When I was in the second grade, and we heard that the integration things
was going to happen and everything, we were upset because we were sort
of confused, and we didn't really know what that meant, and you know
that you may go to school with your friends. You may not go to school
with your friends. Different people may go to different schools. And so
that whole thing. Just kind of the fear of the unknown. But once it
happened, for me, I mean I'm a pretty adventurous spirit, and I would
say that I'm somewhat of a survivor, so my whole thing was about just
kind of sitting back and looking at the situation and then figuring out
what was it, how did I fit in it, and how could I survive in it. And it
brought up some really, really interesting issues. Issues of being
separated into groups, academic groups like the fast reading group or
the intermediate reading group, and the slow reading group, and
invariably at that time say there were only three black children in the
highest, quickest, fastest reading group, and I was one of them. So then
you begin to deal with these issues of separation, perceived or implied
elitism, tokenism, all that kind of stuff, and kind of feeling
displaced. Kind of feeling like my black friends, or
the other black people were, some were upset, some were jealous, some
thought I was trying to be white. And then the white people, some going,
"Well, who is he? What is he doing in here?" that whole kind of thing. I
feel really fortunate because I've always been pretty independent,
psychologically independent, emotionally independent, pretty
independent, and it served me well to be that way in terms of
acknowledging feelings of loneliness, but also acknowledging that one
has to endure and move on. And I was always pretty achievement oriented,
too, so that helped.