Key West Real Estate Throwback Thursday - No. 33

from 2015  Nothing to do with real estate.

 I confess: I Wore Blackface That's little me sitting in the right bottom corner of the photo of my first grade class at Mountain View Elementary School in 1954. All of the children in my class and all of the other students and staff and even the entire town were white. Mountain View is located on west side of the Denver County line in Jefferson County, Colorado where it was illegal for Negroes and other non-whites to live in the 1950s. I returned to Denver in 2015 to attend my fifty year high school reunion. On the day of the reunion I drove over to see my old school, went inside, and learned that my old school was a private school for primarily underprivileged Hispanic children. My former lily white suburb had turned Asian and Hispanic and underprivileged. The school administrator allowed me to walk through the school.

When I was a student the school cafeteria was also used as the gym and auditorium where Cub Scout and PTA events were held and where an occasional play was performed. In June 2015 I stood on that stage and looked to my left and remember my part in the school Christmas play that took place in 1954 or 1955 right after school on the Friday afternoon just as we began our Christmas recess.

The setting was an orphanage at Christmas where all of the orphans were white except for one. Students from each grade had a part. Santa Clause was played by an adult male who must have been a parent because we did not have a male teacher until the sixth grade. At some point Santa spoke to me. I think I must have been the youngest to have a speaking line, a line I do not remember, but a line I will never forget.

Earlier one of my teachers burned a cork and smeared the burnt ash all over my face and hands to make me look like a Negro. African Americans or Black People were called either Colored People or Negros in the 1950s. That is why I use that term here. I remember having to learn and speak in a Negro dialect. I seem to recall one of the teachers taught me the diction. I cannot remember my line, but I remember the entire audience laughed out loud at what I said and how I said it.

Put what I did and what my teachers did in context. They painted me in black face and taught me to speak a line in such a way as to make fun of black people - for a gag laugh. This was a school event where all of the teachers and students were present. This was acceptable behavior in my all white community in the 1950s. I was a kid. I did what I was told. I didn't see anything wrong with what I did. Then.

The thing is I remember this event sixty-five years later. How many readers remember events when they were seven or eight years old? I would venture most recollections would involve some type of trauma like losing a family member or extreme joy like getting a puppy. While I now smile at what I did back then, I can't help but think what I did was very wrong. But it was culturally acceptable. That is why I don't agree judging social conduct from years ago by the community standards of today.