What experience do you have personally to the Civil Rights struggle?

[Jazzgirl]

13. I remember it distinctly. I grew up in the 60's and experienced plenty of racism.

I also remember MLK's assasination very clearly. MLK was staying in the best room in the Lorraine Motel. My Mom and I had that room reserved for a couple of days during the time he was there. We are pretty sure we would have been booted had we not canceled the reservations. I think we canceled because the weather was bad in Missouri and we decided not to take a chance. Talk about the wind getting sucked out when we saw pictures of MLK lying dead on the balcony in front of our favorite motel room on one of the days we were supposed to be there.

I remember that my locker mate had a gun in our locker a few days later. I raised hell and made her get rid of it and threatened her within an inch of her life if she did it again. My parents were teachers on a military base and we lived on it in civilian housing. It got very explosive and that was in junior high school. There were plenty of fights and a near riot.

Those days were not pretty. I can recite many other experiences but it's too depressing to think about them. I can't believe after all we fought for that this country is going backwards at light speed.