“We all should know that diversity makes for a rich tapestry, and we must understand that all the threads of the tapestry are equal in value no matter what their color.” ~ Maya Angelou

“Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world; red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world” ~ Clarence Herbert Woolston

When everyone is included, everyone wins.” ~ Jesse Jackson 

“Because after all, the things that make you different also make you YOU.” ~ Freckleface Strawberry, by Julianne Moore

From my early childhood I have had a memory of a brief — and distant — encounter with a little boy.  The memory comes and goes, as some memories do, and is often prompted by some event or incident. This particular memory made a profound impression on me. As we wind down Black History Month, I offer the following recreation of that memory, and some thoughts about the history surrounding it.

It was summertime on the South Side of Chicago. The time was the early 1950s and I was about six years old. I had been riding my tricycle back and forth in front of our apartment building on Minerva Avenue. My mother was chatting with neighbors and my brother, who was much older than I, was hanging around with his friends. It could have been a Sunday, and we might have come from church because it seems as though everyone was wearing their finery, and I was wearing a dress.

Although, after raising a boy, my mother was thrilled to have a little girl, and she often dressed me in crinolines overlaid with a white linen-blend pinafore; that might have been the reason Alice always looked so familiar to me. But as a little girl, the combination of tricycle riding and running around while wearing dresses and having bare legs, especially in summer, meant that my outfits were usually accessorized with band aids on both knees, and sometimes on my elbows.

As I headed back to the corner on my trike, I suddenly spotted a small boy on the corner across the street. Even at a distance, I could see that he was close to my age, very cute and, in my memory, also dressed up.  I stopped to stare at him. He was looking back at me. I waved, and he waved back. 

“Mom,” I called to her, and pointed to the little boy across the street. My mother turned, took in the situation and walked quickly to the corner to join me. “Can I go over there, Mom?” I asked, again gesturing to the little boy. My mother looked concerned, bordering on distressed.

The little boy was talking to his mother, who was tall and well dressed, and she was looking across at us, somewhat disconcerted. 

For several minutes, I begged my mom to take me across the street so I could play with this little boy. As well, the little boy appeared to be begging his mom to take him across the street to me.

Our mothers stooped down to our levels to talk to us. My mom explained that it was not possible to go across the street to the little boy, and that the little boy could not cross the street to us. My mother seemed unsettled and genuinely sad for me, but she remained firm that I could not play with the little boy. His mother, as well, took him by the hand and pulled him away. And then, a very traumatic situation occurred. The little boy began to cry and resist his mother’s attempts to pull him away. This upset me greatly, and I began to cry. Then my brother scooped me up in his arms, and as he walked away with me, I held out my arm to the little boy and bawled. The little boy was holding his arm out to me and yelling as his mother led him away. Our hearts were broken. We did not understand why we could not play together. 

I did not realize until I was older that the problem was, I was white and he was black. And I have never understood why the color of one’s skin, or one’s heritage, mattered in the whole scheme of things. Why couldn’t people of different skin colors be friends, work together or marry each other? Even during wartime when Black soldiers put their lives on the line for the United States, they were treated as inferiors to their white counterparts.

Chicago’s History of Segregation

Perhaps it was that experience at such a young age, which was so traumatic that I have carried the memory of it throughout my life, that made me more open-minded and even sympathetic to the plight of our Black sisters and brothers than my family and many of the white people I grew up with in such a segregated city and neighborhood. But that was the racial environment in Chicago, and more or less throughout the entire country, especially in the 1950s.

The historic irony of such segregation in Chicago is that its first non-indigenous resident and settler of what was to become the city of Chicago was a Black man, Jean Baptiste Point du Sable! He is believed to have been of African descent and born in what is today known as Haiti, but that he also was of French-Canadian descent. I believe that is a bit of very exciting Black history! This reputedly handsome, well-bred, intelligent and industrious Black man has been recognized as the Founder of the City of Chicago, which wound up discriminating against members of his own race. Even before Illinois became a state, greedy and bigoted traders in the Chicago area enslaved Black and Indigenous people, segregating them from white society. 

One of the contributors to segregation was Chicago’s real estate industry, the center of the nation’s real estate industry. This is where the concept of redlining became a practice; that is, the idea that neighborhoods with a certain percentage of Black residents were considered less valuable and desirable than mostly white or all white neighborhoods. And it apparently did not matter if a neighborhood had wealthy or Middle-Class Black homeowners or renters, it was the color of the skin that devalued property!

Segregation has continued in Chicago until the present day, when attempts at desegregation continue to be violent and disheartening. And certainly the Supreme Court’s overturning of Affirmative Action did not help in creating an equal playing field to facilitate integrating the races. But Chicago, and Illinois, will soldier on.

Black History In This Moment

A crucial part of the process in remedying racial unrest is to study Black history in its entirety — the stories of man’s inhumanity to man must be revealed to all if it is to stop. That does not mean that non-Black schoolchildren must be shamed or diminished. It means that Black children and other children of color must be able to grow up in a world where they are treated with the same dignity, freedoms, privileges, respect, opportunities and enjoy an equal playing field with white children. To that end, Black history must be taught as American history. Such enlightenment brings truth and understanding, and a measure of peace and happiness for all.  

Our nation has made progress in racial equality through laws and the action of presidents, Congress passing laws and Supreme Court decisions over the last two and a half centuries. It has not been enough, largely due to a sizeable part of the population opposing racial equality. But education, laws and social interactions were continuing to build on the progress achieved to date. Under the current Executive Branch, as well as those in the Legislative and Judicial branches, however, terrifying actions are being taken to undermine our Constitution, laws and democracy, and roll back progress in racial justice and equality. We must oppose that with everything we’ve got! This is a watershed moment, and it’s time to make sure that history is on our side and we are on the right side of history.

As for that little Black boy that I so much wanted to know, I hope he grew up to enjoy a rich and happy life. I wonder if he also thinks of that moment when we were not allowed to be together because our skin colors were different.

Until next time,

Jeanne