The unfinished business of race relations in America

As far back as I can remember, I’ve only been kicked out of one restaurant and back when it happened, I suppose you could say we had it coming. You see, it was the early ’60s, and we just didn’t know our place at the time.

My college buddies and I decided to treat ourselves to a Saturday night dinner in St. Joseph, Missouri, so we headed for the nicest steak house in town and took our seat at an empty table. That’s when the proprietor greeted us and told us he had the right to refuse us service. At that moment, something we had taken for granted as friends became abundantly clear to us in a decade racism was tearing America apart. One of us was black.

Embarrassed for our good buddy, angry and ashamed that he’d be treated that way, we said nothing and quietly rose from our seats and left. We wondered how could this happen in America?

In all of my years, it is the only time I was able to step into the shoes of a person in color. Just a few years before our encounter, four African-American students kicked off the sit-in movement at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina, refusing to leave the lunch counter after being refused service. Here we were experiencing what black Americans had dealt with for generations.

Now years later, as killings of young black men and women happen again and again, most recently with George Floyd’s death at the hands of Minneapolis police, how can repeated acts of unprovoked or unnecessary violence be inflicted on people of color?

I return to that night in St. Joe and now reflect on how many times I’ve shared my story. In my American Government and Politics courses, I contrasted my experience before the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act that banned racial segregation in schools, employment and public accommodations with life afterwards, helping students understand how laws changed things over the years.

My lectures applauded the civil rights movement, noting the nation’s progress in race relations and offering hope to students about the positive role government could play in the lives of all Americans, including those of color.

With George Floyd’s killing at police hands and the growing number of recent cases where African Americans have been killed, I could no longer stand before a class and give that lecture from earlier in my career. Here we are years later, with black Americans fearing for their lives if they are pulled over by the police.

I can only imagine what it must be like for an African-American parent whose son or daughter reaches the age when they are free to walk the streets of their neighborhood or beyond without adult supervision. Or when they get a driver’s license. Can anyone honestly say an African-American will be viewed by police in the exact same way as whites are viewed in many jurisdictions across the nation? Events of recent years suggest that America has a long way to go before African-Americans can feel as safe on our streets as white Americans. And that is a tragedy.

Minnesota state Rep. Ruth Richardson of Minneapolis-St. Paul spoke recently on NPR about growing up black in America today. She wouldn’t let her 17-year-old son, Shawn, a track athlete in high school, run in his neighborhood unless he had a track suit on and was running with other boys. When he was 15 and running, a white woman stopped him to ask if he had just stolen from a nearby store. Rep. Richardson summed it up when she reflected on how often we talk about how far we’ve come with civil rights legislation, but that doesn’t seem to change hearts and minds.

Tweets from a president trying to look tough, but having the opposite effect on mob violence, will certainly not change hearts and minds to achieve racial justice. But ordinary citizens speaking up and out about the need for changes in police procedures can change hearts and minds. Whites and blacks joining hands as brothers and sisters dedicated to rooting out even the most microscopic vestiges of racism in our communities can change hearts and minds.

Idaho’s peaceful protests last week provide a great example of citizens calling out police brutality gone unchecked. President Obama said it best when he said it will take politics and protest. It will take protest to raise public awareness, and it will take politics to change laws and institutional practices to bring about reform.

No jurisdiction in America should miss this opportunity to assess and evaluate its police practices. While changes in local policing will be required, there are also community policing models that are working in America, and those police officers should be acknowledged for their leadership in improving race relations. It is also an opportunity for ordinary citizens to speak up and plant new seeds of racial harmony this spring that will unite our fellow citizens with the goal of sending bias of any kind to the history books.

This will not come easily following the looting and burning of the last few days and the incendiary instincts of the president, but we must acknowledge the reality that exists in America today and change laws, policies and attitudes to make good on the promise of equality embedded in the Constitution of the United States.