In Honor of Dr. King – Real Change One Child at a Time

Despite being very young, I remember when Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was tragically shot down in 1968. For several years afterwards, a special sadness overwhelmed many of the members of our segregated community in western North Carolina. Many feared that the hope for change had died with Dr. King.

As a preschooler, I followed my stay-at-home mother around in her daily duties, typical of middle and upper class white suburban families in North Carolina. A few days after Martin Luther King’s assassination, my mother took me grocery shopping at our local A & P. Crusty remnants of hard packed snow clung to the sides of the road, so I lifted my vinyl boots carefully over the icy curbs, clinging to my mother’s hand so that I wouldn’t fall. In my very low frame of vision, I saw before me the bottom of a thick brown wool coat, blue-black stockings, and dull black leather work shoes. As I made my way onto the brightly painted yellow curb, I looked up to see the kind face of a black woman, worn older with work, her eyes filled with tears. She was standing on the curb waiting for the bus. No doubt, she worked as a maid for one of the families in the predominantly white neighborhood.

“Why are you crying?” I asked her. I was perpetually curious.

She struggled to answer while my mother tried to lead me away from her, “Don’t bother her,” she said under her breath.

“Don’t cry,” I reasoned with the woman, “It’s a happy day today. It’s my birthday,” I told her.

“It’s your birthday?” she asked as she wiped away her tears, smiling gently at me.

“Yes,” I said, “So don’t be sad.”

“Well, happy birthday,” smiled the woman.

My mother jerked me away into the store and later scolded me for being so free-spirited as to talk with strangers.

I was too young to understand the significance of the conversation. Despite the tragic death of Dr. King, hope was not lost. For among the old southern white families who once owned slaves and later employed black servants; among the racist white families who persecuted Dr. King, his beliefs, and those of his race; from the loins of white supremacists who went to church on Sunday morning and held lynchings on Sunday afternoons; there would be children born who would grow up color-blind and help make possible the very changes Dr. King had dreamed of.

My mother, vanilla white in every way, was raised with servants, the daughter of a card carrying KKK leader in the south. Her grandfather, my great grandfather, gained notoriety when he introduced legislation to keep blacks from owning land and henceforth getting the right to vote in the county where he lived. His work inspired a new branch of the NAACP formed to fight his efforts. Several decades after his death, his estate was purchased, then leveled to make room for Section 8 housing bearing his name so that the very people he put down in his lifetime would have a helping hand up after his death — a fitting tribute.

However, I was shielded from all of that personal family history for I was never told of it and had to learn it the “modern” way: via the internet, many, many years later.

Times had changed. It was the 1960s, the time of peace and love and equal rights protests. My parents, intellectuals, had decided to raise their children without passing on their own racist belief systems in an attempt to protect us from the persecution visited upon those who displayed their racist views publicly. My mother still held her views, but kept them closely guarded, only to reveal them in subtle ways through her personal choices in where she shopped, worshiped, and approved or disapproved of her children’s friends.

The first year I entered public school was also coincidentally the first year of integration in the county where I lived, although no one bothered to tell me. Amidst all of the turmoil in politics, I was clueless – just a little kid starting first grade. Girls were still required by school policy to wear skirts and dresses, but not pants, so I wore a hand-me-down – my older sister’s neon colored “peace” miniskirt.

Sitting beside me in class was a cute little boy named Robert who brought to school with him a miniature set of tools his father had given him. It had a tiny hammer, saw and screwdriver. I told Robert he should bring some wood to school so we can make something with his tools.

Since it was our first day of school, Robert’s brothers and sisters met him after class let out and laughed and cheered as we boarded our buses. I sat on my bus and looked out the window at his happy family. Robert saw me and pointed me out, so his older brother lifted Robert up onto his shoulders. He asked me to make a fist, so I did, which he then bumped through the open window — my first “fist bump.”

“Black power,” he said.

“Black power,” I said back.

We continued to all bump fists and yell “black power” and everyone cheered and laughed.

A few months later, I asked my mother if I could bring my new friend Robert home on the bus to play with me after school. I brought other friends home all the time. My mother said yes and the next day, we arrived. Mom took one look at Robert and asked us to play in the front yard.

“But you never let me play in the front yard,” I said. Traffic was heavy on the street where we lived and a neighbor’s son had been killed only a few years before. Mom and Dad spanked us if they caught us playing out front.

“Just stay away from the road,” said my mother quickly and went back inside.

A few minutes later, my mother came back outside and told me that Robert’s mother was coming to get him.

“But he just got here!” I whined.

Robert and I played “jump on a crack” on the front walk for a few minutes until his mother arrived. The next day at school, our teacher separated us and said that I had to make new friends. I cried and cried and watched with envy as Robert’s new seatmate got to play with Robert’s miniature toolset.

Fortunately, most of my childhood proceeded without drama. Many of my very best friends in grade school were minorities, though I didn’t understand what that meant. Looking through my child-sized eyes, everyone seemed to have skin with shades of different colors. Nancy had pale gray skin and was Japanese. Judy had olive-bluish skin and was Jewish. Theresa had ruddy skin and was Russian. Yumie had coppery skin and was Korean. Kelly had honey colored skin which I thoroughly envied, the result of being a mixture of English, German and a bit Cherokee. Christy was striking with clear beige skin, black eyes, and white blond Norwegian hair. I was vanilla. We girls were a very colorful group.

Despite literal centuries of a belief in white supremacy, the trend had been broken. Desegregation of schools had worked. My parents experiment to not pass on their own prejudices had worked. I was truly color-blind.

After several years of marriage, I still have to remind myself that my husband is considered to be a minority.

My hope for the future of this country is that everyone will someday stop seeing the giant color swatch of history behind the person, but instead celebrate the beautiful and diverse packages in which we have each been blessed. I am not pure white. You are not pure black. Our skin has been dyed in a vast array of colors in beautiful shades and hues, a palette of artistry by God, our maker.

Dr. King – Thank you for having a dream.