It was our senior
year of high school 1972. Tensions were razor sharp. We were the last senior
class to not be included in the now Federal legislation that began “forced
busing” of children to public schools. The government wanted to promote racial
integration.
This was before the
proliferation of guns among young people as exists today (2016) yet rumor was
that many were armed with knives, brass knuckles, pipes, girls with razors hidden
in their afros and such things.
As usual the
primary instigators gathered their respective cronies. White youth milled about
on the concrete commons outside the cafeteria. The blacks gathered on the grass
below the wide four or five steps leading down from the commons where the
“Jesus Freaks” usually liked to sit cross-legged in soft laughter and subdued
camaraderie.
We were not novices
to fist fighting so were prepared though not vocal. My small group was standing
clear of the “rabble rousers”. A pang of consciousness troubled me over this
ignorant display of mob mentality. I could only muse, “ There’s got to be a
better way.”
Just as the anger
was reaching a crescendo, one of the displaced “Jesus Freaks” (white) walked
out onto the grass and reached out his hand to a petite black girl in
bell-bottom jeans and the requisite afro. After a pregnant pause she took his hand. The pervading roar of animosity subsided.
He whispered in her
ear, kneeled down on one knee and she stepped nimbly over and onto his shoulders.
He stood with his lanky frame, long brown hair, dirty jeans with vest and gazed up at the crowd with soft, clear, blue eyes. The chocolate woman-child on his
shoulders stared in kind, black eyes sparkling in the sunlight … both smiling.
I recall the sudden
frog in my throat and a welling of tears as I watched transfixed … afraid
that someone might see the weakness of my sorrow. Or was this joy?
The opposing masses
from the commons area and grass moved toward one another. We were breathless. First a
hand shake then a hug and in just moments most were dancing and riding shoulders
and singing much to the glaring chagrin of the rabble rousers.
I know today
that my tears were not weakness. I know today that it was no accident that a
youth that had been branded a “Jesus Freak” was the catalyst for peace. There
were no more riots that year at our school.
Would that all
nations and all colors and all religions could ground themselves in the message
of Christ. Would that our driving force be like the compassion and love of
those two, bright eyed youth on a crisp and sunny day in 1972.
