When we were Young, by Prentiss Smith

When we were young, and when I say we, I mean people like me who were born in the late forties and early fifties -- the Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower years, we were more innocent than our young people are today. And though it is understandable and expected that things change inevitably, I would submit to you that none of us expected the change to come so quickly and, and to be so different from anything that we expected.

When I was growing up in the segregated deep south fifty years ago, America was a vastly different place than what it is today. It was a place in which the south was consumed with hatred and bigotry. The whites were determined to treat the Negroes like animals, like we had no feelings, and like we could not understand that one group of human beings, the whites -- the majority population were continuing to perpetuate the separate but equal doctrine, which really meant that Negroes were not equal, and that they were going to be seperated from those opportunites that would allow them to move their families up economically. The system in the south was deplorable. In the fifties, sixties, and even into the eighties and nineties, life was hard for most blacks, and though life is improving for a large number of blacks who are taking advantage of the educational opportunities that are available to them, blacks are still lagging way behind in most important catagories of student achievement and advancement. The numbers of young blacks -- boys and girls who are dropping out of high school are staggering and getting worse. The whole idea of young people having no idea what a good education means and what that entails for them is a sad commentary on the state of affairs in the country today. It is a problem that just started. It is a problem that dates all the way back to slavery, and the denial of reading and writing to slaves in the south. It was devestating to a whole group of human beings, who, in a sense, wandered amilessly for generations trying to find their way out of the education darkness that had been put on them because of slavery. If a person could not read or write, then he was susceptible to the unfairness and inequality that was already evident during the time. It was just one more way to keep the black down, and to keep control on the ignorant masses of blacks that were the free labor and chattle that was the backbone of the economy in the south at the time.

The notion of keeping blacks barefoot, pregnant and ignorant was part and parcel of the systmatic denial of human rights to millions of human beings that did not know any better. It was truly one of the most evil systems that has ever existed. America will never live down slavery, and its effects on millions of blacks over time. It is incomprehensible now, when we look back on that horrid time. It is hard to believe that people were routinely taken out and sumarily executed for little or nothing, or for just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is a tough thing to know that people who looked like me were treated with so much disdain and cruelty. The truth is that Negroes are still having to deal with racism and discrimination. Though it is less obvious now, it is still a strong determinant in who will and who want succeed.

When we were young, we were innocent. We did nt know a thing, because our parents did a good job of sheltering us, and frankly, lying to us. They purposely left a lot things out of the stories that were passed down from generation to generation. to do anything they had to make sure that we stayed separate. who went to church every Sunday, and prayed to God were being so mean and evil toward us. It was a traumatic time for any individual who had some idea of himself or herself. It was traumatic for people who knew that what was going on was not right, and that if there was a God anywhere, he or she was not condoning this treatment of his children -- though we were dark skinned. It just could not be right, and that is something that many of us had to deal with all of our young lives, and many of us all of our adult lives. The truth is that the feeling of being treated less than human never leaves you, but you learn to exist and coexist or you die.

-- Prentiss Smith, March 2005

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