n she tells the story of when she was only five years old and saved up all of her money in order to buy a ticket on the merry-go-round at the park. When she finally had enough, she boldly walked to the ticket-taker who promptly denied her admittance. He told her that the ride was full even though she pointed out empty seats to him. She fled the park quickly that day, but she never was able to escape the horrible memories of her childhood. She wrote in her diary at the age of sixteen: "In 1957 while most teenage girls were listening to Buddy Holly's "Peggy Sue", watching Elvis gyrate, and collecting cindine slips, I was escaping the hanging rope of a lynch mob, dodging sticks of dynamite, and washing away burning acid spray into my eyes." The state or local governments did nothing to try and stop this, in fact, they even passed a few laws that made things worse. Before the school year had even started in 1957, a member of the anti-integration group filed suit against the state because she was afraid for her children and the children of the other white parents because the black students were notorious for forming gangs and causing violence. The court judge even backed the case and ruled in her favor. Luckily, with many efforts, the federal courts overturned this ruling and the students were allowed to continue with their integration efforts. Some city ordinances were passed that forced blacks to always go to the end of lines, wait for the white folks to finish their tasks before any blacks could begin theirs, and even if a white person was walking down the street, a black person had to get out of the way and allow them to pass. If a colored person broke one of these laws, they could be beaten, injured, thrown in prison and charged with bogus crimes, or they may even "vanish". The colored children were raised by their parents who taught them to expect racism and segregation and to even accept it because any opposition to the whi...
