Next stop same as the last

In 1975, when I was attending Marist High School in Chicago, I was taking a CTA bus down 111th street toward home. The bus was crowded with students from Morgan Park High School who got on near Hoyne street. When the bus approached the high school, it became evident that there was something significant taking place after school on campus (I later learned it was an after- school fight between some white and African American students. At my stop – the last one before the imaginary boundary of Vincennes Avenue – the other riders refused to let me off.

It was a scary feeling – I think there was some pushing and punching before I pushed open the doors and fled. As I was running toward home, I was grabbed and punched – in the ear. It didn’t hurt, but it was an unnerving experience.

It was one of the few times growing up in Chicago that I felt personally exposed to the racial tensions that existed in the 70’s.

Well, a lot has changed since then, right? We have an African American president who worked in the same neighborhoods I grew up in – maybe he even rode some of the same buses.

Today in was working in Detroit and I was reminded again that maybe things haven’t changed all that much. At a hospital in one of the poorer areas, I was walking toward the parking lot and talking on my cell phone when a car pulled up next to me with several youths in it and rolled their windows down – with threats and profanities. I was surprised – caught off guard. Maybe I assumed things had changed more than they have.

I wonder just how far America has progressed since 1975. Today, I felt like all that was different was I was missing was my varsity jacket and my algebra book.