From the mouth of a child

The year was 1956.  It was a different time than today, much different.  The place was Atlanta in a neighborhood called Kirkwood.  Kirkwood was where I did most of my growing up.  I lived on Leland Terrace which was a paradise for a kid.  On our 1 block long street there were 18 or 20 kids within a year or two of my age to play with.  Our days were spent playing baseball, football or cowboys and Indians in the alleys which ran behind our houses.  When night time came it was hide and seek or just sitting on the curb under the street light talking about God knows what.  At the end of the street was a very big house that the Sissions lived in.  If memory serves me, the Sissions were old maid sisters and to our way of thinking were very rich.  Behind their house is what made our street different.  There stood a shack of a house that we were told was an old slave house. It had no indoor plumbing and an old outhouse out back.  In this shack lived the Howard family.  They were a black family and were the only blacks within miles of us and the only black family I knew that lived in a white neighborhood.  That's right.  In 1956 we had white neighborhoods and black neighborhoods. In fact we had white drinking fountains and black drinking fountains, separate white and black restrooms and black and white schools.  There were even different places for blacks and whites to sit on the buses.  The Howards had a son my age named Leon.  As I think back, integration would have probably come a lot sooner if they had let children handle race relations.  Leon was my friend....Even at that young age i didn't understand why Leon was bussed to school.  It would be another 7 years before I would attend what was one of the first schools in Georgia to integrate but that's another story.  This one is about Leon.  Leon and I would play together every day.  We would often eat lunch together either at my house or his.  We would play baseball, army, have races (he could always out run me) or wrestle (I would always win  because I was stronger).  If we walked over to the Rec Center at the park, he couldn't go inside so we would play outside but if a white kid wanted his swing he would have to give it up.  I often heard others call Leon a n____r but never really thought about it.  It was just part of the everyday language.  In fact I'm sure I called him this but as was often said years ago "It's OK,  he was brought up talking that way".  As friends will, especially when they are kids,  Leon and I often got into fights.  One day in 1956,  Leon and I were wrestling and in turned into a sure-enough fist fight. We were really going at it and all of a sudden Leon stepped back and yelled at me "you're nothing but a big black n_____r".  I was shocked.  Here was this little black kid, my friend calling me a big black n____r.  I couldn't believe my ears and let him know in no uncertain terms that he was the n____r not me.  Ten minutes later as kids will do we were playing again, all friendly and having fun.  The day ended but that night I tossed and turned and couldn't sleep thinking about him calling me a n____g.  I decided that the next day I would find out if he understood he and not I was the n____r.  First thing the next morning I walked to that shack behind the Sission sisters house and asked him,  "why did you call me a n____r   yesterday?"  Leon sat there for at least a minute, his head turned toward the ground.  Finally he looked up at me and said "I'm so sorry,  I was mad at you and could think of no worse name to call you."
Think about it.  That was the worse thing he could call me.  I had heard that term used by my white friends, by men and women I loved and respected.  By preachers, government leaders and policemen.....Used as easily as calling a dog spot.  That day I  made a promise to myself not to use that term anymore.  Even today 50 + years later when I hear that word, a chill goes up my spine.  Oh yes...the lessons we can learn " from the mouth of a child."