Racism: When I was a kid in the Southern United States in the 1950s, I witnessed segregation and there is still a long way to go before the dream of Martin Luther King, Professor Joe Goldblatt, is fulfilled

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Protesters picket outside a school board office to protest student segregation (Photo: National Archives / Newsmakers / Hulton Archive via Getty Images)

One of those human beings was Jewel Nelson who lovingly looked after my sister and me. Every year on June 19, Jewel took my sister and I to visit the Great State Fair of Texas.

She chose this date because it was traditionally the time when African Americans visited the fairgrounds in large numbers. However, if I remember correctly, 50 years later, when there were thousands of people of color at the fair, my sister and I were the only two white children.

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When you have this kind of experience, you also notice other things. For example, I noticed large white signs with bold black letters above the toilet entrance that said Colored Only and the same small signs above the water fountains.

I also noticed how the smartly dressed African American children accompanying their parents teased us from time to time because we were the only white children to attend the fair. Whenever there was a tease, taunt, or mean word, Jewel put her arms around our shoulders and led us away to safety.

Forty years after this experience, I found myself near the fairgrounds giving a speech to a local organization. I have decided to invite Jewel to be my guest for the fair now and we attended her official run in October.

I explained to Jewel that I was researching for a new book and that I had to interview the public relations manager of the fair and asked him if I should accompany me to my meeting. She gladly agreed and we were invited to an elegant office and served tea in thin porcelain cups.

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During the interview I asked the PR manager about the period of segregation in the 1950s and she frowned, put down her cup of tea with a loud bang and said We never had segregation. Blacks were always welcome at the fair. Then she smiled and continued to sip her tea.

After we met while we were at the fairground which was now filled with thousands of people of all colors, I asked Jewel about her take on the 1950s.

She bowed her royal head and said: The lady was wrong. We weren’t always welcome. We went to the fair on June 19th because it is the day Lincoln freed the slaves and it is called Emancipation Day. That day we could use any toilet we wanted, we could shop and sit and enjoy food and drink. The other days we couldn’t.

I was grateful to Jewel for reconfirming the truth that I had experienced 40 years earlier. However, I realized at that point that the truth, as the fair’s PR manager proved, is often a relative construction.

A few years later, when I was leading a large professional development program in Washington DC, one of my team members requested a private meeting with me.

This staff member was African American and did not have a shrinking purple. She walked into my office, closed the door, then opened the catalog project we needed to approve to advertise our classes. She would turn every page and ask me: What do you see that is missing in this post? I carefully looked at the text and the photographs, and for my life I could not see any omissions.

Then this very talented professional woman asked me in a soft but firm voice: where are the African American faces? I was flabbergasted because we had effectively omitted the faces of the people in our program whose attendance represented more than 30 percent of our registrations.

We corrected our mistake and after this change the number of African Americans in the program increased dramatically and within a few years more than half of the students were men and women of color.

These people also evolved professionally because when they signed up many were secretaries, clerks and administrative assistants and when they got a new qualification in event management they were promoted to managers and earned a lot more.

Each of us has the opportunity to work to learn how to become anti-racist. However, it must first start with the recognition that there is so much we don’t know about the breed as confirmed by Jewel and my staff member. Once we recognize what we don’t know, we can move forward towards truth and reconciliation, as the followers of Nelson Mandela in South Africa did.

We are fortunate in Scotland to have great human beings such as Sir Geoffrey Palmer and the head of the Council of Edinburgh, Adam McVey, who help us recognize the truth by educating others as they do with the rewording of the sign. on the city’s Dundas statue to reveal all the historical truths about slavery.

Once this truth has spread, then we can move forward towards reconciliation and perhaps, as Reverend Martin Luther King eloquently proclaimed, then and only then will righteousness flow like waters and righteousness like one. mighty stream.

A few weeks ago, US President Joe Biden signed a new bill designating June 19 as the annual national holiday. This is another positive step on the long road to anti-racism and I believe Jewel and many others will welcome this recognition of the truth which may ultimately lead to reconciliation.

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