It is hard to imagine now just how sheltered and racially segregated a life we lived in the 1950’s. My five sisters and brothers and I grew up in an all-white, heavily German and English neighborhood on the fringes of Philadelphia. Our most exotic neighbor was the gorgeous Hungarian mother of a schoolmate, who had a sexy accent and wore lots of jewelry and makeup in the DAYTIME! Even the cleaning ladies were German.
Sure, we encountered "Negros" when we made our semi-annual shopping trip downtown, bussing lunch counters or sometimes on the street ("Don’t stare! It’s rude.") And the wizened old elevator operator at Wanamaker’s, who always had a chuckle for the kids, was very popular ("Pleease, Mom, let’s wait for the other elevator.") If there were any racial bigots in the neighborhood, there was insufficient exposure for us to be aware of it.
The only black person we really knew was Mrs. Lewis, who would come in for a few weeks after my mother delivered another baby, to cook and clean and iron our uniform blouses. She was a large comfortable lady, who often hummed in a rich contralto; and who would come in early enough to make our breakfast and get us off to school, and stay until my father came home. She was a marvelous cook, and we always cried and hugged her when she went on to another assignment.
One morning when I was 7 or 8, a group of we "Catholics", who had a school holiday, were out front playing hopscotch, when the most remarkable thing happened. Two Black children walked by on the other side of the street! I had never consciously seen or imagined a Black child in my life, and my jaw literally dropped. We all stared and stared.
The kids, a girl around my age, and a slightly younger brother, were starched and dressed to the nines. They were probably going to the public school a few blocks away. When they saw us, the little boy stared, smiled, and might have spoken, but his sister set her face, grabbed his hand, and walked past without speaking or looking at us. "Well," I thought, "how rude." We never saw them again, although I thought of them sometimes. They were much more exotic than Hungarians!
Fast forward to 1960, when I was 14 and starting to be interested in the evening news. One night we saw a clip of a pretty little Black girl, surrounded by grim men and Marshalls with GUNS, on the steps of a school. At the bottom of the steps was a loud crowd, being held back by the Marshalls. The twisted hateful expressions on some of their faces were literally shocking. The only similarly vicious expression I had ever seen belonged to Senator Joe McCarthy, who terrified me.
But Ruby Bridges, so tiny among those men, had exactly the same stiff expression that the unknown girl had worn years earlier. I realized only THEN, for the first time in my life, that blacks were hated or despised as inferior. We were so sheltered and insulated that we had never been exposed to, or aware of, racism. My father turned off the tv and prepared for the lengthy and incredulous discussion that he knew would ensue. (That discussion was firmly recalled when my sister married a black man in 1968, to my mother’s dismay and my father’s concern.)
I have regretted many times my gaucherie and shyness when those two children crossed my path. Ruby Bridges showed me that the little girl’s expression meant she was terrified, and trying to be brave. They both knew so much that I did not. I hope that she is on the Mall today. I apologize, and wish her very well on this glorious day.