Southern Roots

In April of 1968, Dr. King was killed in Memphis.  I was finishing 10th grade at Central High in Memphis, and Jack was preparing for highschool graduation. Both of our parents graduated from Central and at least one grandparent had.  So, I guess you could say we had legacy - deep South, white, the 60's..  I remember the great bands and great parties of highschool. Desegregation of the schools had started when I was in elementary; I've blocked the images of police guarding and escorting little black kids into my school.  The iconic pictures were from Mississippi and Arkansas, but it happened at Rozelle Elementary, my elementary, in Memphis too.. I've been searching and reading the stories recently, trying to make sense out of it all.

When I was little, we ate at home every meal except for Sunday after church. We'd frequently go to Bill and Jim's but usually we'd just go to the drive-thru at Jack Pirtle's Fried Chicken, where we'd order a tub of their finest. I remember waiting in line in the back seat watching the other line of cars. Those cars were older and more dilapidated than ours and black families sat in them, dressed in their Sunday best, waiting for their food.  I remember looking into the eyes of the little black girls my age in their frilly Sunday school dresses just like mine sitting in the back seat of their parents' cars. I read the "Colored" sign above their take-out window and wondered what kind of fried chicken colored people might eat - assuming the food had to be different since there was a different line and a different window.

I appreciate the naivete of childhood, yet, it's too easy to let it all go and not dig into the deep pervasive racism of our history.  Memphis' ugly history didn't start with King's assassination..

As a pre-schooler, I remember going to Overton Park in the summertime with my family. Though I yearned to swim in the big pool with Susan and Jack, my older siblings, I was tethered to the wading pool with Mom and little Jerry.  Mom promised me that NEXT summer, I'd be old enough to swim in the big pool. But, I never got to swim in the big pool at Overton Park, because the Memphis public pools were drained and closed to circumvent the enforcement of desegregation of public facilities.  Our family ended up joining a private club so that we could still swim during the hot summers.

Those incredible highschool parties and bands were courtesy of the highschool sororities and fraternities which sponsored all the dances.  Now I know that Memphis public schools stopped holding dances, sock hops, and even proms after there was forced integration. So private highschool sororities and fraternities sprang up and hosted some stellar parties. I even got tear-gassed at one in 1968. Evidently the police were called by the facility because there were black and white kids partying together, and the police broke it up with tear gas.

What perplexes me now is that, even though I lived through it, I didn't get it.