In 1965 I was a high-school kid in a small bible-belt town in SW Missouri. It wasn't 'officially' segregated, but there was a grand total of one black kid in my school, the child of farmers in a distant rural area. The majority black high-school was downtown. It was the oldest, crappiest high school in town. Segregated by geography and poverty, if not by 'decree.' I watched the network news every day, and knew (vaguely) about the march on Selma, but Alabama may as well have been Mars to me. I wasn't smart enough to realize the horrible injustice Black people lived with, and still live with, every single day. Then as now, racial bigotry, discrimination, hatred, and white supremacy are still very strong in the US South. The Confederate flag still, even in the 21st century, decorates simple, hateful peoples' lives. We have not yet "overcome."
In 1965 I was a high-school kid in a small bible-belt town in SW Missouri. It wasn't 'officially' segregated, but there was a grand total of one black kid in my school, the child of farmers in a distant rural area. The majority black high-school was downtown. It was the oldest, crappiest high school in town. Segregated by geography and poverty, if not by 'decree.' I watched the network news every day, and knew (vaguely) about the march on Selma, but Alabama may as well have been Mars to me. I wasn't smart enough to realize the horrible injustice Black people lived with, and still live with, every single day. Then as now, racial bigotry, discrimination, hatred, and white supremacy are still very strong in the US South. The Confederate flag still, even in the 21st century, decorates simple, hateful peoples' lives. We have not yet "overcome."