My husband and I, children of a professor and a local businessman, both grew up in Princeton, starting public school in 1947. As far as we knew, black and white children always went to school together. We had black teachers, and a black principal, who we loved and respected. It makes me so sad to think that our black classmates might not have realized that we didn't have the negative feelings that evidently they perceived. I have always attributed my personal "color-blindness" to that fact that I was brought up in a town which, from my point of view, was not segregated or prejudiced. As for the locked big FitzRandolph Gate? We might have wondered why they were locked, but it never occurred to us that it was to keep anyone out. The smaller gates on either side of them were always wide open!
My husband and I, children of a professor and a local businessman, both grew up in Princeton, starting public school in 1947. As far as we knew, black and white children always went to school together. We had black teachers, and a black principal, who we loved and respected. It makes me so sad to think that our black classmates might not have realized that we didn't have the negative feelings that evidently they perceived. I have always attributed my personal "color-blindness" to that fact that I was brought up in a town which, from my point of view, was not segregated or prejudiced. As for the locked big FitzRandolph Gate? We might have wondered why they were locked, but it never occurred to us that it was to keep anyone out. The smaller gates on either side of them were always wide open!