Road Map to Life (PB) (2020)

I was born in the years of the baby boomers. At this time, it was the years of segregation. We were poor people, if one would compare those times to today. Now, we would have been considered poor, but no one knew it then as everyone in the community was in the same state odd being. If my family didn't have certain food or ingredients for their meal, we could go next door and get it. The same would be true if the people next door needed something to complete their meal, they could come to our house, and if we had it, we would give it to them. There were separate water fountains on the streets side by side. However, they were labeled colored only and White only. One day, as I was on the street alone, I drank from the White only fountain. I found that the water was the same as was in the colored only fountain. As people had jobs, without them knowing it, the jobs were a form of legal slavery. The workers had not been out of the community to discover that they were being paid wrong. When I got older and graduated from high school, I left home to attend college, I found that this was true and tried to let the Black workers know. The White owners of the businesses told the Black people not to listen or talk to me as I was a troublemaker. There were many Black athletics in the area, but we were not allowed to play on teams with the White boys as we were not smart enough to compete with them until they were going to other communities to compete with other White teams. Then they wanted us as they found that by using us, they would win.