People can change opinions over time, but many of our beliefs are shaped in our earliest years, usually by our parents but later by friends.
I think this parental impact is often seen in our attitudes about race. How our parents thought about racial differences set the initial tone for our own beliefs.
I thought about the Rev. Martin Luther King’s early years and an experience where his father taught him a lesson that would last a lifetime.
King’s father took young Martin to buy shoes in downtown Atlanta. At that time, stores were segregated. King’s father found a seat up front. A young white clerk asked the two to move to the back row.
His father responded that they’d either buy shoes sitting in the front row or not buy any. Young Martin recalls his father taking him by the hand. “I still remember walking down the street beside him as he muttered, ‘I don’t care how long I have to live with this system, I will never accept it.’”
I don’t remember what my parents taught me about race, even though I grew up in an inner-city neighborhood that was rapidly changing its racial characteristics. Perhaps they taught me with actions not words. Rather than sending me to an integrated elementary school they enrolled me in a private, almost entirely segregated one a few blocks away. In fourth grade I moved with my family to a suburb where there was little racial diversity. This was a common pattern then, part of the so-called “white flight” from urban centers to suburbs.
However, as I reflected later, you can take the boy out of the neighborhood but not the neighborhood out of the boy. In those early, influential years, I spent most of my time out of school playing with my neighborhood friends, most of whom were African Americans. We played stickball in an empty lot, sat and talked about our sports heroes and built forts in our backyards, These were my earliest friends.
I still remember a birthday party my mother held for me in our home. She gave me invitations to hand out. thinking I would do so in school. I did but also handed them out to my neighborhood friends. The day of the party, my mother told me she was quite surprised to see who came to my party, probably the only integrated gathering in that neighborhood for some time.
In our earliest life experiences are the seeds of race attitudes. It’s here we learn how to respect each other or not.
Love one another is a universal moral code often spoken by Dr. King and many other ethical teachers.
John C. Morgan is an author and teacher who spent his early years growing up in West Philadelphia.
