Subservient, or free at last?

My daughter Marisa writes to tell me that her son Ryan is getting settled in quickly in his freshman year at Texas A&M. He loves the conservative nature of the campus, and is getting involved in some clubs that promote conservative points of view.

Hearing that made me think back to my Texas years. I enrolled in Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene in 1958 on a golf scholarship. I grew up in Sioux City, Iowa. There were few black people in Sioux City, but the ones I knew about were people highly admired as athletes in the community.

Why am I bringing up black people? Because the early 1960s were all about the civil rights struggle. When I graduated in 1962, the first job I got was as a child protection worker. During coffee breaks I would talk about something I saw on the Huntley Brinkley report the previous night. My supervisors cautioned me not to watch what they referred to as the "Frontley Pinkley" report. They didn't want me getting any radical ideas about freedom for black Americans.

My child protection work brought me into contact with black families, who were subservient. I had not experienced that in Iowa. I didn't like it. I wondered why there were no blacks in the Baptist churches I attended. Okay to be on the football team, but not in our churches?

Then, JFK was shot in Dallas. The Dallas Morning News had a story about people in Dallas rejoicing at his murder. It sickened me. I couldn't wait to leave the state in the fall of 1966 to go to graduate school at the University of Kansas. But, things were not much better in Kansas. I attended the First Baptist Church in Topeka. One evening I was at a barbeque at the home of the pastor. He knew of my work with black families, and he said to me, "Tell me the truth, Bob, have you ever seen a black woman whom you thought was attractive? I never have." That was the last straw. I have never been back to a Baptist church, and I have never been back to Texas.

Now that blacks have achieved their freedom, and Bob has become a conservative, I see Texas through different eyes. I wonder how black Americans living in Texas today see their state. Are they still expected to be subservient? I do not see that at all in Colorado.