail cell awaiting trial.  He did not have money for bail, so he would remain there until his trial.  Although this was his first offence and was protecting his mother he could not get out on personal recognizance.  He was after all, a juvenile and his step father was just beating his wife.  As an adult male that was his right.  

Maybe some one back in Kansas remembers these two stories and can refresh my memory since that was years ago and back then I did not worry about anything someone else did.  I am a different person now and injustice is not in my vocabulary and it does not matter how much money you do or do not have: right is right and wrong is wrong.  I have spent my life fighting for the underdog and making sure our rights are equal and not influenced by money or skin color or your sex or sexual orientation.  I have a big umbrella and I can fit a lot of people under it.

We have come a long way, but I still seem little "Jim Crow" acts that almost make it under the radar.  I now see women punishing men for things they did.  I do favor a statute of limitations  for things that happened 50 years ago.  I worked side by side with men who received twice and three times as much in hourly wage as I did.  After all, I was a woman; a lesser being.  But you know what?

I am who I am today because of who I was back then.  And I pretty much like the person I am today!

Peace!

 

 

A Front Row Seat!

I missed the Martin Luther King, Jr march yesterday.  Not sure what I was doing, but pretty sure it was important.  So today I will give you a glimpse into that time in my life.

In 1958, while I was 17 years old, I decided to take a "road trip".  Few people know this and even fewer care, but it was one of the most enlightening things I have ever done and probably did more to shape who I am today then a lot of things I have done.  It goes without saying that since I was 17 years old at the time, I was classified as a "juvenile runaway."  To make a long story short and to get to the heart of this blog, I will just say I ended up in jail in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.  Of course mother sent money for a bus ride home and I was damn glad to take that ride.

Have you ever been in jail?  It is no fun.  I was thrown into a room with a bunch of women who were very kind to me.  They were also, all white.  They talked to me about the error of my ways, and I could not help but agree with them.  All I wanted was to go home.   I quickly learned that there was another cell across the hall where the black women were kept.  Same separation for the men.  This was very strange to me.  When they transported me to the bus station, I learned that the rest rooms for the whites was one place and the ones for the blacks another.  They were very clearly marked "Whites Only" and "Negroes only".  Sadly the sigh did not say "Negroes", but a derogatory term.  Until that time, I had never known there was a differentiation for human beings.  I instinctively did not like it!

You must realize that I grew up in Nickerson, Kansas, and there were only white people there.  I can remember back in my far reaches of my mind talk I overheard about a cross burning outside of town.  I think my father may have taken part in that, because there had been a crowd of men and he seemed to know all about how it went down.  The family moved away right after that.  We moved to Hutchinson several years after that.  It was then that I saw what segregation really was.

Hutchinson, Kansas was divided into North and South with Sherman Street being the dividing line.    Blacks and Hispanics lived south of Sherman: Whites lived north of Sherman.  As the upper class, we were allowed to go to the south end, but they were not allowed north of the line. White people who chose to live South of the line were known as "white trash".  After a night of drinking, Jake and I would venture to South Plum and either eat at Betty's Fried Chicken, or a barbecue place, the name of which slips my mind right now.  We could do that because we were white.  White Privilege's were rampant back then.

The first signs of integration in the public work place happened in Hutchinson at the Landmark Hotel and Restaurant.  I do not remember the year but it seems like it was in the early 1960's.  They hired a black waitress and of course the citizenry were up in arms.  Not only was this woman working in a public place for all the world to see, but she dared to venture north of the Sherman Street line!  Sometimes we would park and just watch her working in there and carrying plates of food to the fine white people.  From our vantage point of the street, she did not appear to be "uppity", but in order to  judge her fairly, we would need to go in and actually order food and have her carry it to us.  But that was back in the day when any spare change was designated for the "beer joints" down on south Main!

  An aside here.  The biggest problem the beer joints on South Main seemed to have was the "Indians" who worked for the railroad.  They wanted to have a beer after work, but they were not allowed to do that because any fool knows "if you get them liquored up, they are going to kill us."  Kansas was pretty lily white back in those days.  White anglo saxon protestants were the chosen people.  Lucky for me!

Sadly, at that point in time drinking was far more important than eating, or standing up for the down trodden who had "chosen to be born black."  And mother corrected me on the use of the word " black".
"They are not black!  They are actually a very beautiful shade of brown."  However "Browns" was reserved for the people who had come up from Mexico.  Now be aware, that there were very few of them in my world!  And I am not sure they had come from Mexico, but we called them "Mexicans".

Now, you must realize here that I was growing up during this period of unrest and both Nickerson and Hutchinson,  Kansas were pretty well isolated from the unrest in the big cities.  By the time I figured out that there was a gulf between the rights of Negroes and Whites, it had diminished to a thin line.  After the election of some one's President (not mine) segregation has once more reared it's ugly head.  The same faction that follows this man refers to Obama as "that effen N#**@7."

So on this day after Marin Luther King, Jr's holiday, I reflect on the past.  For the record, I never participated in any hate marches.  I never called my black brothers and sisters by a derogatory name.  People are people in my world,  They are judged by the content of their hearts, not the color of their skin or which side of Sherman Avenue they lived  many years ago.

To this day I thank my God that I was born colorblind and raised by a mother who judged a man by the content of his soul and not the color of his skin.

"These truths we hold to be self evident, that all men are created equal." (Or something to that affect.)

Today is national hug your neighbor day, here at my house!