So many terrible stories. Terrible and tearful. You think you've heard all you can hear and another grandmother or grandfather takes the chair to take you back in time. Back to some awful times.
The handsome woman in African dress had waited patiently for her turn to talk to me in the steam of Raleigh, North Carolina, our second stop. Renee told me she was a poet and liked to write songs, but her story wasn't pretty.
Her school had been recently integrated and she and some schoolmates waited for a ride home. A drunken white man made some lewd remarks and Renee told him they didn't want any trouble. That was enough for the man to take off his belt and strike Renee across the face with the buckle and knock her to the ground. The other girls ran back to the school but the nuns would not open the doors. "That's what hurt the most. The nuns, nobody would help us," she explained. Renee said her cut healed but the emotional hurt lasted for many years. She ended our encounter with a beautiful poem she had written. It said in part:
For the freedom of choice to be who you are
To wake each day and know you've come this far
For the freedom to breathe any kind of air
To look to the sun and think that life's been fair
For these and so many countless reasons
Be thankful for the gift of these and all seasons
Renee was very proud of her poem. I gave her a hug.
