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cars and the way they fixed several Montgomery streets to depict the era of Rosa Park's sit down.

We heard that some of the cast had teased Whoopee about walking alone in a southern city! At first this remark made my southern defenses come to the top, but then that was how many people felt. It still was not very funny to me. I could understand why they would feel that way. Montgomery had a reputation stemming from the Rosa Parks incident and the 'freedom rider' beatings. They had had no trouble as they came through Birmingham. I had seen a television show that interviewed a

black man who came into Montgomery that week. He was just a boy in 1961, but the greeting he got in the south was not what you would call the traditional 'southern hospitality.'

The boy who tried out for the part of a bus rider lost it because he could not tell the little black girl to "Get your black____ off this bus with enough conviction! Imagine! But he was not raised to say such a thing, not even in the deep south. When I told a black friend about it, she just hooted!

"I could have told my own black ___ to get off the bus for that kind of daily wage."

Times have changed in the south, but racial incidents still pop up. I sometimes also get tired of feeling that I should apologize for being southern. Everyone who was born in the south or lived in Montgomery in 1961 did not share the same opinion. I am afraid racial intergration will have problems for years to come, but it is certainly not confined to the south, nor is it confined to just black and white.

I grew up singing the little song Jesus Loves The Little Children, red and yellow, black and white, but never knew the meaning until I was older. Of course, He loves us all but will man ever learn to love each other?

Learn more about this author, Dorothy Baughman.
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