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I want to tell you two true stories and let you take what you want from them. My purpose is to help young people understand a little more about this nation, just a generation ago.
In the late summer of 1966 I hitch-hiked from Washington, DC to Miami Florida. It took me two days to make the trip. Very little of the current Interstate system had been completed yet, there was probably only 100 miles of I-95 of the whole distance and so the route south wondered around the country. I got lucky somewhere in the Carolinas and got a ride with somebody that was going far south. Unfortunately they were also going west, but that didn't concern me much. So the morning of the second day found me in Alabama rather than Georgia. I got a ride that was going bad and when they stopped for gas I got out and walked, outside of the small town I was picked up by a black family in a very old Ford. An older man was driving, his wife and one daughter were in the front, I was in the back with two other daughters and one suckling infant. They were afraid for me. They told me I had been lucky to get through the town with out being jailed as a vagrant. They told me it would have gone badly for me on the county farm. They then drove 100 miles out of their way to get me out of Alabama. The dropped me off over the Georgia line, where they said I was safe to continue my journey. That's it.
Second story: In the spring of 1971 I rode a motorcycle I had just bought from Miami, Florida to Wheaton, Maryland. I was young and in no hurry, the trip took me three days. The second night I stopped at a rest area on I-95 in southern Virginia. It was dark when I stopped and I recall that it was quite cold. I pulled the bike up to a pick-nick table and parked it, took an Army Blanket out of my pack and slept on the bench of the table with the nearby engine providing a bit of heat. The morning was beautiful and it warmed as quickly as it got light. At the next pick-nick table over from where I had slept there was a lady with four children of mixed race. They were having a pick-nick breakfast, their van was parked in the closest slot. They invited me to join them, which I did. They didn't have much, I think there were some cold biscuits and some ham, I think they may have given me a coke. The lady, who was white was traveling with her e daughters and her young son, the oldest daughter, who was the darkest, was about 14. They were wonderful children. The lady told me they were going to some relatives place around the great lakes, she would get a job there. They had enough money to make the trip, but there would be no frills. They had stopped the night before at a booming motel, a place called "South of the Border" which was near the state line. They would not rent her a room because of her black daughter. That is how they found their way to our rest stop. That's the second story.
Make of them what you will, I just wanted you to know how it was back then - not so very long ago.
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