'You Are Not About to Sit by Me'
Ms.
Fannie
Baldwin Sams,
Lansing,
Michigan
I remember sitting in a restaurant in downtown Birmingham, Alabama, waiting to be served. The waitress, a middle-aged white woman with gray hair, stared anxiously at me and my best friend. My friend and I had heard the news the day before that it had been officially ruled that segregation was no longer legal, and that we could drink from any fountain, use any bathroom, go in any restaurant of our choosing and be served. So at lunch hour we had decided to go to one of the most popular restaurants in the downtown area.
After waiting for about 20 minutes, the waitress begin to spill milk all over the counter, her hands were shaking so bad. She turned to us and said, "Why don't you get the [expletive] out of here? We don't serve niggers here." We sat another 10 minutes but were never served. Finally we left.
Later that afternoon, we boarded the bus; that day we didn't have to go to the back of the bus behind the sign that read "Colored People." I had an armload of school books and proceeded to take a seat next to a white woman. But before I could settle into the seat, the woman shoved me clear across to the other side of the bus, books flying everywhere, declaring, "No, nigger, you are not about to sit by me."
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