Racial Prejudice

It was the year of 1943 during World War II, hard times and poverty was at an all time high due the rapid declining economy immensely felt in the black community.  Unemployment was slightly less than fifteen percent, jobs were very scarce, at least for Black Americans and due to hunger, the cheese assistance line briskly expanded.  There was much turmoil in the small town of Port Arthur, Texas as much violence emerged involving police brutality and underlying conditions including segregated housing and schools stirred angry black rioters. Blacks Americans were not pleased in the way that they were treated and wanted justice and equality but the bitter riots transformed and racial riots elevated.  There was arson to small town businesses and looting, some businesses were burned to the ground. It wasn't long before a group of white supremacist from prominent communities formed “The White Knights Party” also known as the Ku Klux Klan, a group civil rights activist who enforced racial segregation.  I remembered that night like it was yesterday, I was 8-years old and it happened on Stern Avenue. A sufficient street name suitable for the character of people who lived on that block. They were all strong, tough and stern women who meant business and sadly they were conditioned to be that way as most of their men were sent off to combat, some never returned because they were killed in that senseless war.  They were left to raise and guide the family and they continued to do so with everything that God gave them to survive.  They had to be the mama's and the papa's and diligently worked as maids, nannies, cooks and gardeners but they did what they had to do for their families.

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They came prancing down the street wearing their white sheets carrying their burning white crosses expressing awful expletives in a yelling mantra, “Hey you damn Niggers! I can't stand you coons!  You filthy monkeys!  Go back to Africa!  Let's burn em out!  Run them Niggers out of here!” throwing bottled torches into homes of my neighboring friends along the block.  Many of their homes were engulfed into flames as the families rushed to try to put out the conflagration but many were futile.  How simple-minded can they be when it was them that captured us from our native home land and brought us over to America on their slave ships.  The white supremacist have always said slaves were taken from Africa but that's not true, people were taken from Africa and made slaves.  I lived with my Aunt Tut and she didn't play! She stood on the front porch with the water hose in one hand and a sawed-off shotgun in the other and she waited until they reached the edge of her picket fence when she yelled, “Alright you pack of son-of-bitches, you can throw those torches into my home if you want and you may kill me but some of you bastards are gonna die with me tonight!!”  I was so afraid as I stood behind my aunt and waited for what was about to happen but that base in her voice deterred that she meant business and luckily, all they did was roll a burning car tire into our yard and pranced on.  My aunt took the water hose to rapidly doused out the fire as well as the engulf from a torch thrown into our next door neighbor's house, who fled from the riots saving it from becoming a burning inferno.  She quickly turned to me as I cleaved close scared out of my wits and said, “Now Sonja, there ain't nothing to be afraid of but you must know that there are some awful crazy people in the world.  Never let anyone belittle or intimidate you for

Impressum

Verlag: BookRix GmbH & Co. KG

Texte: Debbie Lacy
Bildmaterialien: Compliments: Flickr
Lektorat: Debbie Lacy
Tag der Veröffentlichung: 05.02.2015
ISBN: 978-3-7368-7576-0

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