Not so long ago as a teen and my first Resistance Act and very dangerous !

The sixties were just filled with problems but when you are a kid...and see goodness more than evil, then it is easy to be a yankee doodle dandy.  When you are sheltered from all that was bad and shown what appeared good, it was easy to be a Yankee Doodle Dandy.   Did you notice the white /colored sections and water fountains?  Yes but at 10 or 11  one never really questioned it.  It was something you were brought up with so you accepted it...wrong as it was...you knew no different.   Did you go to school with blacks ?  No.  You didn’t even go to school with people from up north.   School was very small and very tribal.   School included folks in your neighborhood ( in the south) and no blacks lived in the neighborhood not to mention no integration.  

It was the early sixties.   You didn’t know about white privilege.   You may not have understood why you couldn’t play with the black child who was your friend but there were other friends who you could not play with for different reasons.  Maybe there was trouble in their home, abuse, alcohol, lots of things.   You were brought up in a world of white privilege.  You had the best books.  You had the best schools.   You had good food.  You had Saturday movie matinees ...never hassled.   You played your George M Cohan records along with your Beachboys and Four Seasons and Sam Cooke and Chuck Berry music.   ALL of your guests were white.  All of your restaurants seated white only.   The only blacks you saw, was the “Help”.   You watched Lawrence Welk on Saturday night.   I watched Tarzan on Armchair Playhouse.  I tuned into Amos and Andy and did not think a thing about the racism.  You knew of no such thing.  You watched the Mickey Mouse Club and don’t recall any black musketeers.   Then something happened.  I got older and started doing usher volunteer work in Atlanta.

There was a man who emerged named Martin and educated people in the south about the cruelty and about a man named George Wallace.  This man was preaching against injustice and voting rights and pretty soon things were looking different to me. I heard people talk.. People I had known all my life.   There was a lot of confusion starting and those n—gers were causing problems.   That is what you heard on the street.  That is not what I believed.  Most people in small communities kept quite but I was curious.   I wanted to know why Annetta my friend had to sit in the balcony.  I wanted to know why only white people went to our school or church or anywhere where whites went.  I watched a movie called “ Gentlemen’s Agreement” and “Imitation of Life”.  I was feeling something strange.   I had an awareness of something so wrong in my small southern town.  There was war heating up… There was hate all around...There were marches.  Not in our town were marches but in nearby Atlanta.  Still, we had a level headed president . I was not too concerned at that young age.

We had a governor running around swinging axe handles over black folks eating his chicken at the Pickwick restaurant.   I was older and starting to get concerned.

My first act of resistance came at age 15.  I was an usher at the Atlanta Municipal Auditorium.  The Supremes were playing.   Three girlfriends and me ushered there free of charge and saw all the concerts free.  We showed people to their seats, took their tickets, ripped them in half and gave them their stub and stood back with our flashlights and watched the show.   We helped people to their seats and showed them where to go.   Sometimes we guarded backstage but mostly we stood in the doorways of the auditorium and watched the show.

I will never ever forget what I saw in  65 or1966.  The Supremes were on stage and doing a fantastic number.  Their dresses were all glitzy and the lights were dimmed and spotlights were directly on their sequences.   Kids from 10 to 17 or so were screaming and and enjoying the show.  One little, girl was about 12 or 13 and was very excited.  She wanted to get closer to the stage.  I noticed the cops were everywhere.   As the little girl ran to the stage, a huge cop came from the side and did not escort her to her seat.  He did not say go sit down.  He took his billy club and hurled it full force at her mouth causing blood to fly.   He was all over her with that club.  I was standing at an exit close by.  I ran to the girl and literally tried to hit the cop.  ( I was fiesty even at that age) and had a deep sense of right and wrong.   I was arguing with him and he told me to get out of his way and I screamed.” No, you brute”.  Why… Why did you hit that little girl.   ??????   He just smirked.   I hated him with a passion and was crying but reached down and grabbed her up and she was afraid and bleeding.  We both had blood on us.  I remember some black woman rushed to the young girl and asked me if I was trying to get killed.  I did not understand.  The woman said to the cop, “ She didn’t know officer”...We are going to our seats...My jaw dropped.   I also lost my flashlight in my fit of rage.  I was crying and looked up at Diana Ross who never missed a beat and pretty sure she may have seen some of the commotion but hell this was the 60’s.  I was still fussing at the cop and the black woman was trying to get me away.  I really did not know or obviously care how much fuss or danger I was in.  She knew though.  He ignored me slapping his billy stick in his hand.   I was still yelling at him.  I had an adult, my chaperon tell me to get away from there and I did not understand.  How could people allow other people to do this?  My night seeing the Supremes was ruined.   I can’t even hear Baby Love now without my mind racing back to that night.  I was 15 or 16 years old and I resisted.  I persisted. 

 This is the time 45 and his deplorables want us to go back to.  I ain’t going and that was the very last show I ushered at the Municipal auditorium.   

Tomorrow I won’t be in Gainesville where Richard Spenser will be.   I am not 15 or 16 anymore and I am still sick from Irma but by Golly no body ever better let me see them hit a kid in the mouth because they are  not white.   I resisted them.. I will resist now.   It is who I am.

I thought so much  those days were over but damn if they didn’t come back in full force.  White Privilege.. Yeah I know what it is.  I did not get hit in the mouth.   I ran my mouth though and still proud I did.  My parents were petrified when I told them what happened.   I was told I could have been killed.   I learned right there and right then, I was treated differently but not because I wanted it that way.  I have stood for justice in many many ways and somewhere in Montgomery my name was placed on a Digital Wall by the SPLC and it all began right there in downtown Atlanta at a Supremes Concert at the Municipal Auditorium.  What hurts me so very badly, I was the only white teen to try and rescue that young girl.

I still have nightmares about that night, God only knows what that kid dreams about.  You bet I will take a knee.   This stuff has been going on for as long as I can remember.  The next time you wonder if you should take a knee.  Think about a little 15 year old 105 lb teen trying to stop brutality on a preteen black child in the sixties.   Please do think about that.  I knew even at that age...there was no equal justice.

Something is in my eye as I post this song.