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I was born in 1958. I had a friend a few years older than me who could remember a rock being thrown through the picture window of his living room when his family moved to a new neighborhood. His father was white and his mother was Korean.
Wow that’s dramatic. I came back from two years in SE Asia during the Vietnam War with an Asian bride. Nothing like what you described happened to us but nonetheless some people were hostile to interracial marriages in a subdued way.
Ike sent airborne troops to AR to enforce a federal court order in September, 1957. I doubt that anyone in the whole state missed it when it happened.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KathrynAragon
If so, my parents never talked about it.
This is the crux of discussions about the different ways in which the 50's were perceived by different demographic groups. Some have the luxury of glossing over the turmoil of the era, and remembering it in positive terms, waxing nostalgic about the time. Others don't have that luxury. This is a perfect example.
On May 17, 1954, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Brown vs. Topeka Board of Education that segregated schools are "inherently unequal." In September 1957, as a result of that ruling, nine African-American students enrolled at Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas. The ensuing struggle between segregationists and integrationists, the State of Arkansas and the federal government, President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus, has become known in modern American history as the "Little Rock Crisis." The crisis gained world-wide attention. When Governor Faubus ordered the Arkansas National Guard to surround Central High School to keep the nine students from entering the school, President Eisenhower ordered the 101st Airborne Division into Little Rock to insure the safety of the "Little Rock Nine" and that the rulings of the Supreme Court were upheld
Worldwide attention, yet some parents living there never mentioned it to their kids. And that type of selective memory wasn't unique to Arkansas.
In the segregated south, race defined your place in society, where you worked, what you were paid, where you could shop, where you could eat, where you could use a toilet, where you could be educated and even where you were buried. Asians were not considered white, nor black. Thus in a few Jewish cemeteries in the south, there are tombstones with Chinese writing. The powers that be thought that the Asians should be buried with the Jews...go figure, it's a world that has thankfully changed.
The kind of racial discrimination discussed in these posts just didn’t happen in the 50’s. In the mid 60’s I was stationed at a military base in Southern Georgia. The US military was desegregated in 1947. Outside of our base the nearest town was totally segregated. People I served with and some who were black Vietnam veterans could only rent in black areas of town. There were white only restaurants, hotels, bars and other places.
I turned 18 in 1952. They were shooting real bullets in Korea. If you were male and could pass a physical, you would be drafted. No business would hire you, because about the time you became proficient at your job your draft notice would appear in your mail box. Far fewer people went to college back then.
Wow that’s dramatic. I came back from two years in SE Asia during the Vietnam War with an Asian bride. Nothing like what you described happened to us but nonetheless some people were hostile to interracial marriages in a subdued way.
My sister (white) has been with her husband (black) since around 1975. She has seen a huge difference in the way people used to be compared to now. They could hardly walk through a mall or go into a restaurant without being stared at back then. Now nobody gives them a second glance, because there are so many different types of interracial couples.
The kind of racial discrimination discussed in these posts just didn’t happen in the 50’s. In the mid 60’s I was stationed at a military base in Southern Georgia. The US military was desegregated in 1947. Outside of our base the nearest town was totally segregated. People I served with and some who were black Vietnam veterans could only rent in black areas of town. There were white only restaurants, hotels, bars and other places.
Yup, watch the movie The Green Book, which is about exactly that.
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