NEVER IN MY LIFETIME

Never in my lifetime would I have thought that a Black man would be the President of the United States of America. Being from the South, Little Rock, Arkansas, I lived through the sixties. I remember having to ride on the back of the bus, going to the movies in the balcony through a separate entrance, and not being able to sit on a stool at Woolworth's.

When Governor Orval Faubus closed the schools in Arkansas, I missed a year of school. I operated an elevator in the Marion Hotel and washed dishes in a restaurant. Blacks had to come to the back and order food or sit at a table in the kitchen to eat.

The park we had to go to was on the outskirts of town, called Gilliam Park. It was way down in the woods. Now I have heard that the area has been turned into a natural preserve. In one year my family relocated to Los Angeles where I resumed my education.