Sunday's post reminded me that I have had so many experiences related to the public transport I had to ride during those years when I did not drive myself.
Today I was thinking about one of these. When I was about 16, I went to a political meeting near the U of Pennsylvania, which is an oasis surrounded by very very bad neighborhoods. The only way to get there was to take a particular subway line I was always warned not to ride. It was generally understood that this was because it went through and to black neighborhoods, where white people were not welcome.
Being a nice liberal Jewish girl (who considered myself a radical at the time, about 1969 or 70), I decided I would show these people on the subway my desire to integrate the city. But I didn't count on the fact that they wouldn't feel the same way, although, in retrospect, I had been warned and should have known it very well.
I walked down a long, white tile hallway that smelled like pee. Gang graffiti ,with its indecipherable loops, covered everything. But I saw no one till I got on the train, a metal and glass tube covered inside and out in the same spray-painted graffiti I had seen on the walls on the way to the station. When the door closed behind me with a hiss, I knew I had made a mistake taking this trip.
The train was full of people, every one of whom was staring at me. My tangled curly hair was clearly not an afro. But I tried to ignore the stares and become as invisible as I could, huddled back against the hard plastic seat.
A few stops came and went. Then one of the men on the seats across from me, a very large man of about 6'5," with a heavily muscled build, stood up and pointed at me, as if he had just uncovered my true identity, my reason for being in this place. "You killed Martin Luther King!" he announced, and began moving toward me, lurching slightly with the movement of the train.
The other people on the train turned toward me, their faces full of rage. I stood up and stuttered, "Who? ME?"
Just then, the train stopped, and three cops got on. I took the opportunity to scramble off the train and didn't look back till I was back on the street, maybe a mile from the University.
2 comments:
Ha! Reminds me of my husband in the late sixties, history teacher, took a group of (white) high school students from O.C. to the Watts festival, and was chased out of the park and told to go home.
I think these people would have killed me. They weren't fooling around. And it happens all the time in Philly.
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