It was a Saturday on a cool August late morning in 1963.  I was about 11 or 12 around the time, with my innocence still intact.  I thought the world was a safe and secure place to be.  In my head, everyone got along.  Violence was nonexistent, fellowship between one another was like no other, and everyone was living in equality.  That was just one child’s innocent mind out of 300 million other corrupted minds in the United States, because we were not equal, we’ve never been.

 

I had told my mother that I was going to go to our local park.  I had never gone without her or my dad, but that day I felt that I was old enough to take care of myself.  My mother was hesitant in letting me go by myself.  I had asked her why, but she would not give me a clear answer.

 

“It’s not safe,” she would say in a stern voice.  That hadn’t made sense to me at the time.  It’s just the park, I had thought to myself, what could go wrong?  Eventually, after countless pleading to her, she let down her guard and let me go alone.  She would be occupied with setting up our new radio while I was gone.  Since my father was at work, it would take my mother longer to set up the radio, as she isn’t the best with technology.  “A newspaper is all you need,” is what she would say.

 

My mom gave me money to buy a bus ticket to the park.  After paying, I sat down in the usual seat that I would sit in with my mom.  All of my moms close friends would always sit behind us and they would talk quietly about different things I was too young to understand.  I didn’t understand why we couldn’t sit up in the front, however.  One day I tried to sit next to a woman in an expensive coat in the front of the bus, but my mom quickly stood me up and walked me to the back.  The park was within walking distance, but my mom wanted me to catch the bus because she didn’t want me walking along the street by myself.  I tried telling her that I wouldn’t get lost while walking to the park, as I thought that’s what she meant, but she made me ride the bus anyway.  I looked around and saw the same bus interior filled with the same type of people.  The black floors covering the bottom of the bus, the aged and scratched windows on the side with business advertisements hanging over them, and the same every day people riding the bus with me.

 

Once the park was in my sight, I hopped off the bus and headed over to my destination.  Usually at the park, my mom would let me go out and play with kids my age, most of which were my friends at school.  We would play tag and collect different rocks we found across the park.  Today however, the kids at the park weren’t my friends.  I didn’t know any of them.  I had decided to attempt to make new friends so that I could play with someone.  I walked up to a group of four kids, who were playing catch with a red ball.  I was a little hesitant to go over and introduce myself.  I never really had to introduce myself ever.  The only people that I would usually see I had already known previously, so I wasn’t use to making new friends.  I’ve had the same friends for as long as I could remember.  We all attended the same school for every year and we all lived close to each other in the same neighborhood.  I knew everyone, and everyone knew me.  But these kids I did not know, and they didn’t know me.

 

In the midst of my thinking, the red ball they were playing with had rolled upon my feet.  I picked it up.  It was a ball tightly knitted together filled with either beans or small pellets.  It had different black designs woven into it as well.  I hadn’t owned anything like this before, it interested me.  When I looked up, the kids were standing right in front of me.  They looked to be a little older than me, about one year.  They were wearing nice clothing; two kids wore polo shirts and the other two wore sport jackets, which did not make sense to me at the time because we were still in summer.  Despite what they were wearing and their age, I noticed that they didn’t look like me.  They didn’t look like my mother, my father, or my friends.  But instead, they looked like the bus driver and the people sitting in front of me while I was on the bus.

 

“Hey, do you think you can give us our ball?” said one kid.  Without thought, I held out my hand containing the red ball.  He reached out and took it back from my hand.  They all walked back to where they were playing.  While they were walking back to their spot, I kept thinking to myself that somehow, some way, we could all be friends.  I wasn’t sure if I should break out of my shell or stay cooped up inside.  I stood there in my dilemma, trying to overcome my nerves.  I couldn’t make a decision.

 

“Can I play with you guys?” I eventually blurted by force.  They looked back and surprisingly to me, they smiled.

 

“Sure!” one of them said.  The feeling of warmth filled my heart as I ran over to them and joined their game of fun.

 

“Hey!”  A loud, booming voice echoed through the park as we were about 30 minutes into playing our game and getting to know each other.  I turned around toward the source of the loud voice and I saw a man in a blue outfit wearing a black tie and black shoes.  It was a police officer.  He was walking toward me as I stared at my incoming trouble with the law.  I looked back at my newly acquainted company, but they were nowhere to be seen.  All that was there was the red ball that we were playing with.  They must have dropped it in a hurry as they ran away from the incoming police officer.  Suddenly, a tight grip held my shoulder and spun me around to see the furious police officer looking at me.

 

“What were you doing with those kids?” he asked me loudly.  His grip on my shoulder got tighter and tighter as time went on.

 

“Nothing!” I said quickly.  “We were just playing!”

 

“Don’t bother with those dirty lies of yours, boy.  I know when you people are always up to no good, so the next time I see you anywhere around this park again, I won’t be so gentle with you,” he said, as if aggressively holding my shoulder wasn’t bad enough.  With all the might he had holding onto me, he swiftly threw me on the ground.  I gave out a grunt as my body made contact with the hard dirt below me.  As I laid there in defeat, I kept thinking to myself about what he said.  You people?  I was getting the feeling I knew what he was talking about, but I tried lying to myself that it wasn’t true.

 

“What are you doing on the ground?”  That was the voice of my dad.  Since his job wasn’t so far away, he would usually walk to and back from work.  Only this time, he was greeted with the surprise to see his bruised son on the ground.  After he pulled me up, I told him everything.  I told him about how I went to the park by myself, the kids that I met, and the police officer.  After I was done with my explanation, he embraced me and took me home.  “We have a lot to talk about,” he said while we walked home together.

That night, I would sit on the couch with my two parents in front of me.  They explained to me what type of cruel world we lived in and why people like us have to be supper causes when going out.  It didn’t make sense to me.  Not equal because of our skin tone?  This isn’t fair.  Suddenly it clinked.  I understood all of it.  I understood why I couldn’t sit in the front of the bus.  I understood why I had never seen those kids before at the park.  I understood why I couldn’t walk by myself along the street.  I understood the brutality of that policeman.  My eyes were awake to the real world, but I wanted to go back to sleep.  In my discouragement, I softly ask my parents, “Is there anything we can do about it?”  My mom softly smiled at me and reached for the newly set up radio that she had finished while I was gone.  She turned different knobs on the radio until the audio was clear.  It was a man speaking.  He spoke in a powerful voice.  Not like the policeman, but more like a pastor.  He gave me a sense of hope as I listened.  He kept mentioning his dream, his dream of equality and freedom.  And in my heart, I knew that the dream he spoke of would soon become the reality I thought I lived in.