Taking a peek at 1965 and taking a break

The year I was 14 (1964) was a turning point in my life: I decided to take charge of my life. 

Louisville, my city of birth, was not where I wanted to live. As my posts for 1964 have shown, racism and injustice seemed to be woven into American culture: most notably, in the South.

In 1964, I had only hazy ideas of where to go. Riots in California and Michigan showed that racism and injustice could not be escaped by leaving the South, but I believed that large, multi-ethnic cities might be better places for me to live. I'd been to New York City on my 6th-grade trip and fell in love with it.

Cities have terrible problems with racial prejudice, generational poverty, violence, crime, and class divisions, but the problems are out in the open. To keep going, cities have to make compromises and solve these problems.

In contrast,  in the South, problems are swept under the rug. Decorum must be maintained. This unwillingness to be honest, in my 14-year-old mind, created hypocrisy and an unchanging status quo. I hated to live with this kind of dual reality: on the surface, we all get along, but that's only possible because so many people are being crushed and silenced. 

The next year, 1965, my older brother and his wife moved to New York City. My future suddenly became clear. I would go to college in NYC, and when the time came, I did. And that's a whole other story!

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I'm taking a break from all my blogs for the next months. With two books in the writing stage (The Professor's Book of Readings and Read and Write like a Professor) and my two jobs teaching writing, I will be focusing on doing these things well. Thanks for reading!