Civil Rights for All

by Tom Barresi

I've Been Fighting for the Civil Rights of All; Forever! 

My whole family was very excited to be leaving the cold and dank climes of Lynn, Mass., for our move south ; to the Chesapeake Bay town of Annapolis, Maryland, after receiving my father's job transfer in 1960. To a 12 year old boy like myself, however, the change in locations would spark a flame in me that till this day, (40 years later); would never be extinguished. The burning, flame of "human rights", and her preservation, in America! 

Walking around my new town, on a chilly day in February, I was stunned to witness racial injustices, only read about, in my native New England: 

Being a border-state, I suppose Maryland claimed the legislative right to do the following, as sadly witnessed by myself, so long ago: 

1. Prohibit blacks from riding on city buses, except in the back; 
2. Prohibit blacks from entering any restaurant in town, or going to the same movies as whites. 
3. Blacks were allowed to use only designated bathrooms, and drinking fountains; and 
4. They had to attend specified schools, for "Blacks Only", (except the brave few; of whom 2 are mentioned here, and handful of others, who I studied with until 1966; where in a graduating High School class of 400, a mere 3 were Black). 

Upon walking up to my new, 6th grade class, at Eastport Elementary School, in Annapolis, Maryland on this cold day in 1960, I happened onto a scene, so foreign in concept to me, that I doubt if I shall ever truly forget it. There on the school playground, were 2 colored girls, around my age, (12), and apparently the only blacks attending this school; being pelted with rocks by between 6 and 8 white students. The girls were holding each other tightly around each other's necks and appeared to be frozen in fear; for their very lives. 

Realizing this mob was not going to relent in any way, I decided to step -up, and by describing the "racial harmony", we enjoy in Mass., perhaps end this treachery; through logic and my experience. As I gave my plea, while standing in front of the ill-fated girls, I could just barely make-out the two of them, running toward the school house; leaving me, the new kid at school, standing there, to get hit, time and time again, by the senseless mob. Knowing from my heroes, (like Will Travis), that an aggressor will only give up his attack, when he thinks you can take more; I stood silently, while the crowd, chanting, nigger-lover, and honkey, slowly disbanded. 

There was never another rock-throwing incident at our school that entire year, and whenever I ran into the two black girls, they would always smile at me most appreciatively; but they would also keep their distance; for they, like so many to come after them; thought I might be "a little off". A "little off" perhaps, for firing that cannon down the throats of so many of Santa Ana's troops, in defiance of racial intolerance, at age 12 in 1960. 

Regards, 
Tom Barresi 
1459 East Lassen Ave. 32 
Chico, Ca. 95973

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