The day of the trip, trembling with excitement, I climbed onto the train. I was the only nonwhite in our section.
Our hotel was not far from the White House. My room-mate was Frank Miller, the son of a businessman. Leaning together out of our window and dropping water balloons on tourists quickly cemented our new friendship.
Every morning, almost a hundred of us loaded noisily onto our bus for another adventure. We sang our school fight song dozens of times, en route to Arlington National Cemetery and even on an afternoon cruise down the Potomac River.
We visited the Lincoln Memorial twice, once in daylight, the second time at dusk. My classmates and I fell silent as we walked in the shadows of those 36 marble columns, one for every state in the Union that Lincoln labored to preserve. I stood next to Frank at the base of the 19-foot seated statue. Spotlights made the white Georgian marble glow. Together, we read those famous words from Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg remembering the most bloody battle in the War between the States: " . . . we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vainthat this nation, under God shall have a new birth of freedom . . . "
As Frank motioned me into place to take my picture, I took one last look at Lincoln's face. He seemed alive and so terribly sad.
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The next morning, I understood a little better why he wasn't smiling. "Clifton," a chaperone said, "could I see you for a moment?"
The other guys at my table, especially Frank, turned pale. We had been joking about the previous night's direct water-balloon hit on a fat lady and her poodle. It was a stupid, dangerous act, but luckily nobody got hurt. We were celebrating our escape from punishment when the chaperone asked to see me.
"Clifton," she began, "do you know about the Mason-Dixon line?"
"No," I said, wondering what this had to do with drenching fat ladies.
"Before the Civil War," she explained, "the Mason-Dixon line was originally the boundary between Maryland and Pennsylvaniathe dividing line between the slave and free states." Having escaped one disaster, I could feel another brewing. I noticed that her eyes were damp and her hands were shaking.
"Today," she continued, "the Mason-Dixon line is a kind of invisible border between the North and the South. When you cross that invisible line out of Washington, D.C., into Maryland, things change."
There was an ominous drift to this conversation, but I wasn't following it. Why did she look and sound so nervous?
"Glen Echo Amusement Park is in Maryland," she said at last, "and the management doesn't allow Negroes inside." She stared at me in silence.
I was still grinning and nodding when the meaning finally sank in.
"You mean I can't go to the park," I stuttered, "because I'm a Negro?"
She nodded slowly. "I'm sorry, Clifton," she said, taking my hand.
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"You'll have to stay in the hotel tonight. Why don't you and I watch a movie on television?"
I walked to the elevators feeling confusion, disbelief, anger and a deep sadness. "What happened, Clifton?" Frank said when I got back to the room. "Did the fat lady tell on us?"
Without saying a word, I walked over to my bed, lay down and cried. Frank was stunned into silence. Junior-high boys didn't cry, at least not in front of each other.
It wasn't just missing the class adventure that made me feel so sad.
For the first time in my life, I learned what it felt like to be a "nigger."
Of course there was discrimination in the North, but the color of my skin had never officially kept me out of a coffee shop, a churchor an amusement park.
"Clifton," Frank whispered, "what is the matter?"
"'They won't let me go to Glen Echo Park tonight," I sobbed.
"Because of the water balloon?" he asked.
"No," I answered, "because I'm a Negro."
"Well, that's a relief!" Frank said, and then he laughed, obviously relieved to have escaped punishment for our caper with the balloons. "I thought it was serious."
Wiping away the tears with my sleeve, I stared at him. "It is serious. They don't let Negroes into the park. I can't go with you!" I shouted. "That's pretty damn serious to me."
I was about to wipe the silly grin off Frank's face with a blow to his jaw when I heard him say, "Then I won't go either."
For an instant we just froze. Then Frank grinned. I will never forget that moment. Frank was just a kid. He wanted to go to that amusement park as much as I did, but there was something even more important than the class night out. Still, he didn't explain or expand.
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The next thing I knew, the room was filled with kids listening to Frank. "They don't allow Negroes in the park," he said, "so I'm staying with Clifton."
"Me, too," a second boy said.
"Those jerks, "a third muttered. "I'm with you, Clifton." My heart raced. Suddenly, I was not alone. A pint-sized revolution had been born. The ''water-balloon brigade," 11 white boys from Long Island, had made its decision: "We won't go." And as I sat on my bed in the center of it all, I felt grateful. But, above all, I was filled with pride.
