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In reply to the discussion: The Most Poignant Photo of Michelle Obama You've Ever Seen [View all]Flippancy
(3 posts)I was transferring from Ft Monmouth NJ to Redstone Arsenal AL. Because it was the labor day weekend the Huntsville airport was closed and we landed in Chattanooga and took a bus from there to Huntsville. At the rest stop they had the white and colored restrooms and no "colored " were allowed into the restaurant. All they could access was the colored water fountain. I asked whether anyone wanted food or a drink and took orders and bought the stuff for them. I guess it may have been the fact that I grew up in a co-ed integrated boarding school which was like Boy's Town, but predated Boy's Town by a dozen years, but it never occurred to me that there was any reason for the segregation. It wasn't until some time later that it occurred to me that perhaps I shouldn't have done that because it supported the racist scumbags, or that it was a sad commentary on how the poor Southern blacks were treated that it didn't occur to them not to order anything.
A few months later I went to Birmingham with a black friend and getting on the city bus was a real eye opener. I was called everything except a white man and if we hadn't been in uniform I'm convinced to this day that we would have been murdered right there on that bus. About 6 years later, Rosa Parks came along and thank God for her.
Now we have a possible GOP presidential candidate who longs for a return to that day and people are taking Rand Paul seriously. My God, America, or at least half of it has gone insane.