My Life With and About African-Americans 1944-2024

I was born in 1939 in Alton, Illinois. Alton was the home of Elijah Lovejoy, the famous abolitionist who was killed there by a proslavery mob while he was defending his printing press. It was his fourth press, the other three having been dumped into the Mississippi River to prevent him from publishing his antislavery newspaper, The Defender.

After three days, my mother and I returned to our apartment in Gary, Indiana. Gary was a steel manufacturing town and was an attraction for many Black families who couldn't find jobs in the South. Many poor Whites did the same. When World War II broke out, Gary became even more of an attraction and was one of the main focal points for the Great Migration from the South to the North.

My mother supported us by working at G. C. Grant, one of the largest five- and ten-cent stores in the country. Consequently, I became a "latchkey kid" at the tender age of five years.

My father and mother were divorced at an early age, and I seldom saw him during my very early age, but from five years old on, I saw quite a bit of him, and I became the object of a bitter, ongoing custody battle that lasted until I was in high school.

During that time, we moved a lot, and from first grade until I graduated from high school, I went to fourteen different schools. Consequently, I knew many kinds of people of differing complexions and religions. When I joined the Air Force, I couldn't help but notice the many ethnic groups filing past the examining doctors.

The story of my first encounter follows.

-- Raleigh Sutton Deer Meadow South of Town 2024