Dondre Green's story brought that childhood memory back to life. His golfing teammates, like my childhood friends, faced an important decision. If they stood by their friend it would cost them dearly. But when it came time to decide, no one hesitated. "Let's get out of here," one of them whispered.
"They just turned and walked toward the van," Dondre told us. "They didn't debate it. And the younger players joined us without looking back."
Dondre was astounded by the response of his friendsand the people of Louisiana. The whole state was outraged and tried to make it right. The Louisiana House of Representatives proclaimed a Dondre Green Day and passed legislation permitting lawsuits for damages, attorneys' fees and court costs against any private facility that invites a team, then bars any member because of race.
As Dondre concluded, his eyes glistened with tears. "I love my coach and my teammates for sticking by me," he said. "It goes to show that there are always good people who will not give in to bigotry. The kind of love they showed me that day will conquer hatred every time."
My friends, too, had shown that kind of love. As we sat in the hotel, a chaperone came in waving an envelope. "Boys!" he shouted. "I've just bought 13 tickets to the Senators-Tigers game. Anybody want to go?"
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The room erupted in cheers. Not one of us had ever been to a professional baseball game in a real baseball park.
On the way to the stadium, we grew silent as our driver paused before the Lincoln Memorial. For one long moment, I stared through the marble pillars at Mr. Lincoln, bathed in that warm, yellow light. There was still no smile and no sign of hope in his sad and tired eyes.
" . . . We here highly resolve . . . that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom . . . "
In his words and in his life, Lincoln made it clear that freedom is not free. Every time the color of a person's skin keeps him out of an amusement park or off a country-club fairway, the war for freedom begins again. Sometimes the battle is fought with fists and guns, but more often the most effective weapon is a simple act of love and courage.
Whenever I hear those words from Lincoln's speech at Gettysburg, I remember my 11 white friends, and I feel hope once again. I like to imagine that when we paused that night at the foot of his great monument, Mr. Lincoln smiled at last.
Clifton Davis
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Beautiful on the Inside
Love is a wonderful thing. You never have to take it away from one person to give it to another. There's always more than enough to go around.
Pamela J. deRoy
Lisa, my two-year-old daughter, and I were walking down the street toward home one sunny morning when two elderly women stopped in front of us. Smiling down at Lisa, one of them said, "Do you know you are a very beautiful little girl?"
Sighing and putting her hand on her hip, Lisa replied in a bored voice
, "Yes, I know!"
A bit embarrassed by my daughter's seeming conceit, I apologized to the two ladies and we continued our walk home. All the way there, I was trying to determine how I was going to handle this situation.
After we went into the house, I sat down and stood Lisa in front of me. I gently said, "Lisa, when those two ladies spoke to you, they were talking about how pretty you are on the outside. It's true you are pretty on the outside.
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That's how God made you. But a person needs to be beautiful on the inside, too." As she looked at me uncomprehendingly, I continued.
"Do you want to know how a person is beautiful on the inside?" She nodded solemnly.
"Okay. Being beautiful on the inside is a choice you make, honey, to be good to your parents, a good sister to your brother and a good friend to the children you play with. You have to care about other people, honey. You have to share your toys with your playmates. You need to be caring and loving when someone is in trouble or gets hurt and needs a friend. When you do all those things, you are beautiful on the inside. Do you understand what I'm saying?"
"Yes, Mommy, I'm sorry I didn't know that," she replied. Hugging her, I told her I loved her and that I didn't want her to forget what I'd said. The subject never came up again.
Nearly two years later, we moved from the city to the country and enrolled Lisa in a preschool program. In her class was a little girl named Jeanna, whose mother had died. The child's father had recently married a woman who was energetic, warm and spontaneous. It was readily apparent that she and Jeanna had a wonderful, loving relationship.
One day Lisa asked if Jeanna could come over to play for an afternoon, so I made arrangements with her stepmother to take Jeanna home with us the next day after the morning session.
As we were leaving the parking lot, the following day Jeanna said, "Can we go see my mommy?"
I knew her stepmother was working, so I said cheerfully, "Sure, do you know how to get there?" Jeanna said she did and, following her directions, I soon found myself driving up the gravel road into the cemetery.
