I was only 7 or 8 years old

when I asked my mother about the water fountain under the

shade tree near the sidewalk outside of J. Fred Johnson's

Department Store in downtown Kingsport, Tenn.

The year was probably 1958

or 1959, although time has clouded the memory somewhat.

The summer day was hot and muggy and I was as thirsty as

I had been in quite a while. I pointed at the water

fountain and said I wanted a drink. My mom said that we

would get a Coke at the fountain in Woolworth's.

I remember asking why the

sign on the water fountain said, "Coloreds

Only." The same sign was on the entrance to the

balcony at the Stand Theater on Broad Street. Most people

that I knew - all the people that I knew, in fact

- bought their movie ticket at the window outside

the Strand and walked through the front door, gave their

ticket to the usher, bought their popcorn and soft drink,

and went into the theater on the main floor.

I always wished I could sit

in the balcony, but, in the 1950s in eastern Tennessee,

the balcony entrance was marked, "Coloreds

Only." My mother told me that it wasn't right and

maybe someday it would change. But someday wasn't in the

late 1950s in Tennessee.

We lived in Hillcrest, a

working class area of Kingsport. One cousin lived in

Highland, another in Lynn View, yet another in Sullivan

Gardens. It seemed that all of us lived in an area with a

nice sounding name. Black people lived in

"niggertown." I wouldn't know until high school

that the area where the majority of African-Americans

lived was actually called Riverview.

Everybody I knew called it

it anymore than we meant harm when we referred to black

people by the slang term that hardly anybody uses these

days. That's just the way it was in the 1950s and early

1960s.

White kids went to the

American Legion swimming pool during the hot summer days

while black kids went to the pool in Riverview. White

kids attended Dobyns-Bennett High School, black students

enrolled at Frederick Douglass High School.

There were two separate

societies in our community that very rarely crossed

paths. It was normal. It was the way things were. It was

also terribly, terribly wrong.

The Riverview community had

roads full of potholes, the swimming pool was small,

overcrowded and leaking. Most of the white neighborhoods

had smooth, paved roads and the Legion pool was large,

clean and often renovated.

While Douglass High School

was always in constant need of repairs, the city fathers

made plan to build a new Dobyns-Bennett. The teachers at

Douglass were paid less that those at Dobyns-Bennett and

class offerings were extremely limited.

Not so at D-B. It was

assumed that the students at Dobyns-Bennett would go on

to college. It was also assumed that the students at

Douglass would not. Even those of us, as young as we

were, who felt that this situation was unfair felt

helpless to do anything about it. It was the way things

were.

We watched the marches of

blacks in Washington, D. C., led by Martin Luther King,

Jr., and others, and wondered what the future would hold.

We were embarrassed and horrified by the brutality

inflicted on peaceful demonstrators in Birmingham and

Selma. In April of 1968, Dr. King was assassinated in a

Tennessee town called Memphis. The South would never be

the same again.

In August 1968, the two

high schools were combined as integration slowly became a

way of life in Kingsport and in the South. Both white and

black parents, who had seen the violence in Memphis and

Selma on television, were concerned for the safety of

their children, and the school administration prepared

for the worst.

On the opening day of

summer football practice, Tom Brixey, the head coach,

walked into the tension-filled locker room and looked

over the players from Douglass and Dobyns-Bennett.

Quietly, he said, "Look around this room. There are

two colors in this room. Those colors are maroon and gray

(the school colors). If you see any other color, then get

the hell out of my locker room right now!"

No one moved. The change

was beginning. "The way things were" was

beginning to give way to "the way things could

be."

Prior to high school, I had

never met a black youth. Now I would share locker space,

showers, bus rides, hotel rooms and meals with people of

color. I was surprised at how much we were alike.

In town, the signs were

removed from the water fountains and the movie theaters.

Eventually, people began to call "Riverview" by

its proper name and the term "Afro-American"

(which later gave way to other designations) replaced the

despised slang term. I finally got to see a movie from

the balcony at the Strand Theater which, eventually,

became a favorite place to take dates.

In the Marine Corps, I met

a wide diversity of people and, in my last duty station,

found myself the only white Marine in my unit. As Dylan

sang, "The times, they are a-changing."

The nation has come a long,

long way from the 1950s. Gone are the "coloreds

only" signs and the segregated schools systems. Gone

is the assumption that whites are college material and

blacks are not. Gone are the lily white professional

athletic teams of bygone days. The nation is better for

it.

Prejudice and racism isn't

as blatant and unrepentant as it was in the South 40

years ago, although it still exists in tangible and

insidious ways. We've come a long way since Dr. King

shouted, "I have a dream..." But we still have

a long way to go.

We still are all too quick

to "judge a person by the color of his skin rather

than by the content of his character." We still see

individuals as members of another race rather than

members of a common community.

In Sunday School, we used

to sing, "red and yellow, black and white, we are

precious in His sight." Until that simple children's

song becomes a living reality in our own lives, we still

need the words and vision of Dr. King, who believed that

it was possible for all men, regardless of color, to sit

at the table of brotherhood.

Dr. King gave his life in

the pursuit of equality, justice, freedom and dignity. He

believed that "the way it was" could be

radically different. He was right.

But as long as even one

person suffers deprivation, injustice, or fear because of

prejudices toward race, color or sex, the quest is far

from over. The dream is yet to be realized.

[Father

David Epps is rector of Christ the King Charismatic

Episcopal Church which meets at 10 a.m. each Sunday in

the Carmichael-Hemperley building, Ga. Highway 74 in

Peachtree City. He may be contacted online at [email protected] .]