Segregation Across Town

The bitter cold Chicago wind nipped at my face as I waited at the bus stop to be shuttled off to school. The temperature was -17 degrees below zero and I had been waiting for 20 minutes. My face and hands were numb, and my lips quivered uncontrollably from the wind.

It was 1972, and I just turned 13 and was in seventh grade. I was the oldest of five children. We just moved to this city, and I really hated it. The school year started with something called segregation and I did not know what it meant at the time. I found out the hard way what it meant. Segregation - the policy or practice of imposing the social separation of races, as in schools.

This meant I would be shipped across town to a mostly black school. There were 2400 students and 2100 were black. So, as a scrawny white kid, I got to see what it was like to be a minority. It really didn’t matter to me. I grew up very poor and never had anything and I could make friends with anyone.

However, I had to catch a city bus and pay 20 cents to take me from my street corner to City Hall. There I waited 15 minutes to catch another city bus and pay another 20 cents to take me to school. So, it cost me 80 cents per day to be segregated to a school across town. Even as a seventh grader this did not make sense to me.

I remember my first day of school. It was a nightmare! The minute I got off the bus there were five African American guys beating the hell out of a white kid. I knew right then it was going to be a rough year. My second day of school was the same, except this time four African American girls were beating a white girl and they pulled her pierced earrings off her ears, and they started bleeding. This was the way it was in Chicago in 1972.

The school was five stories tall, and it was a mess. There was graffiti on most of the walls. Most of the desks were broken or the tops would flop around and would not stay on. I feared for my life most days and didn’t know if I would survive the year.

I was accosted many times by black guys bigger than me and they would stick their hands in my pockets and ask me if I had any change. I thought that was funny because I was on Social Services, and I had to carry a blue and white chip to school to get my free lunch. I never had any money.

So, I would push them and tell them no. I thought they might punch me but if you fought back, they would leave you alone. And I did fight back! I got in a lot of fights that year mostly because I was white. They did not want us there. Civil Rights were a big issue, and it created a lot of discontent among the races.

I was poor, but proud. I would never eat lunch because I did not want kids to see my blue and white chip because then they would know I was on Social Services. Then they would make fun of you or try to bully you. So, I went hungry during the day.

I was a kid who wanted to play sports and learn. However, all I learned that year was how to survive. It was a very tough year, and I did not learn much because I was busy looking over my shoulder and wondering if I might get stabbed. There were a lot of kids that got stabbed that year, mostly white kids.

My grades plummeted and I was a C- average student and a D in some classes. I was not given a chance at sports because I was a scrawny white kid. I could play basketball and I did not back down from anyone. I was tall for a seventh grader, and I made the team that year. I barely passed my classes, but I did make it through.

Then came the summer of 1973 and we moved again to Southern Indiana and rented a farmhouse outside of a small town. I was so thankful to be out of Chicago.

My stepdad started the furnace in the basement to make sure it worked because it was late August and school would start in September and it would start getting cold. I was mowing grass when I heard my mom yelling and as I looked in her direction, I could see smoke coming from the house.

The furnace had a small hole in the pipe leading up to the house. This pipe carried warm air through the furnace and into the house to keep it warm. Small embers had floated out of the pipe and landed on a pile of old newspapers in the corner of the basement. They ignited and the house burnt rapidly!

Everyone got out of the house, and I shut the lawn mower down and ran toward the house. I could hear my mom screaming for me to stay out, but I had a stack of 45 records, and I did not want them to burn. As I ran into the house, I could see a big hole in the living room floor and flames were shooting upward. There was a small ledge, and I walked around it to get to my bedroom. I grabbed my box of 45 records and started out. By the time I got to the living room the smoke was so thick I could not see.

I got down on the floor and started to crawl. I saw a light. It was the doorway to outside. So, I followed it to get out of the house. My mom scolded me good, but I had my records and the house burnt to the ground!

Late that afternoon all I had to my name was a dirty tee shirt, a ragged pair of jeans, a pair of worn-out tennis shoes, and a box of 45 records. It was the only time in my life that I ever thought about suicide. I looked up at the sky that night and I asked God to just take me because I knew it would be rough now.

The next day my mom went and asked for help. She got a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter and $35. People don’t realize unless you have been through it – when you lose everything, you must start all over again. Even if you are working, it takes time to get enough money for rent, food, clothing, etc.

Well, the 1973 school year started and I was in the eighth grade. My mom rented a house in town, and we started to school. The school was built in 1972 and was a state-of-the-art school for that time. It had a sunken gym floor and a very large indoor swimming pool, and the cafeteria was encased in glass – very cool!

I really loved that school! I made the basketball team, and the kids were very nice. It was a small farming community and most of the kids worked with their parents on the farms. I was still poor, but it seemed like no one noticed and I liked that. I made friends and my grades improved dramatically. Things really started looking better!

