I first thought about civil rights in 1950. My guard unit was plopped on a Denver & Rio Grande train and we landed up in Oklahoma. There were two things I couldn't figure out about Oklahoma. One was: What, no mountains? (There tallest mountain would be back where I came from a hole in the ground 2000 feet (615.38 meters) deep!) The other one was: Why do "colored" folks have to have different public restrooms and EVEN drinking fountains in Oklahoma? I wondered, Did Will Rogers know about this? Separate bathrooms and fountains? When we first piled on a bus at Fort Sill to go into town, we headed right to the back. That's when we learned that was not allowed. The back of the bus was reserved, not for smart ass kids from the west, but for "the colored." Now, we did not like the fact that we couldn't sit where we damn well pleased, but if we didn't comply, the driver would pout and stop the buss until we did comply. Besides, it confused the black soldiers with us. Well, the guys from a New York National Guard unit got riled up about this late one night on the way back to base from town. They probably were loaded and not willing to put up with disagreeable bus drivers. When he stopped the bus to get everybody in a "proper" seat they grabbed him by the seat of his pants and through him out of the buss onto his "proper" seat. (That may have been the start of the informal civil rights movement.) So, in 1950, some of us were tired of racial discrimination. The army got rid of it before the populace. Our units in Korea were integrated for which I was grateful. We fought and died together. I remember as a boy being surprised to learn that the blacks held only menial jobs in my town. In other words, the fathers of the black kids we went to school with were treated diffently than our fathers (who were out of work). I instinctively knew it wasn't right. Later, some black men went into businesses for themselves and developed a great deal of respect in our community. But it was not that way before 1945. Now, Rosa Parks lies in the rotunda of our National Capital. I remember her as someone having spunk. "Don't tell me where to sit, brother!" She was arrested in Detroit on December 1, 1955 for refusing to give up her seat to a white person. A beautiful young women, she captured the hearts of many Americans and started the popular Civil Rights Movement in America. Read her biography at: http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/par0bio-1/ God Bless you, Rosa Parks. Rest in Peace. The End copyrightJohn T. Jones, Ph.D., 2005 |
