senators could think like the men who killed Viola Liuzzo.
The next day we took an overly long and punishingly hot car ride to Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson. This historic site, located about two hours southwest of Washington, deep in the state of Virginia, took us into the beginnings of the “real South,” as our mother called it. The tour through Monticello was mostly unmemorable, except for the too-short doorways that indicated people two hundred years ago were not that tall, and the glaring omission of any mention of Jefferson’s slaves.
On the way back to D.C. we pulled off the highway for gas and for a trip to the rest room. I walked with my mother around to the back of the station, where there were two doors. One was marked WHITE and the other COLORED (though it looked like someone had tried to scrape that last word off, unsuccessfully). I stood and stared at these signs, and although I knew what it meant, I wanted to hear my mother’s explanation of it.
“What is this?” I asked.
She looked at the signs and was silent for a moment.
“You know what it is,” she said curtly. “Just go in there and do your business and get out.” I went into the “Colored” bathroom and she went into the “Whites.” When we came out, she led me back to the car.
“Get in there and stay with your sisters.”
She then headed into the gas station with the kind of walk we three kids knew meant that heads would roll. We cranked our heads out the windows, hoping to hear what she was saying to the man at the counter, but all that was available to us was the tight-lipped look on her face and the few motions she made with her index finger. He, too, made a few gestures, including a shrug of his shoulders. She came back outside to the car and got in and said nothing.
“What were you doing?” I asked.
“Just mind your business,” she said, cutting me off. “And lock your doors.” (This would be the only time in my life I would hear such a demand when in the vicinity of all white people.) We never learned what she said to the man, or what he told her, and years later I liked to think she had given him a piece of her mind for her children having to witness such immorality in the U.S.A. that she loved. He might have told her that they just hadn’t gotten around to taking it down yet, or had tried (the Civil Rights Act outlawing such things had passed twelve months earlier), or maybe he told her to get her nigger-loving ass out of there. Or maybe she was just complaining that the ladies’ room was out of toilet paper. I always meant to ask but didn’t. She was no Viola Liuzzo, and for that, I guess, I was thankful, as I liked my mother being alive.
The trip to D.C. to learn how our government worked was coming to a close, but our mother had scheduled a “part two” for our summer trip: we were going to New York City and to the New York World’s Fair! When she was eighteen, her parents took her to the 1939 World’s Fair in New York, and it was there she first saw inventions like the television and was given a glimpse of the “World of Tomorrow.” We would now get a glimpse into our future via this new Fair. Five hours later we arrived at our aunt’s house on Staten Island.
The New York World’s Fair of 1964–65 was a mind-bursting experience. Located on 646 acres in the borough of Queens, the Fair included over 140 pavilions and exhibits from all over the world. Most of it, for our young eyes, was a thrilling look at what the adults of that day thought the world would look like in the twenty-first century. The IBM pavilion introduced us to what computers could do for us, and while it was never proposed that we would ever own our own computers, it did spike the imagination and create an excitement for the bold world of the coming new millennium.
At the Pepsi pavilion we saw a very entertaining show called “It’s a Small World,” a precursor to the “We Are the World” vibe of the
The next day we took an overly long and punishingly hot car ride to Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson. This historic site, located about two hours southwest of Washington, deep in the state of Virginia, took us into the beginnings of the “real South,” as our mother called it. The tour through Monticello was mostly unmemorable, except for the too-short doorways that indicated people two hundred years ago were not that tall, and the glaring omission of any mention of Jefferson’s slaves.
On the way back to D.C. we pulled off the highway for gas and for a trip to the rest room. I walked with my mother around to the back of the station, where there were two doors. One was marked WHITE and the other COLORED (though it looked like someone had tried to scrape that last word off, unsuccessfully). I stood and stared at these signs, and although I knew what it meant, I wanted to hear my mother’s explanation of it.
“What is this?” I asked.
She looked at the signs and was silent for a moment.
“You know what it is,” she said curtly. “Just go in there and do your business and get out.” I went into the “Colored” bathroom and she went into the “Whites.” When we came out, she led me back to the car.
“Get in there and stay with your sisters.”
She then headed into the gas station with the kind of walk we three kids knew meant that heads would roll. We cranked our heads out the windows, hoping to hear what she was saying to the man at the counter, but all that was available to us was the tight-lipped look on her face and the few motions she made with her index finger. He, too, made a few gestures, including a shrug of his shoulders. She came back outside to the car and got in and said nothing.
“What were you doing?” I asked.
“Just mind your business,” she said, cutting me off. “And lock your doors.” (This would be the only time in my life I would hear such a demand when in the vicinity of all white people.) We never learned what she said to the man, or what he told her, and years later I liked to think she had given him a piece of her mind for her children having to witness such immorality in the U.S.A. that she loved. He might have told her that they just hadn’t gotten around to taking it down yet, or had tried (the Civil Rights Act outlawing such things had passed twelve months earlier), or maybe he told her to get her nigger-loving ass out of there. Or maybe she was just complaining that the ladies’ room was out of toilet paper. I always meant to ask but didn’t. She was no Viola Liuzzo, and for that, I guess, I was thankful, as I liked my mother being alive.
The trip to D.C. to learn how our government worked was coming to a close, but our mother had scheduled a “part two” for our summer trip: we were going to New York City and to the New York World’s Fair! When she was eighteen, her parents took her to the 1939 World’s Fair in New York, and it was there she first saw inventions like the television and was given a glimpse of the “World of Tomorrow.” We would now get a glimpse into our future via this new Fair. Five hours later we arrived at our aunt’s house on Staten Island.
The New York World’s Fair of 1964–65 was a mind-bursting experience. Located on 646 acres in the borough of Queens, the Fair included over 140 pavilions and exhibits from all over the world. Most of it, for our young eyes, was a thrilling look at what the adults of that day thought the world would look like in the twenty-first century. The IBM pavilion introduced us to what computers could do for us, and while it was never proposed that we would ever own our own computers, it did spike the imagination and create an excitement for the bold world of the coming new millennium.
At the Pepsi pavilion we saw a very entertaining show called “It’s a Small World,” a precursor to the “We Are the World” vibe of the
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