WTF is wrong with our young people??

[wnylib]

149. I was 15 in 1965. I remember a lot about

that period. The massive anti war protests in DC occurred later, but protests did exist in some regions by 1966-1968. I remember some kids at school wearing anti war buttons on clothing and anti war stickers on notebooks, lockers, and book jackets.

A lot of war protesters were white middle class kids. When King included Vietnam and the draft as one of the means of socio-economic control, more blacks came to oppose the war. I've looked at photos of the Freedom March in 63 and the Poor People's march in 68. Mostly blacks present. But you can also see some whites in the crowd, individually and in groups.

Absolutely true that the people who experienced the dangerous, life-threatening actions, like dogs in the streets and at the beaches, and the hoses and beatings were black. I was 14 - 16 and remember being horrified and angry at seeing it in the news. Also remember the church bombing that killed the young girls.

There is one experience I still remember. Takes a little time to tell it. I grew up in a northwestern PA city. Neighborhoods were segregated by custom there rather than by law. The city was small enough that both black and white neighborhoods were in the same high school district. Black and white kids interacted in school and extracurricular activities, but not much outside of school.

My father worked in a shop that employed a lot of blacks who had moved north for work. Black and white kids played together at company picnics and Xmas parties. My brother had a black friend who hung out with him and his white friends. I had a long walk to school. Sometimes I ran into my brother's black friend when I got near school, and walked the rest of the way with him. (My brother went to a different school at that time.) It wasn't common for a black guy and a white girl to walk together, but nobody made an issue of it, either.

So, i made a BIG mistake in the summer of 1966 when I was 16. My oldest brother was in the Navy, stationed in Charleston, SC and living in a white military community on an island. There was a black community on the other side of the island. There was one general store that served both communities. My family went for a visit when school was out and I stayed in SC the rest of the summer.

As I walked down a rural road to the store, I saw a kid about my age walking toward the road from a dirt side road. We reached the intersection of the 2 roads at the same time, so I said "Hi" and started to walk beside him and tried to chat. He was black. I should have known better from seeing news items, but it seemed normal to be friendly and rude if I wasn't.

He set me straight very quickly. "I can tell from how you talk that you're not from around here. I don't know what you're up to. Maybe you're one of those northern folks come down here thinking you can fix things, but I'm not gonna be your experiment. I like keeping my neck safe." He looked around. There were no houses in the area, no cars, and nobody else walking.

He said, "it's ok. Nobody saw us. Now I'm gonna walk ahead and don't come up beside me. Don't say a word to me. Make like I'm not here. White girls and black boys don't walk and talk together here. Don't mean to hurt your feelings, but that's how it is."

Of course after all these years, those aren't his exact words, but as close as I can remember.

I felt foolish for not knowing better. Summer in SC in 1966. I could have caused him lot of harm, and probably myself, too, if not for his straightforward, self-preserving warning.