The Color of Water
by Sue Mayfield Geiger
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
“No, not that one!” my mother shouted as she jerked my arm. “That’s the colored fountain. You drink out of the white fountain.”
And so began my racist education. I was six years old. We were in the grocery store with a cart full of white bread, yellow cheese, bologna, and other stuff I don’t recall. I just remember the ache in my arm after being yanked down from the steps of the water fountain where I had just put my lips on the “colored” water.
It was the early 1950s and I lived in a small, predominately blue-collar Texas town. My mother reminded me again: “You do not drink out of the colored fountain because you are white. Now go to the white fountain—that one,” she pointed out.
My skin was pale, my hair was dark. I went to school with kids who all mostly looked just like me. Lily-white children of the ’50s probably have their own versions of when they were introduced to racism. This was mine.
In my preteen years, I listened to my older brother play records by black artists like Little Richard and Clarence Frogman Henry. He’d look in his bedroom mirror and do the bop. I walked in on him one day and he threw me out, so I tattled. My mother yanked open his door and demanded that he quit listening to that jungle music and stop trying to dance like they do.
I didn’t get it. What was the big deal?
Some summers, we would go camping near a lake where I would spend hours outdoors, swimming and running around in a bathing suit, turning a toasty brown color. I liked the way my skin felt and looked when it was tanned. Now I had color.
One summer, a young girl about my age camped near us. I wanted to talk to her, but I knew my mother would disapprove because she was “colored.” But one day I waved at her and she waved back. Within a few days, we were talking, laughing, and sharing secrets. Her name was Gloria.
I cannot remember my exact age then, but it was somewhere between that time of pure sweet innocence and the struggle of self-identity. I knew I must have been getting close to the latter.
We held hands and walked over to her campsite where we played with her black baby doll. We played until I heard my mother calling my name from afar. I hurried away from Gloria’s campsite and ran back to mine.
My mother asked where I’d been and I told her I’d met a friend whose name was Gloria. “Well, that’s nice,” mom said. “I’m glad you’re making friends; why not invite her over?”
I had to think quickly, so I lied and said her family was leaving that afternoon, but I continued to see Gloria around the campground. The area was vast with kids running around everywhere, so it was easy to disappear and play all day, while my mother never learned of my deception.
Today, decades later, I visit my aging mother in a nursing home. She is wheelchair-bound and frail, but her mind is still active and alert. I am amused by the irony that the majority of her caregivers are African-American, or “colored”, as she still calls them. Yet they laugh it off when I try to apologize for her. I’ve become friends with several of the caregivers and marvel at their ability to give so much of themselves to a race of people who gave so little to them.
The caregivers take my mother to the bathroom several times a day, change her diapers, wipe her and shower her nightly. Their black hands caress her paper-thin, white skin with tenderness as they do the things for her she can no longer do for herself. The very people she once despised are now her lifeline—like it or not.
Today, we all drink the same water, ride the same buses, and eat at the same lunch counters. I think about our modern-day world and how times have changed… but have they?
Back to Sue's Page
Copyright © 2015 All rights reserved. Can not be reproduced or used without written permission.
by Sue Mayfield Geiger
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.”
—Martin Luther King, Jr.
“No, not that one!” my mother shouted as she jerked my arm. “That’s the colored fountain. You drink out of the white fountain.”
And so began my racist education. I was six years old. We were in the grocery store with a cart full of white bread, yellow cheese, bologna, and other stuff I don’t recall. I just remember the ache in my arm after being yanked down from the steps of the water fountain where I had just put my lips on the “colored” water.
It was the early 1950s and I lived in a small, predominately blue-collar Texas town. My mother reminded me again: “You do not drink out of the colored fountain because you are white. Now go to the white fountain—that one,” she pointed out.
My skin was pale, my hair was dark. I went to school with kids who all mostly looked just like me. Lily-white children of the ’50s probably have their own versions of when they were introduced to racism. This was mine.
In my preteen years, I listened to my older brother play records by black artists like Little Richard and Clarence Frogman Henry. He’d look in his bedroom mirror and do the bop. I walked in on him one day and he threw me out, so I tattled. My mother yanked open his door and demanded that he quit listening to that jungle music and stop trying to dance like they do.
I didn’t get it. What was the big deal?
Some summers, we would go camping near a lake where I would spend hours outdoors, swimming and running around in a bathing suit, turning a toasty brown color. I liked the way my skin felt and looked when it was tanned. Now I had color.
One summer, a young girl about my age camped near us. I wanted to talk to her, but I knew my mother would disapprove because she was “colored.” But one day I waved at her and she waved back. Within a few days, we were talking, laughing, and sharing secrets. Her name was Gloria.
I cannot remember my exact age then, but it was somewhere between that time of pure sweet innocence and the struggle of self-identity. I knew I must have been getting close to the latter.
We held hands and walked over to her campsite where we played with her black baby doll. We played until I heard my mother calling my name from afar. I hurried away from Gloria’s campsite and ran back to mine.
My mother asked where I’d been and I told her I’d met a friend whose name was Gloria. “Well, that’s nice,” mom said. “I’m glad you’re making friends; why not invite her over?”
I had to think quickly, so I lied and said her family was leaving that afternoon, but I continued to see Gloria around the campground. The area was vast with kids running around everywhere, so it was easy to disappear and play all day, while my mother never learned of my deception.
Today, decades later, I visit my aging mother in a nursing home. She is wheelchair-bound and frail, but her mind is still active and alert. I am amused by the irony that the majority of her caregivers are African-American, or “colored”, as she still calls them. Yet they laugh it off when I try to apologize for her. I’ve become friends with several of the caregivers and marvel at their ability to give so much of themselves to a race of people who gave so little to them.
The caregivers take my mother to the bathroom several times a day, change her diapers, wipe her and shower her nightly. Their black hands caress her paper-thin, white skin with tenderness as they do the things for her she can no longer do for herself. The very people she once despised are now her lifeline—like it or not.
Today, we all drink the same water, ride the same buses, and eat at the same lunch counters. I think about our modern-day world and how times have changed… but have they?
Back to Sue's Page
Copyright © 2015 All rights reserved. Can not be reproduced or used without written permission.