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Breeding Racial Hatred
In 1971, I was a college student at Tuskegee University. Two of my classmates and I decided to drive down to Ozark, Alabama to attend George Wallace’s kick-off run for President. Although, the crowd was not dressed in the garb of the KKK, they might very well have been.
Women carrying six-week-old babies, some younger, some slightly older, dressed in diapers with a Wallace bumper sticker draped around their bodies filled the campaign rally. In smaller print were the words: “Segregation Today, Segregation Tomorrow.”
The babies were everywhere. The racial divide filled the air.
“The babies could not help but soak up the racial hatred through the process of osmosis,” I thought.
We quickly learned that what began as an educational experience on presidential politics had placed us in the middle of a hornet’s nest. We had to be careful not to bump into one of the white women for fear of being accused of sexual assault and strung up on a tree before midnight.
It was the most frightening experience of my life. After Wallace’s speech, the crowd was hooting and hollering in a state of euphoria. This allowed us to slipped out of the football stadium unnoticed. We drove back to campus without stopping for food or to take a comfort break.
