Chapter 11: Racism and Giftedness: A Double Whammy

I first became aware of racism when I entered the first grade. My parents moved our family of nine from the “projects” to a single-family home in East Nashville. It was the early ’60s and urban (inner-city) neighborhoods were being abandoned during waves of “White suburban flight.” To my family’s benefit, upwardly mobile Blacks were moving into residential communities, hoping to improve their (our) lives and circumstances. Not only would we be living in a more stable and secure environment, but we would also be attending better schools and be walking distance from the church of our parents’ choice.

The year was 1966, and I was seven years old. As only one of “just seven”—as my mother was known for saying—I had been re-zoned to attend 1st grade at Jere Baxter Elementary School, along with an older brother and sister. Jere Baxter Elementary and other neighborhood schools had only recently integrated, and since I was so young, I knew little about what to expect. Until then, I had attended an all-Black (with a Capital “B”), pre-school class and an all-Black kindergarten class. I had lived in an allBlack neighborhood, played at the all-Black Hadley Park, and frequented the businesses along Jefferson Street, including the all-Black Ritz Theatre, which—before re-gentrification—was regarded as the Black Folks’ Main Street of Nashville. During that time, not only were businesses on Jefferson Street owned by diverse people thriving; but quite a few Blacks—even my Dad—owned and operated businesses in the area, which allowed them to carve out their piece of the economic pie.