When riding alone with my father when about 5 years old [that would be 1941 and probably in TN or KY where we lived at about that time] I noticed out the car window, a black man hanging from a tree by the road by a rope around his neck and his hands behind him. We kept driving. This vision is still burned into my memory as if this morning.
As I remember, there was something like an embarrassed silence in the car. There may have been a short conversation with my Dad but nothing to help me sort that out.
Raised as a white child in racist SE US I never went to an integrated school, church or any other public event. 'Integration' did not happen in my life until my freshman year at the U. of Md. in 1954.
There are still millions of Americans, black AND white with memories such as these deep in their psyche's. How can we be 'beyond' our racist past until that simple fact has been talked about and brought to the surface for somekind of resolution? Perhaps waiting for at least two generations of Americans to die will do it. That is a long time to wait, NO?
As a practicing psychotherapist, I see no other reasonable way to do it but talk, talk, talk.

Sent by Jac Conaway | 9:30 AM ET | 06-29-2008

The first exposure to race and politics I'd had as a child was during the riots and burnings of 1968. On television was a black man standing on a platform shouting to the crowd, "White people stink!" For many years, I took that statement literally.

Race riots in the public schools had become commonplace by the time blacks were among my classmates in junior high. In general, they were disruptive, loud and belligerant and even though the policy in the school system had been integration, blacks as a rule stayed within their own exclusive circles.

Looking back now as an adult and ignoring what I have been told to believe (instead of all empirical evidence to the contrary) makes the up-coming choice very challenging for me, a Caucasian having witnessed the aftermath of Detroit and Chicago.

Sent by Sage A. Hoebermann | 9:33 AM ET | 06-29-2008

How race is NOT a "different category" was a part of my experience as a kid in
the late thirties. Dad had become an orchard manager for a wealthy man from
Grosse Point, who had just bought three hundred acres of land in West Bloomfield, Michigan. The man and his wife built a house on the farm, and brought their maids from Detroit, the first black people I had ever seen.
Daisy, who had been born in Haiti, and
"knew what voodoo was" would often walk to our farmhouse and share her day with mother.
When Daisy saw that I had started a garden by an old milk house, my playhouse, she brought a slip of mint to me and showed how to plant and water it so it would thrive. Daisy became like an Aunt to me, taking interest in all my projects. When I came to the owner's house to visit with young Tom, three years my junior, Daisy would fix lunch for us both, and tell us how "Tom's folks let me go barefoot because these old bunions hurt so bad." One day the younger maid told me "Leona, sometimes when you come here you just get Tom into mischief. You are TROUBLE". I went home and thought about it. Mary was right. Between Daisy and Mary, I learned a lot. About love, and about being decent. I'd vote for one of their children any day,

for those ladies knew up from down.

Oddly, Daisy's last name was Mason,
same as ours. Indeed, FAMILY.

Sent by Leona Heitsch | 10:13 AM ET | 06-29-2008

Unfortunately NPR and the general population does not see the real problem class.The use of race is to divide the poor and to enslave them. You get some stupid people worrying about a persons color then you let the real thieves steal from you.

Sent by George Klepper | 10:39 AM ET | 06-29-2008

immigrants comming to America (as founded by our fathers) ... ok. immigrants who want to adopt the American lifestyle ... ok. immigrants who want to come to America but not "blend" into the America we built ... go back to where you came from or start your own "america" somewhere else.

Sent by scott southers | 10:53 PM ET | 06-30-2008

My brothers and I grew up in southern WI during the 50's and 60's. My parents were not "political" and never mentioned race, although simple fairness and justice loomed large as a topic in our home. Our parents had African American friends who frequented our home, and both my brothers and I had Black friends and/or sweethearts as teens and young adults. It never occured to me that there might be something out of the ordinary about having friends of another race, not even as I slowly became aware of the racial turmoil of the late 60's. So today, when I consider the joyful, uplifitng notion of a President Barak Obama, I thank my parents for providing a quiet example of not tolerance but simple friendship that has enriched my life to this very day.

Sent by Gay Koenemann (Koo?? na mahn), Koenigswinter (Koo?? nigs vinter), Germany | 10:55 AM ET | 07-01-2008

I was raised in South Dakota - and probably had not seen a person of different color more than a few times when small. However, I WAS taught the song in Sunday School - "Jesus loves the little children, little children of the world, red and yellow, black and white," etc.

In 1947, upon reaching college age, I went to a 'Christian' college in Kentucky. I made the trek from SD to KY many times on the Greyhound bus - the incident that impressed me with the awfulness of race prejudice happened on such a bus. I boarded the full bus -so I proceeded to the very back seat of the bus and sat down. The driver stopped the bus and made me stand until a seat was available! White girls did not sit on the same seat as black men!!!
That was the beginning of my education!

The next incident which really made me doubt Christian teachings and see their hypocrisy - the church in the college town held a series of revivals - the Lord was really present and his Spirit was moving UNTIL an eager student from the North brought in some of his new black friends - the Lord and his Spirit left!!!

These two incidents inspired me to hate intolerance, prejudice,and discrimination.

Sent by Mildred Evaskovich | 4:22 PM ET | 07-20-2008

I believe many people in the US are far beyond where the media wants them to be. I think race is a much smaller issue that it used to be, especially among younger people. Interracial dating & marriage are almost cliche now due to commonality. I believe many more people can look beyond race now and examine character and integrity. To say we will choose a President in a few weeks based on race is to be stuck in the Sixties, folks. I am far more concerned about the decisions the persons will make in office and the consequences for my life and the world than I am about skin color (or gender for that matter). To relegate this discussion to race alone is to insult the intelligence of the American people. Come on NPR and other media- catch up!

Sent by Don Eisenberg | 9:14 AM ET | 08-17-2008