October Novel Prep Challenge

Well, they didn't get to burn it but they had it all set up. It was lets see 1988, my sophomore year in High School. We had moved to a small town the year before where the highway into town was adopted by the KKK. We were moving from Harding University where I had lived on campus and spent time with actual Africans from different countries in Africa. Sam Walton, founder of Walmart, had brought here with the notion of spreading democracy to Africa. He canceled the scholarship when none of them wanted to go home and got jobs with the UN instead. They saw me at the student center doing my American History homework and asked if they could see my text book. I didn't understand most of what they said at first and they didn't understand me but we managed to talk about what I was being taught about our history v/s what they taught them on a University level. It got to the point they seemed to show up anytime I was doing History work and we would talk. I was in the 8th grade at the time. Mom graduated and we moved to this no where town that gave Daddy a preaching Job and Mom could go to a different University to get her Masters at a bigger town nearby.

The weekend before school started one of the elders daughters took me crusing around town to meet the kids I would be going to school with. A black boy happened to walk through town right at dusk and I forgot the highway was adopted by the KKK. So when everyone stopped talking and pointed him out, I was like yeah a guy is walking down the street so what? When she whispered he was black, I shrugged and agreed and again said "So what?" Every head on the parking lot turned and looked at me.

I lived the next year in hell. I was called every name in the book including N* word lover and I openly admitted that I loved all of my fellow man. I wasn't going to let them get to me. The next year one of the ring leaders of the teenagers had her best friend punch her in the face and told her dad that My dad had hit her. They tried to have him arrested and that lead to the Mayor laughing them out of his office and a police officer being stationed at my house anytime I was there and my parents weren't. He followed me everywhere I went if I was alone. her Dad had threatened to take matters into his own hands.

I started getting phone calls from them telling me how my father was going to go to jail and all this crap. When it didn't happen and their father couldn't come into town without getting arrested anymore, the KKK stepped in and put a cross in our yard. They were about to light it when the Elders and Deacons showed up and requested that they hold off until they could meet with my father. At the meeting it was decided we would stay until school was out for the year and Daddy could find a new preaching job, but it was to much for them and we had to go. Telling the KKK that Daddy would be removed at the end of the school term was enough to keep them from setting it on fire but it was in our yard because hey we lived next to the church so why not, for the rest of that last semester.

I am happy to report that some of the other kids in town took the initiative and told their mothers that at graduation if things didn't change they would leave and never come home again. Between the kids and the changes they made to stop bullying and the hate mongering and the Moms telling Dad if my child won't come home because of your activities with the KKK then I won't be here either... They managed to get the highway adopted by the cheerleaders, run the KKK out of town, build new housing and move in several families of Latino and African descent. The kids stood guard for a week to make sure the KKK didn't burn them out like the last time. As far as I know they are still living there and the area is fully integrated. They say I gave them the courage to do it and I deserve the praise. I say I was a scared kid too scared to fight and too smart to run. They figured it out all by themselves. They didn't need me to do that. They just needed a catalyst to get them moving in the right direction and that could have been anyone, who was too scared to fight and to smart to run.