African American

He was shot on my birthday in 1968. My birthday has been bittersweet ever since.
I was born and raised in one of the most racist States in the country. 1949. In South Carolina. I always thought that I must have been given the good gene because even as a child I never had a feeling of animosity or hate for African Americans. Even though I had to endure family, friends and acquaintances who were and tried to instill that hate in me. I was called a "N" lover and asked if I was a Jew. Which I am not. I would get into fights because of my feelings. When I became a teenager in the 60's, movie theaters were segregated and African Americans always had to sit in the balcony. I would purposely sit there as a protest and often thrown out because of it. I cried often because I thought things would never change. When MLK came along I finally had hope it would. And it did. But there needs to be more change. Much more. I saw so many things that infuriated me.
Of course I am no hero or even pretend to be. So many more endured much more than I ever did or could have endured. I even begged my parents to let me go march with the protestors in Alabama. I'm a musician and my little band at that time was asked to play a parade down the main street of my home town. We were so excited to play and so naive we didn't even ask what the parade was about. We set up on a stage by the street. About an hour before the parade was to start I asked the person who booked us what the parade was for. She said, "George Wallace is coming to town to speak." I was shocked and angry. So I told her "We are leaving! We do not approve of nor agree with anything racist and particularity that racist!" So we packed up and left them without a band.
It was a small thing but I felt good about taking a stand as a young person. I was in Nashville TN when MLK went there to march against the death of a Black garbage worker who was crushed by an compacter because he had to eat lunch outside and not inside with white folks. When he was shot his death and the Memphis riots was the talk of the day. I was there because I was lucky enough to have been signed by a publishing company as a songwriter right out of High School.

I hope it's OK to me to post in this forum. I don't have an opportunity to talk about this very often. Just wanted to give my two cents. Thank you for this post.