44 years later, I feel better now.

[cosmik debris]

In 1964 I wore a campaign button to school. It said "LBJ for the USA". I picked up a nick name that stuck with me until I moved away from that town. My nickname was N***** Lover.

Today I went to the polls and cast my ballot for the first Black Man to become President of the USA.

So to all the racist and bigots from ElDorado High School in ElDorado Arkansas I just want to say

Choke on that, You losers!

[JVS]

1. Jesus Christ! Who did the locals support then?

[cosmik debris]

4. Barry Goldwater or George Wallace.

LBJ was the candidate of civil rights.

[BuyingThyme]

2. Pretty cool.

[The Backlash Cometh]

3. Damn. The Count of Monte Cristo has nothing on you.

[Blue_In_AK]

5. Texas was not a friendly place back in those days...

I've had that term thrown at me, as well.

[gateley]

6. Oh, that feels SO GOOD! nt

[BOSSHOG]

7. I dated a black girl in the ninth grade

A very wonderful young lady and we had a great time together. I won't tell you of the incident that happened to me but it was purely the result of ignorance and hate originating from a coward. That was in 1968.

[Beregond2]

8. 44

Your story really hit me. I don't think young people today can begin to imagine what racial attitudes were like in this country back then. And that's a good thing, because they haven't experienced that. But to be this close to a black man becoming President...I didn't think I would live to see that, and it means so damn much to me.

"The wheels of justice grind slowly, but they grind exceedingly fine."
- St. Augustine

[Skidmore]

10. I think there are older people who have forgotten then or

never learned anything beyond their own bigoted ways either. I don't mind at all pointing out the oldness of ideas in my generation for as a nation we have been held hostage too long by those who would hang on to stale ideas for the sake of holding onto power and wealth. We have been hurt tremendously as by zealous people who have barely made it out of the nineteenth century in civil thought. I'm ready to jerk the nation into this century. Evolve or become extinct.

[The Backlash Cometh]

24. Oh, I expect a black president will have an impact on them.

From, "I'm not racist, my best friend is black," to "I'm not racist, I voted for Obama in 08."

[DemzRock]

9. Ah, LBJ - the enigma

A man who escalated Viet Nam based on lies. A man who may have been involved in the JFK offing (google: E Howard Hunt Death Bed Confession OR LBJ mistress - "Those SOB's Will Never Embarrass Me Again"). But also a man who fought segregation and did so many good things. What a world.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

11. Pff.

"but also a man who fought segregation and did so many good things."

He was also a man who fought desegregation. Not much of an enigma, the man was an opportunist.

[cosmik debris]

15. You don't seem to know very much about 1964 or LBJ

Or segregated high schools, or race relations, or Arkansas politics, or Barry Goldwater. But you seem willing to believe the craziest conspiracy theories.

Oh well.

[grantcart]

12. You were 4 years ahead of me. It really surprised them when the mild

little geek went right for the throat. After the second time they stopped it - somehow they weren't as passionate about the name as I was.

[Cheeseburger Walrus]

13. Well done!

That must have been a very cathartic moment!

[DavidDvorkin]

14. It would be interesting to know how they feel now

I'd hope that a few of those kids had a moral awakening at some point.

[cosmik debris]

16. I went back to my home town a couple of years ago.

From what I could tell, it hasn't changed a bit.

There are some really good people there, but they are NOT the majority.

[DavidDvorkin]

17. Too bad

I was in college that year. It was the first election I voted in. There were some Neanderthals in the dorm, and they probably haven't changed either.

[cosmik debris]

19. I graduated with people who

Had never been outside the county they were born in. Even though it was only 17 miles to the Louisiana State Line, they had never left the State of Arkansas.

On the other hand, as soon as I graduated, I left like my tail was on fire.

The saddest part was that several of the people who graduated at the same time decided to celebrate by going "across the tracks" and killing the first black person they saw. Most of them were the sons of wealthy parents, so they got away with it.

[DavidDvorkin]

20. Jesus! They literally committed murder?

[cosmik debris]

21. And got away with it.

And bragged about it all summer. Then went off to the University of Arkansas to become doctors and lawyers like their Daddys.

[DavidDvorkin]

22. That's actually worse than Apartheid South Africa

When we lived there, a local white man had spent a year in jail for mudering a black man. My parents were outraged that he spent so little time in jail for such a crime and saw it as evidence of the evil of the Apartheid system.

[cosmik debris]

23. Well, in all fairness

I should point out that one person did go to jail. He didn't have rich parents so he got all of the blame. He hung himself in the jail cell a few days after the murder, so the case was promptly closed. There was plenty there to be suspicious about, but nothing could be proved.

That's life.

[Arkansas Granny]

18. I know people who stood at the door of their high school and

cheered when black students were turned away and not allowed to enter. They now feel ashamed of those acts, but it was done out of ignorance, fear and the culture of the south of the time. I moved to Arkansas in the late 60's and was just stunned by the racial attitudes I encountered here at that time.

[REACTIVATED IN CT]

25. Has it really changed that much in AR ?

I watched Marco Williams film "Banished" on ethnic cleansing in the USA on PBS the other night. Its about African Americans who were driven out of 3 towns in MO, GA (IRRC) & AR in the early 1900's and how their descendents were trying to reclaim the family land or the remains of a great grandparent. The one about the AR town of Harrison really struck me. He interviewed people who moved into retirement villages there and one of the main reasons they moved there was "there are no blacks". He also interviewed the head of the KKK in AR - dynamite to see this dude in dreadlocks facing that a**hole and questioning his group's practices

http://www.boston.com/ae/tv/articles/2008/02/09/bringing_to_light_a_pattern_of_racial_cleansing_in_southern_towns/