Separate, Not Necessarily Equal

They sat upstairs at the movies,

we sat down.

They sat at the back of the bus,

we at the front.

At the A&P they had their water coolers,

we had ours; side by side they were

clearly marked White and Colored.

They had their bathrooms,

we had ours.

They had their schools and

we had ours.

They-we-they-we-they-we

separate not necessarily equal

bur certainly divided.

You didn’t ask why;

it just was, until

someone heard

the weeping from heaven.

This is another in a series of poem about growing up in the South, suggested by my friend Nancy Rosback at A Little Somethin’.

Photograph: Trolley, New Orleans, circa 1955 by Robert Frank.