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My first response was one of alarm as I thought of the possible negative reaction of Jeanna's parents when they learned what had happened. However, it was obvious that visiting her mother's grave was very important to her, something she needed to do; and she was trusting me to take her there. Refusing would send her a message that it was wrong of her to want to go there.
Outwardly calm, as though I'd known this was where we were going all along, I asked, "Jeanna, do you know where your mother's grave is?"
"I know about where it is," she responded.
I parked on the road in the area she indicated and we looked around until I found a grave with her mother's name on a small marker.
The two little girls sat down on one side of the grave and I sat on the other and Jeanna started talking about how things had been at home in the months leading up to her mother's death, as well as what had happened on the day she died. She spoke for some time and all the while Lisa, with tears streaming down her face, had her arms around Jeanna and, patting her gently, said quietly over and over, "Oh, Jeanna, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry your mother died."
Finally, Jeanna looked at me and said, "You know, I still love my mommy and I love my new mommy, too."
Deep in my heart, I knew that this was the reason she'd asked to come here. Smiling down at her, I said reassuringly, "You know, Jeanna, that's the wonderful thing about love. You never have to take it away from one person to give it to another. There's always more than enough to go around. It's kind of like a giant rubberband that stretches to surround all the people you care about." I continued, "It's perfectly fine and right for you to love both your mothers. I'm sure your own mother is very glad that you have a new mommy to love you and take care of you and your sisters."
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Smiling back at me, she appeared satisfied with my response. We sat quietly for a few moments and then we all stood up, brushed ourselves off and went home. The girls played happily after lunch until Jeanna's stepmother came to pick her up.
Briefly, without going into a lot of detail, I told her what had occurred that afternoon and why I'd handled things as I had. To my profound relief, she was very understanding and appreciative.
After they left, I picked Lisa up in my arms, sat down on a kitchen chair, kissed her cheek and hugged her tightly and said, "Lisa, I'm so proud of you. You were such a wonderful friend to Jeanna this afternoon. I know it meant a lot to her that you were so understanding and that you cared so much and felt her sadness."
A pair of lovely, dark brown eyes looked seriously into mine as my daughter added, "Mommy, was I beautiful on the inside?"
Pamela J. deRoy
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Such As I Have
What you keep to yourself you lose, what you give away, you keep forever.
Axel Munthe
With only two weeks before Christmas, the last place I wanted to be was in the hospital recovering from surgery. This was our family's first Christmas in Minnesota, and I wanted it to be memorable, but not this way.
For weeks I had ignored the pain in my left side, but when it got worse, I saw the doctor. "Gallstones," he said, peering at the x rays. "Enough to string a necklace. You'll need surgery right away."
Despite my protests that this was a terrible time to be in the hospital, the gnawing pain in my side convinced me to go ahead with surgery. My husband, Buster, assured me he could take care of things at home, and I called a few friends for help with carpooling. A thousand other thingsChristmas baking, shopping and decoratingwould have to wait.
I struggled to open my eyes after sleeping for the better part of two days in the hospital following my surgery.
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As I became more alert, I looked around to what seemed like a Christmas floral shop. Red poinsettias and other bouquets crowded the windowsill. A stack of cards waited to be opened. On the stand next to my bed stood a small tree decorated with ornaments my children had made. The shelf over the sink held a dozen red roses from my parents in Indiana and a yule log with candles from our neighbor. I was overwhelmed by all the love and attention.
Maybe being in the hospital around Christmas isn't so bad after all, I thought. My husband said that friends had brought meals to the family and offered to look after our four children.
Outside my window, heavy snow was transforming our small town into a winter wonderland. The kids have to be loving this, I thought as I imagined them bundled in their snowsuits building a backyard snowman, or skating at Garfield School on the outdoor ice rink.
Would they include Adam, our handicapped son? I wondered. At five years old, he had just started walking independently, and I worried about him getting around on the ice and snow with his thin ankles. Would anyone take him for a sled ride at the school?
"More flowers!" The nurse's voice startled me from my thoughts as she came into the room carrying a beautiful centerpiece. She handed me the card while she made room for the bouquet among the poinsettias on the windowsill.
"I guess we're going to have to send you home," she teased. "We're out of space here!"
"Okay with me," I agreed.
"Oh, I almost forgot these!"
She took more cards from her pocket and put them on the tray. Before leaving the room, she pulled back the pale green privacy curtain between the two beds.