I was born in a little town in Oklahoma in 1943 and lived in a lot of little Oklahoma towns until moving to West Texas in 1958.
I remember a happy childhood. Playing outside all day every day in summertime. Going to school the rest of the time. I loved going to school.
I did not know that Oklahoma had the financially poorest schools in the country until I was studying the history of US education when I was taking Education classes in college. Ranking just above Mississippi and Alabama.
In spite of the poverty, about which I was oblivious, I learned a lot of good, basic stuff in those classrooms during my first nine years of school.
I remember some very good teachers who made do with practically nothing. Those teachers were the primary — sometimes the only — resource in their classrooms. I thought I had a good education. I learned to love reading. I loved memorizing arithmetic facts and operations. I learned how to write in beautiful penmanship. I loved learning geography. All these basics serve me well to this day. I can figure my bank balance in my head and I can sign a check not in kindergarten printing. I know which direction Canada is.
We had lots of Geography. History. Not. So. Much.
History was introduced in about 5th grade. I remember Early American History. Nothing about the Civil War or anything negative about how Indian Territory came about or how it became a state in 1907. WWII was too recently painful to be broached.
Nothing about the law-breakers who burst in early and claimed free homesteads before the appointed time. Somehow, these settlers became heroes and are more honored than disclaimed. “Sooner” is a proud motto rather than a shameful thing. I don’t get it. It was the wild west then, but some of the morals and attitudes of those days need a serious revision.
About history, I learned about my Choctaw heritage. Sort of. I just knew that my maternal grandfather was very proud of it. He never said anything about how our tribe was forced-marched from our home in Mississippi in the dead of winter to the poorest part of Indian Territory. One-third of the tribe died along the way. It’s still one of the poorest areas in the country today. Never mind about how the casino hasn’t made everyone rich.
But that is not the story I want to write about today.
Today I want to write about what I wasn’t taught about people of color when I was a young school girl.
Oklahoma was not a state during the Civil War, but it was profoundly “a Southern State.” A statue of a very young Confederate foot soldier stands to this day in front of the courthouse in the town where I was born. “Negroes” were not permitted in that town after sundown. They came in during the day to do menial work for white people.
On the mezzanine of the JC Penney there were water fountains designated “whites only” and “colored.” I wanted to drink from the colored one thinking it would produce rainbow water. That was my first lesson.
I never even heard about the race massacre in Tulsa in 1921.
I didn’t know about the murders of the Osage people in the 20th Century until a book about that was published a few years ago.
Do you know what brazil nuts were called?
Do you know what little children said when they sang “Ring Around the Rosie.”
Do you know what my own father said when he had been working out in the hot sun and came in sweating?”