50 years ago a young woman named Dorothy Counts integrated a high school in Charlotte, NC. Please click on the link below and watch a slide show of that day. I marvel at her grace in the face of all that ignorance, fear, and hate. I imagine how carefully she chose that dress she's wearing, with its femine billow, and sweet bow, so it could move and speak her goodness for her. But I also examine the faces of those white boys following her, to see if I recognize any of them. My family is from Charlotte and those boys could be, might in fact be, my cousins (in the inclusive Southern sense of the word).
Yes, "the moral arc of the universe is long, but it bends toward justice." These days in Charlotte, my good-ol'-boy cousin just adopted a Chinese baby girl and we all went down to welcome her to the family (while my granddaddy, who would have called her "colored" was turning in his grave). And these days in Washington, a black woman is Secretary of State. And still, around us, there's fear and hate, and all we can hope to do is walk through it with grace.
Click here for the slide show
1 comment:
I've been thinking a lot this month about those first kids to integrate the schools. I can't even begin to imagine what that was like for them. Of course, progress has been made, but it's very sad -- and maddening -- that students of color are still dealing with bullcrap in schools today.
I liked your thoughts on her choice of dress...
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