First Peaceful
Demonstration
I decided to
appear on the planet smack-dab in the middle of World War II. It was the summer
of 1943 in Detroit, Michigan. The infamous Detroit race riots had happened a
few weeks earlier. A round-faced seven-pounder with dark, pixie hair, I was the
first child of Thomas and Ruth Cassells.
Dad and Mom had
moved to town from Ohio, where they’d both grown up. My father was raised on a
farm, the middle child of a family of 13 children. My mother, the only daughter
and youngest of three, was a “city gal” from a tiny coal-mining boomtown in
southern Ohio. Her family lived above her father’s barber shop.
A bustling city
during war time, Detroit was wide open; automotive factories ran around-the-clock
shifts and needed workers. Many from southern and rural areas migrated to
this land of opportunity. Dad became employed by the city as a streetcar driver.
Four of his siblings had previously moved north and settled there, so family lived
nearby.
In 1943, at Wayne
Diagnostic Hospital, segregation was in practice -- even in the maternity ward
and nursery. The nurses apparently mistook us for white since my mom and I were
fair-skinned. So, a staff member placed me in a bassinette in the section
reserved for the white babies. Of course, Mom had no way to know this;
newly-delivered mothers weren’t allowed to get out of bed.
When my tall,
handsome, brown-skinned father came to see me for the first time, a nurse
greeted him politely and showed him to the nursery window. He waited while
another nurse went to fetch me from the “colored” section. Knowing my dad’s
personality, I can imagine the panic when no one could locate the Cassells
baby.
Finally, one
nurse checked the babies across the room in the “white” section. And, there I
was, happy and safe -- less than 24 hours old and already breaking the color
barrier.
~
xoA ~
