Segregation

I grew up in a racially segregated society.

There are tons of literature on segregation and racial bias in the US. I will just give you my impression of it.

Beaumont had basically two races whites and niggers - that is the last time I will use that pejorative term.

Now I find it offensive, but in my growing up years that is what we called a person with dark skin. Sad. My folks were swimming against the tide in that they did not tolerate the use of the n-word, my folks called them Negroes or Colored People.

Everything was segregated! Separate but equal was the phrase used to describe how society was structured.

My sharpest memories of segregation involve five things: – Schools – Churches – Movie Theaters – Bathrooms and Drinking Fountains – Municipal Busses There was a White School District and a Negro School District.

I never attended school with a black person until my second year at Rice.

There were white churches and black churches - this sadly persists to this day although diminished and diminishing.

Typically Blacks had a separate entrance, separate concession stand and separate seating in movie theaters.

Any place that had public bathrooms or drinking fountains had duplicates for whites and blacks. I recall going to the ‘Colored’ drinking fountain in Sears and causing my mom real embarrassment.

I have already described the demarkation sign in busses to separate the races. There was a bus driver on the Magnolia-Pinecrest route (the route we took) who, in rush hour, would push the sign so far back that the blacks were stuffed into the rearmost section of the bus cheek by jowl while the whites all had seats in the front. What a jerk!!!!

This was wrong! This was in the Jim Crow era and it was just wrong. The Supreme Court was wrong in Plessy vs. Fergusson (just is it was wrong in Roe vs. Wade).

Unfortunately this was the ‘normal’ I grew up in and I am imprinted with some of this garbage to this day.

I will stop now, but reserve the right to add more later.