Faded black-and-white photos.
Ten-year-old white girl, proud in your petticoat-ed daisy print dress, white socks and wilting ponytail,
Fountain behind you...visible through the towering black fence.
The people’s house.
Feet tucked tidily, hands light in your lap, you sit together on the low wall.
Grandmom, as she called herself, in her own neat dress and comfortable shoes.
Lady’s handbag filled with everything needed just in case.
Smiles all around in the sweltering sun.
Later you're alone in the distance, Lincoln looming large.
His is a long shadow. You’ve yet to cast your own.
Hard not to stand tall in the presence of greatness however flawed.
Over sixty years since, I see promise, hope and the future in your shining face.
No gas...crowd fleeing...rubber bullets...arms and armor advancing.
No menacing phalanx spanning the stone edifice for a truly monumental man.
No steel barricade-turned-memorial-wall, art transforming the facade.
I don’t see the rainbow forming. Yet.
Ten-year-old white girl, you don’t know and can’t see what should be and what shouldn’t. Yet.
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Black citizens were boycotting in Montgomery, Alabama that sultry August day in 1956 as I was sitting in front of the people’s house and visiting the memorial to a revered leader. A few months later an all-white Supreme Court of the United States upheld that segregated buses in Alabama were unconstitutional. That separate but equal would not stand.
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Please be considerate and respect others' feelings and opinions even if you disagree. Facts are facts. Feelings are subjective, legit and personal. Opinions...belly buttons. 'nuff said. Thanks.