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“Get off my sidewalk, you little niggers.” Those were the words she yelled as she tossed rocks from her yard and whatever other objects she could find to help get her point across. The year was 1974 and summer vacation had just begun. My brother, sister, and a couple of our cousins were walking down the sidewalk along West Railroad Street in LaGrange, North Carolina when the incident occurred.
The kids, ranging in age, from six to eleven, were shocked at first, but then dismissed the occurrence, thinking that the elderly lady must have been slightly “off her rocker.” But, after retelling the incident to other people in the community, people who were familiar with the lady’s values and beliefs in regards to people of color, my family and I realized that the old lady wasn’t crazy at all. She meant what she said, and she said what she meant. She had very little tolerance for African Americans, looking down upon them and viewing them as less human than she or any of her white counterparts.
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