I MUST OVERCOME -Part 3 - 1950s

excerpt from COLORS OF MY WORLD (see Aug 31, 2010)

College - Nestled on the top of a North Carolina mountain, in buildings of natural stone and huge log beams, my freshman year at college was spent in an all-white, Protestant church sponsored, private junior college.
Football games, a crush on the star of the basketball team, cramming for exams, I felt as though I was getting acquainted with myself for the very first time.  Who was I when not around my family?  Could I be brave and friendly and popular instead of awkward, shy and studious?  The future seemed challenging in a shiny, glow of hopes and dreams.  Fantasies of loves and losses filled my thoughts as I tried to find expression in writing poetry:

FORGOTTEN?

I had forgotten your close-cropped russet hair,
Until a wren, brown, nested in our maple tree.
Forgotten was the ocean depth in your blue eyes
'Til a friend sent a shell from the sea.

Gone was the memory of your gentle touch
Until the wind blew a leaf against my cheek.
Lost was the vision of your straight, tall form
'Til I saw a slender pine last week.

Gone, I hoped, was the pain of losing you,
And knowing you would love someone but not I,
Until I limp and cold, was kissed by another
And, looking up, saw the pain of loss in his eye.  (A.Hunter 1955)

June (a college dorm buddy) and I spent hours in my dorm room talking and wondering.  We were souls on a quest.  Segregation and integration?  Colored and white? Separate but equal?  Civil rights?  What did it all mean?  No one else at the "campus in the clouds" seemed to know or care.  I did not know much but I cared a lot!  In 1955 it was the lull before the storm.  What would it be like to sit in a classroom with a dark-skinned person?  Would they be vocal or quiet?  Would we eat together?  Would we be in the same dorms?  I did not even ask myself the question "What if one of them asked me for a date?"

I wondered in my poetry:

HOLD MY HAND

His round, dark eyes
Were raised to mine.
His ebony forehead creased.
His childish hands
Were clasped in pain
As his life slowly ceased.

His burr black hair
Was a maroon now
From the gash in his head,
Again his eyes
Were raised to mine
In horrified dread.

He spoke to me,
In his soft child's voice

"Suh, hold my hand,
Is I go'n die?
My head hurts so,
Suh, hold my hand.

"Suh, I'se afraid,
It's gettin' dark
An I don' wanna die."
His wide, brown eyes
Were glazed with pain
And he began to cry.

"Suh, hold my  hand.
I'm gettin' cold...
My hand," he said to me.
His hand then dropped.
His brown eyes closed
Never again to see.

I saw him there
Lying so still
His childish mouth now quiet.
Me, hold his hand?
Comfort his need?
Never, I am white. (A. Hunter 1955)

Do we only wonder and question when we are young?  Can we become active in our later years or are we too scared of disturbing the status quo?  Are we too aware and intimidated by the very real possibility of losing friends or family members if we take a stand or express a viewpoint that is uncomfortable?  When do we put on our "cloak of maturity" and pretend we know how life works and should be and it is not by "disturbing  the peace".  That peace that comes from not having to dare or struggle or think in depth about the possibility that we may not know everything or that we may not really be the noble, courageous stuff of heroes or heroines.