I've only ever seen segregation on tv or online ... and always either in the USA...or South Africa... its just unbelievable..
Oh yeah. When we moved here from Germany, it was like night and day. The people were nice. My mom saw a huge billboard advertising a town-wide family picnic. She hurried to a new friend's house to see if she and her children would like go with our family. The neighbor lady sat her down and explained who was throwing the party and what they stood for: The KKK. This was in the mid-60s.
We moved to Georgia and same old, same old. Not now. Back then, when I was a teenager. My best friend used to ride her horse in the woods at night and sneak up on KKK meetings. I remember big meetings on top of Stone Mountain and crosses burned in front yards from time to time. This was in the mid-70s.
The KKK used to hang out on street corners collecting money. I'd make my stepdaughters cover their eyes until I could get away from them. I was driving, of course. This was in the early 1980s.
Once I dated a guy who I really liked. One day, he opened his trunk and he had a folded white sheet in it. I asked what it was. He said it was what he wore to meetings. What kind of meetings? Yup. KKK. I said, I cannot date you or be friends with you any more. That is reprehensible. And I walked away. This was in 1975.
Then, in Boston in 1992, I went with one of my best friends to a fancy, very expensive French pottery store in my neighborhood. It was a rainy day. I was looking straggly - wet, no makeup, jeans and a sweatshirt. She was looking spiffy because she'd been in court that day - gorgeous suit and looking spiffy. We were lawyers.
We went into the store. I went upstairs to look at cheese or dessert plates I loved which were $185 each. I visited those plates about once a month. I looked down to check on my friend, and watched for awhile. The owner of the store was following her closely. The owner wasn't fazed by me being in the store and handling the merchandise because I was white. Unlike my friend, who was black.
So I went down and told my friend to go outside and down the street to the bookstore and I'd meet her there. Then I basically went ballistic on the lady, but in a well-mannered way (yes, it can be done). At the time, my dad had some lifelong friends who would have taken care of that lady for us, so I was glad he didn't live in the same state I did. Sorta kinda glad. More like happy imagining it, but not having it done.
Same thing happened everywhere we went, in term of the constant racial prejudice. When I was there, I stood up for her a lot and noisily. A bunch of super stuck up store clerks who made minimum wage or a little more. What exactly did they have to be stuck up about?
