BY CAROL PERKINS
I witnessed the Civil Rights Movement from my living room, night after night on the evening news. Sadly, the marches, speeches, destruction, and tragedies were not exaggerated; they were very genuine.
Long before the movement came our way, I lived where white girls and boys and black boys and girls did not go to school together nor did they socialize together, drink from the same water fountain, or use the same public bathrooms. Until I was a senior, I had never really known teenagers who weren’t white. Honestly, I don’t remember assessing whether this was fair or unfair. It just was.
My only connection to black students was through sports. Because some schools integrated before ours, our basketball team often played against black students. One of the most notable was Clem Haskins from Campbellsville. He was the first black student at Campbellsville High School and that was in the early 60s when I was also a teen.
He led the Eagles to their first trip to the state tournament, the dream of every small school, and became lifelong friends with several of the players from my school.
Today, UK recruiters would be the first to his door, but it would be 1969 before the University of Kentucky’s Wildcats became an integrated ball club. Instead E.A. Diddle saw the talent, and integrated the Western Kentucky Hilltoppers when he signed Clem Haskins and another Kentucky player, Dwight Smith, in 1963. From there, Haskins would go on to play pro ball and return to Western as a coach. Smith died in 1967 from an automobile accident.
When my school was finally integrated, I don’t remember any problems occurring. I’m sure that would not be the story the boys who joined my class would tell. I did hear that some of the parents of the ballplayers proclaimed that their boys weren’t going to play ball with black boys, but the coach solved that by telling the fathers that was their choice. None quit the team. Problems are seldom instigated by children.
I began thinking about my growing up in this area of injustice when I realized the birthday of Martin Luther King was approaching. It had been many years since I had read his speech, so I reread it a few days ago.
The poetry of his words are as resounding now as they were then. Lines like, “The whirlwinds of revolt will continue to shake the foundations of our nation until the bright day of justice emerges.” How many foundations had to be shaken before the first black students could attend my high school?
“Let us not seek to satisfy our thirst for freedom by drinking from the cup of bitterness and hatred.” The ugliness coming from white people who turned hoses on black people in the streets of Selma is as vivid today as was then. The hateful use of the “n” word has taken many years to be eliminated from dinner table conversation, if it truly has been erased.
The most powerful line, to me, is “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” Are we almost there?
President Obama was seven years old when Martin Luther King died. I can’t help but wonder what Martin Luther King would have been thinking on Inaugural day. Would he have thought freedom had come at last, or would he have said, “Keep marching.” He might have also whispered, “Don’t mess this up!”
During my journey, I have seen the “Whites Only” signs, black people in the back of buses, black children going to lesser schools, black women cooking in back rooms but not allowed to eat out front, and have heard about black men hanged for talking to white women. I watched the Kent State killings. I could tell my students about the Civil Rights Movement because I lived through it.
Dr. King’s dream wasn’t just for the black community alone; it was for all suppressed and victimized people. Anyone who lives under the rule of another is not free, whether it is a woman living with a tyrant, a child in an abusive home, a boss who controls through cruel words or harassing actions, or a prejudiced nation who practices genocide.
Truly great men (and women) do truly great things. I wish there were more strong men and woman like Dr. King. Every now and then one will come along and right the wrongs of injustice. They are our superhero ... real ones.
Contact Carol at cperkins@scrtc.com. Her book Let’s Talk About... is available at Ivy Bookstore in Glasgow
