What experience do you have personally to the Civil Rights struggle?

[Archae]

In my case, none, since we were isolated from it. (The closest it got to us was the Milwaukee race riots, 60 miles south.)

I had a number of relatives who called MLK a "communist," blamed him for the riots, and the day he was killed laughed about him "being in hell now since he upset God's plan."

It wasn't until years later I read about the March and such, and saw films of what blacks went through.

[NOLALady]

1. I was arrested at 15

along with other high school students. Our crime was marching in front of City Hall and demanding civil rights including the right to vote.
One of my proudest moments!

[dipsydoodle]

2. None other than learning about it here in the UK

on the subject of both the civil rights movements in the US and Northern Ireland as they occurred in real time.

[alsame]

3. I was a white child growing up in

NYC, but my parents watched everything on the news - the police brutality, the dogs and hoses, etc. So I was aware of what was going on. They were huge supporters of JFK and RFK, they talked about civil rights a lot, so I absorbed it even if I didn't understand everything.

When I was a little older, they told me about their honeymoon in Florida in the mid-50s. They had never before been in a completely segregated area and were shocked at the "Whites Only" and "Colored" signs in public places. Disgusted to hear the N word spoken so freely and openly. Disgusted to hear grown men referred to as "boy".

They never, ever took my brothers and I to FL or any other Southern state for vacation. They didn't go back to FL themselves until the late 70s.

[RebelOne]

4. Yup, I grew up in South Florida in the '50s and '60s.

And I remember the "whites only" and "colored" signs in rest rooms, at water fountains, restaurants and any other public place. I remember blacks having to sit in the back of the buses and all the schools being segregated. Yes, I remember all that your parents told you about.

[alsame]

6. I guess they were a bit

naive, being NYC born and raised themselves. They were surely aware of what went on in the South, but I guess experiencing it in person was different. They were deeply affected by the injustice.

[nadinbrzezinski]

5. Not directly

One of my profs was a freedom rider, and not from the North. He was forced to leave his home in Mississippi and ended up at SD State. He told stories of those years as a witness to history, including the noose left in front of his house. That's when the whole family packed up and left.

I forgot to mention this, he is white.

When the Rodney King Riots broke, well...that's another story.

These days when we go pursue news I am aware of the price he payed as a participant.

[ananda]

7. I remember Jim Crow clearly, as well as a time when ..

.. a man came by the house to collect the poll tax.

Then a few years later the Civil Rights Act was passed and
these were things of the past..

.. until our recent spate of voter suppression and targeting
of minorities for the prison system.

I really want racism to end.

[Cooley Hurd]

8. I tussled with a White Supremacist once...

...who was screaming the N word (as well as several other slurs) from a street corner. Got a scar on my knee from it.

It's not much, but I tried to do my part.

[KamaAina]

9. I marched in one of the early MLK Day parades in New Orleans

This was before MLK Day was a holiday, so my activist friends nominated my unemployed self to go.

I was the only white person on the bus to the Lower Ninth Ward. Yes, that Lower Ninth Ward. (This was in 1991.) Yes, I got some looks, but nothing more.

We marched right past Fats Domino's house. You could tell it was Fats Domino's house because it was emblazoned with stars and the letters "FD".

[pinboy3niner]

10. I marched with John Lewis against voter suppression in Ohio in 2004

He led a march of about 300 of us to SoS Ken Blackwell's office in Columbus, and Rep. Lewis was kind enough to sign my placard.

[MindPilot]

11. In a south FL Sears, 5 years old, got in trouble for drinking from the wrong water fountain.

got smacked by one of the store clerks and hauled back to my parents. I, a white boy, had committed the sin of drinking from the "coloreds only" drinking fountain. That would have been 1959; it is one of my earliest memories.

[olddots]

12. I was a lucky member of L.R.Y.

in the early sixties . Liberal Religious Youth wasn't religious we were about civil and human rights .

[Jazzgirl]

13. I remember it distinctly. I grew up in the 60's and experienced plenty of racism.

I also remember MLK's assasination very clearly. MLK was staying in the best room in the Lorraine Motel. My Mom and I had that room reserved for a couple of days during the time he was there. We are pretty sure we would have been booted had we not canceled the reservations. I think we canceled because the weather was bad in Missouri and we decided not to take a chance. Talk about the wind getting sucked out when we saw pictures of MLK lying dead on the balcony in front of our favorite motel room on one of the days we were supposed to be there.

I remember that my locker mate had a gun in our locker a few days later. I raised hell and made her get rid of it and threatened her within an inch of her life if she did it again. My parents were teachers on a military base and we lived on it in civilian housing. It got very explosive and that was in junior high school. There were plenty of fights and a near riot.

Those days were not pretty. I can recite many other experiences but it's too depressing to think about them. I can't believe after all we fought for that this country is going backwards at light speed.

[DevonRex]

14. Mississippi Delta, 1968.

That's when we moved back there. I'm white. Lived in a tiny town there. I was a little kid then. Went through segregated schools, desegregation, and the private school that was formed out of it all for just the white kids.

It was tense. "Colored" waiting rooms at the doctor and dentist. People coming in from other places to take African Americans who lived out in the county to the polls to vote. MLK had been killed in 1968 just 40 miles north of where I lived. There were murders and even bombings because of the fight for civil rights. Mostly they got away with it.

I left MS. There are some things I miss. But it never was home to me. I never felt like I belonged. Mostly I'm glad about that.

[MineralMan]

15. I drove a 1953 Chrysler New Yorker to

Selma in 1965, and joined the crowd waiting to cross the Edmund Pettus bridge. It was a long drive from CA. I never did walk across the bridge, as things worked out, but I was there in Birmingham for Dr. King's speech. I was just 19 years old, and it changed the course of my life.