CIVIL RIGHTS DREAMS

John M Cheatham  said,

"I was too young to participate in the marches, but my Mom told me this story. She said she told my grandmother she was going to a church meeting in Mississippi (we're from La.). Actually it was a civil rights march. She told me of the anger and hatred. The name-calling and spitting. She never told my grandmother the real reason for going to Mississippi. In my own experiences, I remember crosses burning in yards; the signs that said "colored only" and "whites only"; going to the "black school" and later one school for all; being called the n word (nigger), knocked down and kicked in the back in 4th grade. In elementary, and junior high we had to sit with our classes at lunch, but in high school blacks sat with black and whites with white. This was even happening in the late 1980's when I was a teacher at my alma mater." - Feb 9, 2011

My Story

This is my testimony about what I remember about growing up during segregation. This is PATRICIA SMITH'S testimony!

This is what I wrote about segregation in the 60's and 70's below:

I was 3 years of age when Mrs. Clara Luper had sit-ins at Katz Drug store in Oklahoma City; and I was 5 years old when the four college students sat at the Woolworth Counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. I am so glad that my kids didn't have to live through the 60's....and even early 70's.

I remember going to the back door of the Dairy Queen to get my hamburger in Wewoka, Oklahoma...and you had to have exact change. The African American person that worked in the kitchen would hand you the hamburger out the back door wrapped in aluminum foil---not the white Dairy Queen paper / sacks!!!!

...I remember going upstairs at the movie theater (The Key Theatre) where there were just folding chairs to sit in...and all black people had to sit...and there was the stench of the bathroom right close to where we had to sit---cause it was never cleaned.

We couldn't go in to shop at the local department stores...i.e. J.C. Penney's, Allen's Ready-To-Wear...etc. When we finally could, we couldn't try clothes on. We had to buy and the clothes could not be returned. My mom worked / cleaned house of a very nice 'white family'---and they would buy clothes for me sometime so that I could try them on, so that if they didn't fit--could be returned. 

I remember the 'colored' water fountains and the bathrooms that were at the Courthouse building that read--- white women, white men...then just 'colored'...with no sex denotation for the african american men and women....That was the only place that we could go downtown to use the restrooms. I remember my mom having to look in first to make sure that no males were in there---then she would place tissue out of her purse on the stools--then put her hands / arms on the stools for me to sit on cause the toilets were so dirty.

I remember my first job at J.C. Penney---I was in high school and working during Christmas...so that was early 70's.....I was a gift wrapper.....I was not allowed to work on the floor with my white counterpart friends that I attended high school at the time....

Wow...just to remember...hmmmmm....It's like reading a book about someone else!!!

THIS IS WHY I CELEBRATE WHO I AM TODAY---BECAUSE OF WHERE I HAD TO COME FROM...

GOD IS SOOOOOOOOO AWESOME!!!!! - Patricia Smith, feb. 9, 2011