Color blind

In 1968, I was six years old and in the first grade at a small rural elementary school in East Tennessee. I had a friend named Cindy in my class.

We ate lunch together, played jump rope together at recess, all those things little girls do. Being little girls, I wanted to invite my friend, my first ever friend, over after school. I asked my mom if Cindy could spend the night. Could I have a sleepover?

She said yes. I was so excited. I could hardly wait until the next day so I could ask Cindy. We would watch TV, maybe pop some corn, stay up passed our bedtime giggling.

When my dad came home from work that night my mom told him I wanted to ask Cindy over. I don’t think I was supposed to hear them argue. I couldn’t hear everything they said, only that my dad was mad, and I couldn’t understand why.

Through their bedroom door, voices raised, my dad more angry than I could remember, was yelling.

“I won’t have that little n… kid in my house!”

My mom came to me and in a soft, quiet voice told me this weekend wouldn’t be a good time to have Cindy over.

“When will be a good time?”

“I don’t know, honey.”

I asked her why my daddy had called my friend such a horrible name. She didn’t have an answer.

That was a pivotal moment in my life. More than 40 years later, I can still feel the hurt and confusion over why my friend wasn’t welcome in my home. I carried that memory with me, and as a parent of two children of my own, I have tried to raise them differently.

I have tried to break out of that ancestry of bigotry and prejudice so that when my children meet new people, they are “not judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”

Today, on the observance of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, I remember Cindy and wonder where she is and how her life unfolded.

We must remember the lessons we learned, so we don’t repeat them in the future.

*originally published Jan. 21, 2008