Can we talk?

And the rest

    I finally was a high school student by 10th grade. The building still seemed crowded. We had bomb threats on a regular basis, which meant trips out to the football field for hours, while the police and dogs searched the building. Stories rose every day about a mini-riot or threats to a teacher. We actually made a paragraph in Time magazine, because of the turbulence in school.

    Hey, we're not talking big city here. It's a university town, with old buildings, educated people, beautiful scenery, first-class medical center, then and now. But as gentle as it was, it was a Southern town, still recoiling from the aftermath of social change and devastation from the Civil War. I know, a hundred years later, and burnt courthouses and the loss of farms were still fresh for a lot of the older folks. Resentment between the races had escalated, particularly in lower classes of both races, during the 40's and 50's, escalating in the 60's. Segregation had created a distinct lack of knowledge of each race by the other. Humans have a habit of filling in what they don't know with wrong assumptions and gossip.

    We students found our families lived in fear and rumors or what horrors we lived through. We heard rumors ourselves of broken blackboards and chains breaking desks. One black girl in my writing class told us her parents had heard white boys were carrying bags of urine around and throwing them at people. My whole class broke out laughing. We would have known if that had happened. We all realized that, white or black, our families just cared about their kids, and they could only go by what they "heard" from reliable sources. And they were all hearing untrue things, fantastic lies! Even the radio was broadcasting news of the fighting in school my senior year.

      One week, people kept showing up to take their kids home, as the rumors grew each day. One guy in my class was called to the principle's office. He was a quiet guy, who was still wary of girls. When he came back, the teacher asked, "What happened?" He answered that his dad had come to take him out of school. She asked if he was going. But he had refused. He told his father to leave. We all broke out clapping and cheering. I know he grew 3 inches taller that day, showing his courage to his classmates.

    I sat in the back of the class in government, near the door. A group of black guys--it only takes 2 or 3 personalities to gather a little gang at that age, regardless of race or ethnicity--were being noisy as they marched down the hall during class. We heard them coming, but the male teacher kept talking. As they passed the door, someone banged it really hard, and it popped open. I always acted cool in those days. I didn't let anyone get the best of me, so I refused to act surprised or even look around. I looked bored. My classmates smiled and calmed down. The teacher closed the door. but stayed along the side in case someone came back through, I guess.

    I never recalled any specific grievances. There were just a few guys, wearing their belts unbuckled so that they could pull them out quickly to use as whips, leading the pack. The others were just followers, trying to be as cool and as aloof. I think they got stirred up at home, then brought the attitude to school with them. I don't recall a lot of real violence, just some vandalism, a lot of marching with chins up, shoulders squared, and a lot of noise. The rumors were far worse than anything real. Stealing out of lockers was bad.

    Society in general was turbulent. We had a counter-culture, the LSD scene, free love, the Vietnam War, hippies. Our town may not have been central to any of it, but we were aware of it. Women's rights baffled us. Girls didn't wear pants to school until two years after I left.

    Progress was made by the students who worked peacefully together. Blacks and whites who produced music together, who did science projects together, or stood together to defy over-protective parents in the face of prejudice and innuendo. You could argue that difficult times made us stronger, made us think for ourselves.

Each year it seemed to become more outrageous. But things calmed down as my class graduated. Later I heard teachers were glad we were gone. The entire tone of the school got better. Imagine that.