Douglas,

         I grew up in Reading, PA, and moved to Richmond in the
mid-sixties, (hubby found a better paying job and we needed space from
families) a bit more than a year before you left. In Reading, all schools
were integrated, all public facilities were integrated, and when we
gathered after school at the local soda shop, there was no problem getting
service for everyone in the group. We could not have done that had I gone
to school in Richmond. Yes, there was discrimination in housing, which is
why so many of the race riots over housing took place in Northern
states.  When I was taking 12th grade government and getting all
enthusiastic about the rights and responsibilities of being an American,
the tv news showed people turning fire hoses on those who asked for this to
be. In  my adolescent logic, I just dismissed it as not "really" happening
in America ... Then I ended up in Virginia, and the reality was in my face!
I have had to make hard choices about my own values, and what I would and
would not change along with the change in latitude and climate. It may be
just my perception, but it seems it's been easier to maintain and practice
those values since I moved from Richmond to a rural setting.  But it may
just be coincidence.

         The first year I worked with the little ones after years as a high
school teacher, I was delighted at the complete lack of racial identity
until mid winter when Martin Luther King's birthday was celebrated and it
seemed the kids' eyes were suddenly opened to their "nakedness" ... I
didn't have words to console them .... but I was ready for it this past
year ... I had made some web pages for the kids to use on holidays in the
computer lab, and I made one for M. L. King's birthday ....
http://www.geocities.com/apembert45/holidays/king.html with a wonderful
animation as it opens with the background music "We Shall Overcome" ... the
kids loved the page, and each class found a pair of girls that could almost
look like the ones in the graphic, and it led to discussing that Dr. King
would have been delighted to see today's children, as he once dreamed,
sitting next to each other in schools, restaurants, and sporting events.
They still asked why, and I still don't have an answer to that question.

         There is a great deal of difference between discrimination that is
de jure and that which is de facto. By law denies any recourse in the
courts. Justice is denied.

                                                 Anne

At 09:35 AM 8/16/01 -0400, Douglas Deal wrote:
>On Thu, 16 Aug 2001, Anne Pemberton wrote:
>
> > Last year I taught fourth grade in summer school, including fourth grade
> > history, the history of Virginia, and was shocked to learn that although
> > the kids had learned about the Jim Crow laws, they had NOT been told that
> > these laws were in force only in southern states, and were NOT the law in
> > most of the country. Even with the little ones I usually work with
> > (Kindergarten to 2nd grade) I find myself correcting what the kids have
> > learned, to understand that some of the evils overturned with Civil and
> > Human Rights movements, existed only in the South.
> >
>
>I grew up in Tidewater Virginia (a bike ride away from the Fergusons, one
>of whom was a high school classmate of mine) but left for college in 1967
>and have since then lived in Massachusetts and New York. The Virginia I
>was leaving was still segregated in most respects, changes in the law
>notwithstanding. I mention this in order to offer a correction of Anne
>Pemberton's corrections (see above). Segregation and racial discrimination
>were common in much of the North, even though they had no basis in the
>statutory law of the northern states. The equal treatment laws (e.g., for
>public accommodations & transportation) that *were* passed in many
>northern states were rarely enforced. De facto, if not de jure, blacks
>were kept out of white neighborhoods, white schools, and the better jobs.
>In short, racial discrimination and injustice were (and are) national
>problems, not just southern ones.
>
>Doug Deal
>History/SUNY-Oswego
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Anne Pemberton
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