Sounds like a great night indeed, but i hope you were masked. Looks to me like a super-spreader event. 
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I was not. I am tripple vaxxed, and inside the 90-day window of an infection. So I wasnāt as worried. I was probably also protected by the astounding amount of alcohol in my system.
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What a neat space! And a fascinating guy to hang with!
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I am deeply grateful for the time and energy you spent with that man.
These stories, these lived experiences, are soooooooo important.
IIRC, you are an educator as well. What a precious gift to be a witness, hear him firsthand, and take the message forward to those who would listenā¦ maybe even in your classroom!
Many thanks for the love and care you bring into the world.
And as long as I am thanking teachers, thanks to all the teachers on this bbs, from this fan of your workāall our work, reallyāagainst ignorance.
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If @anon27554371 is correct and you are an educator, could you have him come to your class to do an in-person AMA? Even if you arenāt a history teacher, this is definitely something worth teaching to your students. (Iām assuming this was a local event for both of you.)
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@anon27554371 is correct. I am a history professor., though not in the city where this encounter happened. Thank you both for your kind words. My own field is the history of alcohol, from roughly the 1400s - 1800s. But my āmodern historyā colleagues do ask local people to come in to share their stories. Itās invaluable.
In truth, I was lucky (and grateful) that he was willing to share what are deeply personal (and maybe still painful) stories with a random drunk white guy. And yes, these stories are disappearing. I have a colleague who is starting to do oral history interviews with local people who lived through the 1940s - 1960s Civil Rights era. Just as there was energy put into recording the stories of WW2 vets, we should do the same for the Civil Rights vets.
Iāll never forget talking with one of the janitors at the university where I was a grad student in the 90s. He had played in the Negro Leagues, and his perspective was eye opening. He played with Jackie Robinson and Satchel Paige. He commented, derisively, that āJackie Robinson ruined my life.ā He said that because he was rougher around the edges and because his skin was too dark, he never had a chance to go to the Major Leagues when that movement started. But he was good (he said) and could have had a long career in the Negro Leagues. He was very bitter about it, which is something that had never occurred to me. But, oh my what stories he had. I wish he could have been interviewed by a professional.
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I had a similar encounter a while back. A friend had a small shop in what had been the lobby of what used to be the theater (movies and other) in a small college town in Alabama. I helped her out one slow afternoon, and an older Black couple came into the shop to browse, and we got to chatting. He had grown up nearby; they lived elsewhere and were visiting for the day. He asked if the theater itself was still there behind the lobby, and even though it wasnāt part of the shop space my friend rented, the door from the shop space to the theater space was never locked. So I took them back there. He looked around, said heād seen a few shows from the balcony, and asked if I knew that theaters were segregated back then. He said the town wasnāt āthat badā to grow up in, thanked me for letting them into the theater space, and they went on with their day.
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I learned several days ago that the CDC has a 56 page document about mall walking
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Taxpayerās money hard at work.
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That sounds derisive, but if itās helpful about mallwalking, I donāt mind paying taxes for that. Itās a great way for a lot of seniors to get some exercise, both when itās too cold or too hot outside.
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Itās a good thing.
(Short replies in taxis should be avoided.)
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Walmart now sells sex toys (https://www.reddit.com/r/pics/comments/xgy9pw/walmart_out_here_fighting_the_good_fight_to/)
Depending on how brave one is, one could argue that they already did
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I canāt seem to get past the blur feature in the link. Either that, or I may be going blind. /s
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Attention Illinois mutants!
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It would be so nice to have some these places marked in some low-key educational way. A plaque and a short paragraph along the lines of āthis seating area was once a segregated for Whites/Blacks only. The efforts of Civil Rights leaders, including local leaders such as Sam Smith and Jane Jones, helped end that practice.ā
And do it everywhere in the country that practiced segregation. Not just in the South.
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You can click the link but I think this is as far as I want to postā¦ thingsā¦ hereā¦
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