 |
David Wilson in front of the
Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial in DC |
The message
to this only child was keep your head down, fit in, get along, study hard, go
to college, get a good job, marry, have children and you’ll be equal. During
those formative years in this predominantly white environment, I felt pretty
equal to my peers, attending school, playing sports, and accepting invitations
to hang out with friends after school. We were all poor and living on some form
of government assistance.
Our family moved
to Dorchester when I was 16 so I could meet other black kids and experience
black culture. My mother was hopeful that I’d date black girls and attend
church on a more regular basis. For the first time in my life I felt un-equal. The
clothes, shoes, music, cars were not the same as in my old neighborhood, and
for the first time in my life class differences and cultural differences were
very evident. Neighborhood and racial disparities were reflected in our stores,
food choices, streets, and city services that I had taken for granted in my old
neighborhood but now understood were absent in my black neighborhood.
At the same
time, my brothers and sisters south of the Mason-Dixon line not only lived in
segregated, marginalized neighborhoods like I did, they suffered under local,
state and federal Jim Crow laws that prohibited equal access to housing,
employment, education, full citizenship and basic human rights.
