MY FIRST AWARENESS OF RACISM
In the mid-fifties, I was part of an indoor track team. The majority of us were White but in my memory we were quite comfortable with both Whites and Blacks being on the team. We were thrilled to be invited to the Oak Park indoor relays and a bus was chartered to take us to Oak Park, Illinois the day before the relays began. When we arrived at our motel for the evening, my coach came to me and asked if I was wiling to room with Jerry, a Black member of the team, and with his father who was one of our chaperones. I was pleased because Jerry was a neat guy. When I learned that because they were Black we were assigned a room in the back of the motel, I accepted it without much thought. Only later as I became more aware of racism did I realize that Jerry and his father were once again experiencing the restrictions placed on them because of the color of their skins. I had the privilege to choose. They didn’t have that choice.
