Rick ... you have again posted a very thought provoking subject. I've yet to read the book, but I will soon. I have been reading this thread but I have been avoiding posting to it. I now feel that I must.

By background, as I've mentioned on previous threads, I was blessed early on by acceptance into the black community in Seattle, Washington, USA. I was 18 and befriended by the black director of an all black theatre group. I was the "token white." As a white kid growing up in a very urban area, I knew little of black politics and issues. This was the mid 1950's.

However, it wasn't until the Summer of 1956 that I experienced, first hand, what racism was really about. I traveled that Summer to the South, visiting family before I went into the Army. I stayed with my cousin in Columbus, Georgia. While there, one evening they had a large dinner party. I found that I was a lot more comfortable with the black servants in the kitchen than I was with the dinner guests. I was sitting on a stool in the kitchen, trading songs with the black 'help', when my cousin came into the kitchen, and gave me to understand that MY PLACE was NOT with the house niggers, but with the guests. What impressed me most, was that the servants were very relieved when I left. I had made them uncomfortable.

Another indelible experience happened to me in Kentucky. It was a Sunday and I had stopped for gas. I asked for the restroom and was directed around to the back of the building. When I left the restroom, I decided to walk back to my car another way. I made a complete circle of the filling station. Coming around another side of the building I would not have seen otherwise, I was horried to see something. It was an old porcelain drinking fountain, squirting water. It was so dirty it was ghastly. On the wooden wall above it was a scribbled sign that read: "NIGGERS ONLY!" These are all true stories.

Back to your subject: I, as a whitey, will never be able to fully fathom the effects of this racism, and I don't want to. I well remember in 1956, when I had the privilege of hosting Pete seeger, J.C. Burrows, and Sonny Terry for a few days when they were in Seattle on a concert tour. Sonny needed a haircut. He gave me to understand that he needed a 'special' kind of a barber. I was so damned naive that I didn't understand what he was talking about. Finally he asked me to take him to "NIGGER TOWN" so he could find a barber! True story. I drove him to what's now called the "Central District" in Seattle while his cousin, J.C. Burrows, picked out the place. I wanted to come in and wait with them, but they suggested it would be better if I waited in the car.

So ... the more things change, the more they stay the same. Thanks for starting this thread. Bob(deckman)Nelson