Back Then
Being a young black girl in 1934
Wasn’t glamorous,
It was the complete opposite.
I was born Alma Joyce Lewis
On a Friday at Jackson Hospital
Montgomery, Alabama,
USA —
A place where
White children lived and black children just existed.
I was born 20 miles from the field where my ancestors
Picked cotton
From dusk to dawn
Being whipped
Hung, burned,
And sold
Like items in a store
Some years later
Slavery is over
But the racism still stands
My life
Is unfair and broken to pieces
I live with my mom, my grandmother and my 2 brothers, Raymond and Richard,
Momma always told us
People only dislike you because
Of the beautiful
And soft brown skin
God gave you
We don’t have nice schools
Like our white counterparts
Just chairs and a chalkboard
In an abandoned shed
Dust in our eyes
As I walk to school
They throw rocks
And call me a Negro
Saying
You don’t belong here!
Get out!
I’ve never disliked the life I live
No matter how hard it is
We don’t have the privileges that the white people have
The big fancy house
With fancy cars in the driveway
Sending our kids to fancy schools
And never having to worry about getting arrested
A quiet Saturday morning was the only time we didn’t have to worry
We all would walk to downtown Selma
Where there are restaurants, clothing stores
And gift shops
But we aren’t allowed in those
There is a certain sign on those doors
Stating “WHITES ONLY”
The only place where we are comfortable
Is a tiny shack on the corner of Pine and Alton
A white woman owns it
It is very rare to meet a non-racist white woman
But it’s certainly possible
The woman gives my grandma her usual colors
We are going with different colors today.
Red and yellow to be exact.
She grabs the roll for my grandmother
They discuss texture and shade options
In here, we are not colored
Or Negro. We are not thieves or delinquents
In here with these people, were people just like them
I was walking to school the next Monday
A girl was sitting by a tree reading
One of my favorite books
I walked up to her
I love that book!
The girl said
Me too!
We had a whole conversation just about the book
I just made my first non-black friend
Lucy
She gives me a friendship bracelet
We hang out a few more times that week
But little did I know our friendship wouldn’t last
The next day
I walked past her and her friends
They started calling me names and spraying water at me
But it was mostly Lucy
She was acting completely different then
She was earlier in the week
And that’s when I realized that she wasn’t my friend at all
I threw the bracelet down the sewer
And kept walking
That day I learned
You can’t trust everybody with your heart
Because some people deserve it and
Some people don’t need to be anywhere near it
