In the 1960s, the United States was a very different country. Many of the attitudes and behaviors of that time would not be tolerated today. There was much to admire, that is the decade we landed on the moon, and much that was best discarded. Two things that needed throwing out were prejudice and racism, and I learned that lesson on a school bus when I was a boy.
My parents did not discuss other religions, races, or cultures often. When they did, it was as a warning. Those other people were undesirable, uneducated, not to be trusted. “Watch out for Mexicans,” my father would say. “Stay away from black people.” That was my education about the wider world, repeated throughout my childhood.
When I entered junior high in San Bernardino, I had never seen anyone who was not white and Christian. I had never met a black, Asian, or Hispanic person, or anyone of another faith. That sounds strange now, but that is how it was. The city itself was built around the same prejudice. A freeway near us was built with its on and off ramps on the wrong side, and I later learned this was intentional, so the ramps would be on what the planners called the white side of town.
The one empty seat
The year I entered junior high, desegregation began. Half the children from the black side of town would be bused to the white schools, and half of us would be bused the other way. Given everything my parents had told me, I was terrified. I was not chosen to be bused, and my parents were relieved, but on the first morning I climbed onto the school bus and found only one open seat, next to a black child.
I was frightened. My father had told me black people were dangerous, barely people at all. I walked to that seat and sat down, staring straight ahead, gripping my schoolbooks in case I needed a weapon. The whole bus went quiet, waiting to see what would happen. I snuck a look at the boy beside me. He was sweating. His jaw was clenched. He was staring straight ahead, his muscles tight, braced to be attacked. “Funny,” I thought. “He looks just like me, only his skin is a different color.”
The bus turned a corner and shoved me against him. “Sorry,” I said, ready to run. He looked at me, and I understood in that moment that he was just as afraid as I was, maybe more. I held out my hand. “I’m Richard. What’s your name?” He looked down, took my hand, and said, “Sam.” Then he stared at my head. “What are you looking at?” I asked. “Horns,” he said. “Funny. You don’t look evil.” We stared at each other, and then we both laughed.
“I was thinking the same thing,” I told him.
By the time we reached school half an hour later, we were talking and laughing like old friends. As we got off, I told him, “I think my parents were wrong.” “Mine too,” Sam said. His parents had told him to watch out for white people, that we were treacherous and hurtful. It was almost word for word what I had been told. Other kids came over, I introduced Sam, and by the end of the day he was simply another kid at our school.
Not one of us cared about his skin or his accent.
What changed on that bench
At lunch I sat on a bench and watched Sam play on the jungle gym, and my whole world shifted. If my parents were wrong about black people, then they were wrong about everyone, Hispanics, people of other faiths, all of them. They were all just people, the same as me.
I threw away the prejudices handed down by my parents, grandparents, and relatives that day. I have come to understand that they were raised in a different world, but I still cannot fully understand how anyone could meet another human being, however different, and not see a person. I resolved on that bench that I would judge no one by skin color, race, religion, gender, or culture. There is no room in my life for racism or any other prejudice, and my life has been far richer for it.
A single bus ride, and one frightened boy named Sam, changed the entire course of how I see people.