Last night when my husband and I were listening to President-elect Barack Obama’s acceptance speech, I looked over and saw Richard wiping away tears. It was an emotional moment for us, and not because we were rabid Obama supporters. We did support Obama, but we had favorable feelings for all the Democratic candidates. It was just that we felt so proud of our fellow citizens for electing an African American candidate, that we had proof positive of how far our country had come since we were growing up, I in Kansas City, and Richard in Little Rock, Arkansas.

 

Younger generations haven’t experienced the kind of apartheid that Richard in particular experienced, but it was widespread in my hometown, too. Different bathrooms, different water fountains, different schools, different parts of town, different applications of “justice.” Little Rock, as history buffs may remember, was the site of the first forced integration of schools.

 

Ironically, my boyfriend my senior year in high school was Bart Brown, son of Esther Brown. Although she was not the Brown of the famous Supreme Court decision (the last name is a coincidence), she was the civil rights activist who investigated the appalling neglect of schools for black children in Topeka and persuaded the Brown family, an African American family, to bring suit against the Topeka school board, so that all American children could have access to the same quality of education. The Supreme Court ruled that the segregation of schools was illegal in their decision Brown vs. Topeka. Forced integration and bussing soon followed.

 

 

Meanwhile, in Kansas City, I was attending a public school of 2400 children, three of whom were African American. Stacey, a kid in my French class, was sort of a high school celebrity who wore African-style batique shirts and necklaces. He was funny, a sardonic Richard Pryor type, and had a huge fan club. I was raised by a black woman, Betty, whom I adored (this was another example of apartheid; white children were pretty much raised by black women at this time in this part of the country, and every white person of means had their homes cleaned by African American women). So I wasn’t all that clued into racism, even though I was surrounded by it in ways that were invisible to me at the time.

 

So when Martin Luther King was assassinated, I was bewildered to find myself an abstract target of the rage the black community felt at having their leader murdered. I was at school when our principal came on the intercom and told us that a gang of black youths had driven out to our school from the inner city and that, for our safety, they were locking us in. Police managed to dissipate the crowd by the time we went home, and school was then closed for several days. Snipers were killing random white victims and the National Guard was then called into our city, a curfew established.

 

It was terrifying, as you might imagine. It felt indescribably odd to drive around familiar parts of town that were normally bucolic and placid, and to have soldiers posted at the street corners, holding assault rifles at the ready. They were there to protect us, but their presence didn’t actually make me feel safer. It simply underscored how dangerous and unstable my community was.

 

And this is the insanity of racism. It pits strangers against strangers. It makes normally decent people commit acts for which, if they were in their right minds, they would feel shame beyond imagining. It punishes everyone for the actions of a few. It robs all of us of freedom. It robs all of us of opportunity. It lowers the quality of life for everyone.

 

I don’t know if I thought I would never see an African American president in my lifetime. I did wonder if racism would doom this otherwise hopeful, promising, optimistic, and inclusive campaign. And I am thankful beyond words that my fellow citizens vindicated my faith in them, that they voted for the man, not against his race. I am wild with joy to have lived through a second historic time, one that redeems the earlier one that I experienced as a child. America, you saucy minx! I love you!