'I Understand Their Fear'
Ms.
Pam
Hunter,
Orange City,
Florida
I grew up in a rural Ohio community. There was little crime to speak of, certainly no racial strife, and our town could easily be described as having the placidness of a cow's eyes on a lazy summer afternoon. In school we had been taught nothing of slavery or other social injustices. My religious training was basic Ten Commandments: respect your elders and love thy neighbor. Because it was an all-white world for me, no one ever explained that those rules included your red, yellow, brown, and black neighbors. There weren't any in my world.
When the Civil Rights Movement started, I was a young newlywed. One night my husband and I drove through a small town on our way home from visiting friends. The entire main street was solidly lined with blacks. There were no other cars around, and we had to stop at a red light. It was just us, the red light, and the hundreds of blacks watching us. They were just standing there talking quietly among themselves, but the atmosphere was supercharged with something I couldn't identify.
We sat there feeling quite apprehensive. We were fearful of running the light and fearful of remaining there. We decided to run the light if anyone moved toward us. It was only one minute or one-and-a-half minutes of our lives, but as we waited for that light to change, a deep fear was created in me like I had never experienced before. The light finally did change and we went home without incident.
Over the next several days, the TV and our local radio station broadcasted news of riots and looting in cities throughout the country, including the one we had driven through. The sights I was seeing were foreign to my way of life, and I had no clue as to why these people were so angry. The same fear and distrust the blacks had of whites for so many years, I now had of the blacks; fear of harm to myself and my family at the hand of someone of another color. It was a long time before I understood their anger, but I understood their fear.
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