Spring Break
Taking time to remember what MLK Day is all about
Life's Tidbits
Larry Burge
Issue date: 1/18/08 Section: Opinion
Not so long ago, and within my lifetime, blacks were not welcomed in Northwest Arkansas by all white folks. It was a place where "Whites Only" signs restricted where a black person might go and what a black person could do even 50 years ago. I remember during the mid-1950s through the late 1960s that a few black people were in attendance at some UA sports events, but I never saw them outside Fayetteville in Benton or Washington Counties.
I grew up in Sulphur Springs, which lies on the extreme northwest corner of Benton County, within four miles of Missouri's southwest border. I don't believe I ever heard of any black people living in any small town in Benton County. If they had, they most likely would have, at some time or another, feared for their lives.
From 1960 through 1964, I drove from Sulphur Springs across the Missouri line to attend Noel High School. After school, I would usually meet my schoolmates in the back of the drug store on Main Street. The store's owner, a pharmacist, had built a place for us to hang out, which had a wooden dance floor with six restaurant-style booths placed on three of its sides. If you ever watched the TV show "Happy Days," it was just like the hangout of Fonzie, Richie and the other characters on the show.
One afternoon in 1963, a story of the day's happenings on Main Street in Noel surfaced among our teen group. What happened that day was not unlike what was happening across the country, but I thought it unusual for a town of about 1,200 residents to experience it, as well. Even as I write about it here, I get a negative feeling in my heart chakra that grinds in my craw about man's continued inhuman treatment of their fellow humans.
The story, as I remember it, went something like this. The Noel marshal, his deputies and the most prominent male town city council members surrounded a group of college-aged kids on west Main Street. I don't remember if anyone said where the kids were from, but they had rolled into town in two separate cars. I remember the group was of mixed color, blacks and whites.
I grew up in Sulphur Springs, which lies on the extreme northwest corner of Benton County, within four miles of Missouri's southwest border. I don't believe I ever heard of any black people living in any small town in Benton County. If they had, they most likely would have, at some time or another, feared for their lives.
From 1960 through 1964, I drove from Sulphur Springs across the Missouri line to attend Noel High School. After school, I would usually meet my schoolmates in the back of the drug store on Main Street. The store's owner, a pharmacist, had built a place for us to hang out, which had a wooden dance floor with six restaurant-style booths placed on three of its sides. If you ever watched the TV show "Happy Days," it was just like the hangout of Fonzie, Richie and the other characters on the show.
One afternoon in 1963, a story of the day's happenings on Main Street in Noel surfaced among our teen group. What happened that day was not unlike what was happening across the country, but I thought it unusual for a town of about 1,200 residents to experience it, as well. Even as I write about it here, I get a negative feeling in my heart chakra that grinds in my craw about man's continued inhuman treatment of their fellow humans.
The story, as I remember it, went something like this. The Noel marshal, his deputies and the most prominent male town city council members surrounded a group of college-aged kids on west Main Street. I don't remember if anyone said where the kids were from, but they had rolled into town in two separate cars. I remember the group was of mixed color, blacks and whites.
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