Looking Back

Galatians 3:28

There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

When we first moved to Nashville I was surprise to see how segrated the churches were. I have heard it said that Sunday is the most segregated day in the South. From my own evidence I would have to agree with this.

I don't understand why. I have also heard the segregation is mutual . Likewise I have no evidence to dissagree with that.

If you were born after 1970 I suspect it is very difficult for you to fully understand just how painful , angry and divisive the fight for intergration and racial equality was. My parents were segregationists , I would like to believe that neither my father or mother would have never participated or support racial violence , but they were certianly unwilling to do anything to change it.

My mother was from Oklahoma and was culturally disposed towards racism , my father seemed indifferent, but I also overheard him tell many jokes at the " expense " of black people.

Both of my parents urged me to proceed with caution when I became involved in the Civil Rights movement , and for reasons I cannot truly remember our home never had a black visitor.

I remember vividly the first time I really came face to face with the ugly reality of Segragation.

Living in Oregon we were largly divorced from the struggles in the North and the South. There were a few black people living in Oregon , but not in our neighborhoods.

The Summer between my eighth grade graduation and my first year in High School I spent the summer in Oklahoma ...this was 1960. I traveled to Oklahoma alone on a Greyhound Bus. When the Bus stopped in Oklahoma City near the end of my trip I needed to use the Bathroom in the Train station. There were three bathrooms there , they were marked : White women , White men , and Colored. I didn't get it I choose colored , when I walked out a man in uniform stopped me and asked me why I did that , I joked I was Pink . He wasn't amused , he thumped on a Bible He was carrying and said " well you must not be a Christian then ".

Prior to that time I had not thought much about Christians and " race " . I had as a youngster assumed that the Church was the moral guardian of society and having heard very little from the Pulpit on this issue I guess I just assumed all was well ....Likewise I assumed that if there was a problem and some of Americas Citizens were being mistreated because of their skin color that the Goverment that represented us would do something about it. I had no reason to believe that these two institutions , the Church and the State instead of leading America out of this growing cancer of segration and inequality would actually participate and contribute to the problem.

As the demand for racial equality began to swell and build I spent my High School years almost oblivious to the first tremors of change. For two years I went to Benson High School in Portland Oregon. My parents wanted me to go to this school because if its Advanced Science Programs , Science was an Area I excelled in , I didn't excell in Shop class. ( Seventh and Eigth Graders in the 50's went to either Shop class ( boys ) or Home Economics ( girls ) . What my parents hadn't planned was that Benson was one all day Shop class. In the two years I went to Benson I Failed Welding, Aeronautics, Automotive, Machine Shop, Sheet Metal and Foundery classes , while getting a smatering of A's in Biology and Physics .

Benson was a " segragated " school with just about equal number of blacks and whites. I have no memory of any racial incidents while at Benson. It was at this time that I developed a reputation for getting in fights , I was constantly brawling with kids much bigger than me , Usually kids who because of their size and physicality liked to push other kids around ...I set a record at Benson I believed I had only lost about 17 of the 18 tiffs I was in ...It took me two years to really embrace passive resistance. Two years several broken noses , a couple of cut lips and an unfortunate nickname of Rocky ( not for the fighter but for the racoon ).

to be continued ....