In junior high school, as a relatively naive, middle-class white kid, I remember asking why blacks drove such fancy, upscale cars and lived in squalor in the urban ghetto areas. I learned they simply were not welcome in most suburban areas. I am not sure today is much different in many areas.
As best I can remember sometime during the movie, ushers began walking down the aisles announcing, "Any members of the Mass. National Guard have been ordered to report to your armories immediately." We got up and left. I had to take her home and then make the trip back to Boston. I never made it to the street, but times then were tense. Many major cities were facing race riots.
The next year, I was at Emerson College in Boston. I was between classed walking down the street one day when a student ran up to me and said, "You're an athlete, aren't you?" (please don't roll your eyes). Back then, I was - I played ice hockey for my school. When I replied yes, he said to get down to the college president's office right away - they needed people because there was a threat that black students were going to storm his office and take over the building.
I went in and saw other athletes standing there at the tops of the marble staircases leading up to the office areas. I joined them, and we nervously stood there waiting. Soon, a group of blacks entered the building and were met by university personnel. They spent some time talking, and eventually, the situation had defused, and it was all over.
I couldn't imaging fighting with classmates and was glad I didn't have to. What could have been.
One more - during those college years, I was also serving my time in the Guard. Vietnam had been going on for a while, and demonstrations were increasing across the country. It must have been 1968 or the next year, but a Boston tradition was its Veterans Day parade on November 11th.
As it happened the parade route took me and fellow troops right past my college. The sidewalks were filled with my fellow students, and as we marched by, they were yelling and swearing at us. "Effing baby killers!" "Effing pigs!" etc. It was awkward to say the least. I wanted to break ranks and yell back, "Hey, it's me, guys," but decorum and the sea of dress made that difficult.
That was then; this is now. Today, the military is pretty much respected and revered. That's as it should be.
As for others, we have a long way to go.
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