Botswana

My first post on this title ended with my observing that I graduated high school without ever having an African American in the school.  That was 1962 that year and the years before were big freedom ride years.  I envied those young men and women, but at 18 I didn’t have the moxie to buck my family culture—and I may be fooling myself about my physical courage. Those were brave people who risked physical harm.

 
I didn’t make it past the waiting list at my first choice college up north, so in the fall of 1962, I entered Washington and Lee University—then still a segregated university.  As I negotiated the social life of college I gravitated toward “the liberals” or as the more traditional Southern boys said, “the questioners.”  I remember a Dalmatian wandering into my math class and the professor saying, “you’re mostly white I guess you can stay.”

 
I attended my first protest rally and short sit-in trying to force the University to integrate.  When it was announced a few weeks later that the University would admit African Americans, we felt a brief flush of success until we found out that the more distinguished half of the faculty had threatened to resign if action wasn’t taken and the  Ford  Foundation had given $500,000 to “aid the transition.”  (In fairness, I’m proud to say that Washington and Lee has made real strides since that time.)

 
I worked summers at the Natural Bridge of Virginia, a very segregated tourist attraction. In the summer of 1964, after the passage of the Civil Rights Act, I sent two busloads of African American children to our swimming pool.  The 17 year old life guard called me and I said according to the law he had to admit them.  He did and it has been an open facility ever since. Many of my co-workers and superiors in other departments complained to me, but my immediate superior and the boss did not.  For a number of years I took pride in this minor accomplishment, but on reflection I came to realize I’d been set up.  The manager complied with the law and blamed it on “the college radical,” making his relationship to many of the employees easier.

 
Washington and Lee admitted its first black students the fall after I graduated and I went off to Africa with the Peace Corps.  I went from the American South to Molepolole, Botswana, a village in which there were about 20 whites and 30,000 Africans.  I may post more on my Peace Corps experience.  Certainly being in the minority and living in an African culture profoundly changed me, but I started this topic with the question, “How do I make the significance of the inauguration clear to my students?”  I know for them I must keep my focus here.  Certainly I’ll post once more on this topic, perhaps twice.

 
I hope my blog has moved you to think about these issues and talk to your own children.  I think that many of us do not share our stories and therefore our lives with them.  Yes they’ll complain it’s the nature of children.

Tagged as: Botswana, Civil Rights Act, freedom rides, protest, sit-in, Southern, Washington and Lee University

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