South of Broad, East of Broadway

I just finished Pat Conroy's new book, "South of Broad" that deals with life in Charleston, South Carolina. Part of the book centered on a high school in 1969 that was dealing with integration and all its baggage. Since I graduated in the last segregated class of my hometown in 1965, this book brought back many memories. In our town Main Street east of Broadway was the entry into the other town. Depending on your sensibilities you either called it N------ Town or Colored Town. This is how things worked. Broadway was the main drag and the Palace (movie theater0 set in the center. The "Colored" theater sat on Main Street just east of Broadway. The theaters were identical in size and owned by the same man. When I was about 12 the Palace burned to the ground late one Saturday night. The owner could not afford to rebuild and floated the idea around that the blacks and whites could alternate using the remaining theater. When that idea was soundly shouted down, he just closed the other theater and the movies left town!

I have many stories like that, but none with good endings. I want to think we have moved way past that point, but it keeps coming back from time to time.

The other day I was in Fort Worth and a guy walks into the event I was attending and said, "I was at Cabella's and it is one of my favorite places because I can go there and not see Women, Blacks and Illegals! It is a place just for my kind."

On the other side of things I went to a local high school basketball game last night. Before the game as the players were warming up, the speakers were blasting music to help the players get ready. Both teams and both cheer squads were all white, but the music was rap/hip hop with about every other sentence "Nigga" this or that. I'm setting there thinking is this a good thing or bad thing? The music is being embraced but.....

I know it may sound prejudiced of me to bring this up but this is a strange world today. If we are truthful, we all carry prejudice inside. Maybe not much. Maybe latent.

But we have a long way to go from East of Broad.