To this day, I still remember my history and science teacher because they taught me so much that year and I am forever grateful to them. The rest of my teachers were good too. However, those two were outstanding. My math teacher did not like me at all. He would embarrass me in front of the class and make me work out problems on the board because he knew I did not have the answer and I felt so ashamed in that class. I liked a girl who sat behind me, and she would try and give me the answer, but I had to be careful, or he would see her.

One of the friends I met turned out to be one of the best friends I have ever had, and we are still friends almost 50 years later. Of course, I only went to that school for two years and moved again and I never saw him again for more than 45 years, but we have got together again.

My freshman year started in the fall of 1973, and things were going very well. I still skipped lunch because I still had a blue chip and did not want my friends to see it. I am not sure what the deal was with those blue chips and Social Services in the 70’s, but every school I went to, that is what I got for free lunches. I never did eat lunch because I was still proud and did not want my friends to see the blue chip. I was very embarrassed by the fact I was on Social Services.

In the mornings I would get up and fix myself a plastic Tupperware glass of Nestle’s Quick Chocolate Milk and that is all I would have until I got home that night. It gave me energy and I did not get hungry during the day.

So, we were in health class one day and my friend saw this picture in our health book of a boy running track with a baton. He said, “I’m going to go out for track this year”. I said, “O.k., I will too”. So, we signed up for the track team and practice started in a week.

The following week we went to the gym and changed our clothes and went out to the track and all the boys were waiting for the coach to show up. Suddenly, we heard someone yell at us and commanded us to come his way. So, we rushed over there and as he turned around, we noticed, it was our math teacher!

He looked right at me and said, “So you guys want to run track huh?” We all yelled, “Yes sir!” I was still a scrawny kid at 5’ 10” and weighed 126 pounds. So, what does the coach do? He ordered me and two of the football running backs and another big strong kid to line up and run the 100-yard dash. And again, he was going to humiliate me in front of all these guys.

The coach went to the hundred-yard finish line and blew the whistle for us to run. I knew I was very fast. That was always my ace in the hole. We started running and by the time we crossed the finish line I had beaten both running backs by 2.3 seconds. I will never forget the look on that man's face as the whistle fell from his mouth and he looked up from the stopwatch and gave me the craziest look.

I asked the coach, “Did I do something wrong?” He said, “No, go back and run that again”. I had never run track before, and I was not sure what was going on. He blew the whistle again and off I went beating everyone by at least 2.3 seconds. No one could believe their eyes. This scrawny kid smoking the running backs on the football team! So, I asked the coach again, “Did I do something wrong?” He said, “No, you just beat the freshman 100-yard dash record by 1.6 seconds”.

Then he made us go to the 220-yard dash mark and he wanted us to run that. I thought oh no, he wants to embarrass me with this run. So, he blew the whistle and off we went and this time I finished ahead of everyone by 2.2 seconds. No one could believe what was happening, not even my friend! I was even better at the 220-yard dash. I broke that freshman record too.

As it turned out there were 22 freshman boys who went out for the team. The only event freshman could run was the freshman relay. It was the last event in the varsity meet and four boys ran a 220-yard dash. It was a half-mile relay.

It turned out I was the fastest freshman on the track team. And the next day in math class my teacher called me to the board to do a problem and I did not know the answer. So, he got up and said, “Well, let me show you how this goes”. He worked out the problem and helped me do it.

The next week we had our first track meet, and I was to run third leg in the freshman relay. My coach wanted to put me in the 100-yard dash too. As a freshman, I was not allowed to run the 100. So, he told me if they asked me, tell them I am a sophomore. It was so cold that day, 30 degrees and the wind was blowing, and my eyes started watering. We got up to the line and I was running against two juniors and one senior. Bang! The gun went off and I jumped from the blocks and ran to the finish line, and thought I crossed the line, but suddenly people were yelling at me – go, go! I did not realize I stopped one yard short of the finish line and two boys passed me before I realized what happened. I botched my first race! How embarrassing in front of all those people! And I had the race won. The following week the coach worked on my follow through and lean at the finish line. I never made that mistake again.

Then came the freshman relay and I knew I had to make amends. The second leg runner came around and handed me the baton and we were running third out of four teams. I grabbed that baton and ran like the wind. I passed the first runner and set my sights on the next runner who was three feet in front of me. I could see the hand-off zone was coming up and pushed it with everything I had, and caught the opposing runner about two feet before handing the baton off to my teammate, fourth runner, giving him, a lead and he crossed the finish line first and we won our first freshman relay! The guys went crazy, I had made up such a distance they could not believe it.

After the next track meet which we also won, everybody started calling me “The White Tornado” and “Track Star”. Even the girls started talking to me and my math teacher started liking me too because I was making him look good. I earned my first Varsity Letter in Track and Field. It was two of the best years of my life at that school! I got my first lesson as a man and the meaning of respect. Yes, I was fast, but I was still poor, and nobody cared because they all loved me and respected me. And I loved and respected them. And then came the next move…