50th Anniversary of "To Kill A Mockingbird"

Maybe Harper Lee was meant to write just one great story of the deep south that I grew up in. Maybe all of us have only one great story to tell. Her book and later the movie became my favorites for life. In the summer of 1959 I had just moved to Atlanta, GA from living in Japan where, as a pre-teen, I had experienced a mild racial prejudice for having white skin and for being a member of the American occupying force after the end of WWII. I was enrolled in middle school in an Atlanta suburb where I observed the bigotry against black students on my school bus. It was a much more virulent racism than my experiences in Japan had been. White students yelled racial epithets at black students from the open windows of the bus. I was threatened when I tried to point out to the white students that racism and what they were doing was wrong in any society. It was a very scary time for the black children and for those of us who were sympathetic to their plight. I began to understand how members of different societies discriminated against others on the basis of skin color, white or black. It is hatred and it is perpetuated by fear without reason. This is the 50th anniversary of "To Kill A Mockingbird" and not much has changed.